The basement of the Wheeler family's home was quiet, except for the sound of Max's pencil scratching against a sheet of paper, the soft sounds of Dustin snoring from the couch where he, Steve, and Lucas slept on the other side of the room, and the rush of blood pounding in Lily's ears.

Since getting back to the Wheelers' house, Max had shut herself away at the desk in the corner of the room, where Lily had pulled up a chair, allowing her sister the privacy of whatever she was furiously scribbling down on the page, but needing to stay close in case anything happened. Nancy had offered her a spot upstairs, where she, Robin, Debbie, and Sarah had opted to sleep, but Lily had declined, knowing exactly where she needed to be that night. If her sister only had a few hours left, she wasn't about to waste a single second.

"So tell me again," Lily spoke up, careful not to wake the boys asleep on the other side of the room. "These signs that connected Chrissy and Fred, they were..?"

"Fred and Chrissy were both seeing Ms. Kelley too." Max explained, her eyes still trained on the piece of paper below her. "According to their files, they were experiencing nightmares, bad headaches, nose bleeds, and visions. The headaches were for six days leading up to their deaths, and the visions started somewhere around twenty-four hours before.

"When we were at the school tonight, I saw an old grandfather clock stuck in the wall." Max continued, her voice wavering slightly as she tried her best to keep it level. "And I could hear it chiming, hear his voice, calling out to me. Vecna's voice."

At her words, Lily's blood turned to ice in her veins, angry tears threatening to spill over her eyelids at the powerless feeling that coursed through her. Images of Chrissy lying broken on the floor flashed behind her eyes, only this time it was Max on the floor of Eddie's trailer with her arms bent awkwardly behind her back. Lily stood up from the chair, beginning to pace around the small area behind the desk as her hands began to shake.

"We're going to figure this out." Lily promised, though she couldn't figure out if she had been speaking to Max or to herself.

"How?" Max asked, finally looking up from the paper at her sister. "We don't know a thing about Vecna, or how to defeat him. The two people we've seen die from this asshole's curse were a day after their visions started, so that doesn't leave us much time to find out."

"We're going to figure this out." Lily repeated. "You're going to be just fine."

"People always say it's going to be just fine, but look how that's worked out for us over the years. The fact is, I'm probably going to die tomorrow." Max said gravely, and Lily slowly sat back down in her seat as her younger sister picked up the piece of paper she had been writing on, putting it into an envelope and sealing it. Lily watched as Max scrawled her name on top before handing it to her. "I don't know how much time I have left, that's why I wanted to write these, just in case." Max explained. "Don't open it now, but it's for... after."

Lily reached forward, wrapping her arms around Max, and for the first time in months, since Billy's funeral, Max didn't pull away at Lily's attempts to comfort her, but instead wrapped her arms back around her older sister as the Mayfield girls held onto each other. She held on tightly to Max, as if by the mere force of will alone, she could keep Vecna out of her sister's head. Lily had spent her entire life trying to keep her sister safe, and they'd both come too far for her to fail now.

"We're going to figure this out." Lily insisted, her chin resting on top of Max's head before the younger Mayfield finally pulled away, pulling another piece of paper from the stack and getting started on her next letter. "This article Robin found," Lily said, picking up a printed copy of an old edition of The Weekly Watcher, "This guy survived, right?"

"Yeah," Max said, "Supposedly. But we don't know if it's even connected, or how that guy survived if it was."

"Well, if there is an answer in here, we're going to find it." Lily said adamantly.

Lily read the article from start to finish, studying it over and over again as Max worked on her letters. She combed through word after word, hardly noticing the first rays of sunlight beginning to stream in through the windows at the top of the basement as the hours passed, only moving from her chair when the boys began to stir, the paper now nearly worn through where her fingers had held it, the article nearly memorized in full in her brain.

When she finally looked back up from the article, she noticed the boys each reading their own copy of the page, and she rose up from her chair, taking a seat where Steve had previously been sleeping but had vacated once he started pacing the room.

"Okay, be honest." Steve was saying to Dustin and Lucas. "Do you guys understand any of this?"

"No," Lucas admitted.

"Sort of," Lily said.

"It's pretty straightforward." Dustin stated.

"Oh, straightforward, really?" Steve retorted.

"Well, what's confusing to you?" Dustin asked. "So far, everyone Vecna has cursed has died, except for this old Victor Creel dude Nancy found. He's the only known survivor. If anyone knows how to beat this curse, it's him."

"Yeah, that's assuming he was cursed, Henderson, which we don't even know." Steve said, his eyes still scanning over the article.

"I mean, it fits." Lily said. "The way the bodies were described after their murders sounds eerily close to what I saw when Chrissy was in Eddie's trailer Saturday morning, and the way he explained what happened to her. That has to mean something, right? It's too close to be a coincidence."

"How can Vecna have existed back in the fifties?" Steve asked. "It doesn't make sense."

"As far as we know, Eleven didn't create the Upside Down." Dustin pointed out. "She opened a gate to it. The Upside Down has probably been around for thousands of years. Millions, even. I wouldn't be surprised if it pre-dated the dinosaurs."

"Dinosaurs?" Steve asked, "What are we-"

"Okay," Lucas spoke up, "But if a gate didn't exist in the fifties, how did Vecna get through?"

"And how's he getting through now?" Steve added.

"And why now?" Lucas asked.

"And why then?" Steve continued. "He just pops out in the fifties, kills one family, and he's like 'Oh, I'm good,' and poof, he just disappears? Just gone? Only to return thirty years later and start killing some random teens? No, I don't buy it." His eyes fell back to the article as he began to scan it again, scoffing. "Straightforward, my ass." Steve looked back up at Dustin, pointing an accusatory finger at him. "Honestly, Henderson, a little humility every now and then? It wouldn't hurt you."

"Sorry," Dustin said quietly, his eyes finding the floor as Steve took a seat on the edge of Lily's chair. When Dustin looked back up, his eyes moved past them, landing on where Max still sat at the desk, scribbling away at the letters. "Has she been doing that all night?" Dustin asked Lily, who nodded in response. "Did she sleep?"

"I mean, would you?" Lucas asked.

"Did you sleep?" Dustin asked Lily then, who slowly shook her head as the door to the basement opened with a loud thud, accompanied by four pairs of footsteps coming down the stairs to reveal Nancy, Robin, Sarah, and Debbie.

"Okay, so we have a plan." Nancy said, setting a stack of files down on the coffee table, and Lily instantly reached forward, picking one up and opening it to reveal a college resume from the University of Notre Dame for a woman's name she didn't recognize, along with a letter of recommendation from a professor.

"Who's Regina Logan?" Lily asked, and Debbie smiled proudly.

"That would be me," she said, causing Lily's eyebrows to furrow together in confusion.

"Thanks to Nancy's newspaper minions, we are now rockstar psychology students at the University of Notre Dame." Robin explained.

"I'm now Ruth," Nancy said.

"I'm now Rose," Robin added.

"And my name is Rebecca." Sarah finished.

"Nice GPA," Dustin said as he studied one of the files, giving the girls an approving smile.

"Thanks," Nancy smiled proudly. "So, we called Pennhurst Asylum, told them we'd like to speak with Victor Creel for a thesis we're co-writing on paranoid schizophrenics,"

"To which they said no." Robin added.

"But we landed a three-o'clock with the director." Nancy said.

"Now all we have to do is charm him and convince him to let us talk to Victor." Robin explained.

"You guys really think you can get a chance to talk to him?" Lily asked, and Sarah nodded.

"If all goes according to plan," she said. "But we might have a shot."

"Then maybe we can rid Max of this curse," Nancy said, her eyes moving back up to where Max was still writing.

"Yeah, about that." Steve said. "We've been doing our Victor Creel homework, and uh... we've got some questions."

"Lots of questions," Lucas added.

"So do we," Nancy replied. "Hopefully Victor has the answers."

"Wait, wait, wait a second." Steve spoke up again. "Where's mine?" Nancy and Sarah exchanged a look as the girls stared back at Steve, the realization hitting him as he began to shake his head. "No," he said, "Absolutely not."

"We really should be getting ready to go," Debbie spoke up, and the other girls nodded, beginning to make their way back up the stairs, but Steve followed after them, his voice carrying down to the basement from where he continued to protest upstairs.

"He's a little testy this morning." Dustin said, causing Lily to chuckle slightly before they fell back into silence. "How do you think Eddie and Nick are doing?" he asked after a bit, and Lily shrugged.

"I don't know," Lily admitted. "The boathouse is hidden enough that they should be okay. But with everything he's been dealing with the past few days, I can't say I blame him for not doing well."

"Are you okay?" Dustin asked, causing her to look back up at him in confusion. "I mean, you were also seeing Ms. Kelley, for the same reasons Max was, and Chrissy was your friend. Have you had any of the..." his voice dropped lower, into a whisper. "You know, any of the symptoms?"

Lily shook her head. "Not to my knowledge, anyways."

"No nosebleeds, headaches?" Dustin asked, and she shook her head. "No nightmares, visions?"

"I mean, who hasn't been through this kind of stuff and doesn't get nightmares?" Lily shrugged. "But they've been going on for several months now, so I don't think it's connected. But no, nothing else."

Dustin nodded as the basement door opened once more and Steve trudged down the stairs, defeated at any attempts to convince the girls to let him join them on their mission to Pennhurst. Steve sat between Dustin and Lucas on the couch, their eyes moving back to where Max was folding another letter into an envelope.

"I know you guys are staring at me." Max finally spoke up, not turning back to look at them.

"What?" Dustin asked.

"Sorry?" Steve responded, the boys quickly making themselves appear busy.

"How you think your eyes boring into the back of my head is protecting me from Vecna, I don't know." Max said, rising from the desk and coming over to them, the stack of letters in her hand, Lily's letter still tucked away in the back pocket of her jeans. The boys still pretended to be busy, Lucas and Dustin both pretending to read while Steve stared up at the ceiling, tossing a baseball up into the air. "You can look at me now." she said.

"Sorry," the boys chorused their apologies, tossing the baseball and books back onto the coffee table as she began to pass out the letters.

"For you," she said, starting with Dustin and working her way down the line. "For you, and you. Oh, and uhm, give these to Mike, El, and Will." she said, passing three more to Lucas. "If you can ever get a hold of them again." she held out five more to Steve. "These are for the girls, after they get back tonight, and..." she paused briefly, handing one more to Lily. "Will you give this one to Eddie?"

"Yeah," Lily said, taking the letter and placing it with her own. "Yeah, of course."

Max's eyes quickly moved back to the boys as they began to open their letters. "What are you doing?" she asked, causing them to stop as their eyes moved back up to her. "No, don't- that's not for now. Don't open it now."

"Don't..." Dustin's voice trailed off as he shoved the letter back into the envelope. "Okay. I'm sorry, what is this?"

"It's, uhm..." Max trailed off nervously. "It's fail-safe." the boys stared back at her blankly. "For after. You know, if things... i-if they don't work out."

"Wait, whoa," Lucas said. "Max, things are going to work out." he assured her.

"No!" she snapped. "No, I don't need you to reassure me right now and tell me it's all going to work out, because people have been telling me that my entire life and it's almost never true. I mean, look at us," she said, gesturing between herself and Lily, and the older Mayfield crossed her arms over her chest. "It's never true. I mean, of course this asshole curses me. I should've seen that one coming."

"Max," Lily spoke softly, but Max simply shook her head before her eyes landed on Dustin's walkie-talkie sitting on the table.

"If we go to East Hawkins, will this still reach Pennhurst?" she spoke up, grabbing the device and holding it up, causing Lily to look back at her sister with a confused expression.

"Of course, yeah," Dustin replied.

"Wait, why are we talking about East Hawkins?" Steve asked, and Max's eyes lit up slightly, looking back at her sister briefly before turning back to Steve.

"I need a ride."