"Okay," Nancy began, pulling the garage door open to reveal Ted and Karen's cars, both held down in tangles of vines, with a set of four bikes leaning against the wall next to a small tricycle, no doubt meant for a younger version of Holly. "We have four bikes here, and so do the Michaelsons across the street."

"We'll go," Lily offered, gesturing to where she stood next to Eddie, Nick, and Sarah, and the four of them rushed to the two-storey house across the street.

Mrs. Michaelson hadn't always been the kindest woman in Hawkins, usually loudly complaining if Max and her friends had ridden their bikes too close to where the flowers were growing at the edge of her yard, but Lily didn't have it in her to care that night as they worked to get the garage door open. Inside sat the bikes for Mr. and Mrs. Michaelson along with their children, now both moved out of the house as the youngest had been in Eddie's original graduating class in 1984, but, in the dimension frozen in time, the bikes still sat together as if they had never left.

Lily grabbed the bike having belonged to their youngest son, Scott, and she climbed on it, moving up the kickstand as she maneuvered the bike out of the garage and to where the rest of the group sat waiting at the end of the Wheelers' driveway. As they made their way down the cul de sac, en route to the main roads of Hawkins, Lily tried her hardest to avoid breathing in any of the particles floating through the air, though she knew her luck wouldn't be the greatest over the next seven miles.

As the path to Forest Hills led them down an all-too-familiar street, Lily looked over at the white house on the corner, her heart lurching as she took in the original Mayfield/Hargrove residence. It hadn't been her house yet by any means, they hadn't moved in until nearly a year after the gate opened, but she couldn't help the longing feeling that settled in the pit of her stomach for the sense of peace, of normalcy she'd had while living there, a sense she didn't think she'd ever get back, no matter how hard she'd tried the past seven months.

Lily forced her eyes away from the house to see Eddie watching her, studying her expression as he kept glancing back from where he was leading the group. He raised an eyebrow slightly in her direction, as if asking if she was okay, and she nodded, turning back to face the route ahead of them and letting the house rest behind them in the distance.

The miles began to pass by in a blur as the teenagers willed themselves to keep pedaling, Lily's shins beginning to burn the further they rode. They made their way outside of town, the trees growing closer together as they rode through the outskirts, and at the unmistakable sound of the bats from earlier that evening, Lily looked up through a gap in the trees to see the Creel house in the distance.

The house loomed over a field of overgrown grass at the edge of the trees, the dark exterior illuminated by a flash of red lightning in the sky. The house was covered in vines, and an endless amount of bats swarmed overhead, as if guarding the house. Lily's heart sank in her chest at the realization of what, or rather who, the bats were guarding, as Vecna resided just inside the dilapidated walls.

Anger surged in her chest as her thoughts began to race with the hell Vecna had put them all through in the last week. The losses of Chrissy and Patrick, who she'd considered friends, as well as Fred Benson, though she hadn't known the editor of the Hawkins Tiger all that well. Eddie having to go on the run as he was hunted down by the townspeople of Hawkins, and Max's own near miss with the creep. For a brief moment, Lily hadn't thought about the lack of weapons with them, or the imminent danger they were hurtling towards, but instead she was solely focused on their need to take Vecna down, once and for all.

"Come on," Eddie spoke up, pulling her attention to where the Forest Hills sign now surfaced in the distance. "We're almost there."

Lily pedaled her bike further as they made it to the trailer park, following the familiar gravel path as her mobile home came into view. Despite the vines wrapping around the trailers, this version of Forest Hills almost seemed peaceful, without all of the angry yellow police tape blocking off the Munsons' trailer.

"Right here," Eddie announced to the others as they approached the trailer, hopping off their bikes, and the boy's eyes widened as he took in the place he'd called home since Wayne had taken them in when they were kids.

"That's gotta be a Guinness World Record," Robin spoke up as they began to move for the door. "Most miles traveled interdimensionally."

Steve coughed suddenly as he held up the flashlight. "I just inhaled a bunch of that crap," he announced, gesturing to the floating particles as he followed the group into the trailer. "It's stuck in my throat."

Eddie pulled the door open to the trailer, and as Lily followed him inside, her jaw dropped slightly while she took in her surroundings. Every surface was covered in tangled vines, even more so than the Wheelers' house. The trailer was dark except for a bright red glow coming from the ceiling, where a gate nearly identical to the one at the bottom of Lover's Lake stared back at them, undisturbed.

"Goddamn," Steve mused, studying the gate.

"This is where Chrissy died." Eddie noted, a haunted expression crossing his face as he looked back down at Lily. "Like... right where she died."

Lily bit down softly on her lower lip as she looked back up at the gate, envisioning her friend stuck to the top of the trailer while Vecna had attacked her. Her eyebrows pinched together as she noticed something moving on the other side of the closed gate, and she tentatively took a step forward, trying to get a better look.

"What are you doing?" Eddie asked, trying to keep Lily at a safe distance between her and the gate as she continued to walk forward.

"There's something in there." Lily said, a dark shadow now moving on the other side, pushing down against the gate in their direction.

"What the hell is that?" Steve muttered.

"Lily, get away from the gate." Eddie said, reaching out to grab her hand in an attempt to pull her back.

Suddenly, the dark shadow pierced through the gate, and the group yelped in surprise as a layer of a substance Lily couldn't quite decipher landed at her feet, narrowly missing where she'd jumped back in fear, colliding with Eddie's chest as he pulled her back further, pushing her behind him. A thin wooden stick continued to move around the gate, hitting the edges and clearing a path as light now filtered in from the other side.

When the stick retreated back to the other side of the gate, the path now clear except for the mysterious substance still dripping onto the trailer floor, the group of teenagers continued to step forward slowly, the view of the other side of the gate now visible, revealing Lucas, Erica, Max, and Dustin standing on the other side, the latter holding onto a broom.

"No way," Debbie murmured in awe.

"Hi there," Dustin announced, reaching his free hand up to wave at them as he began to laugh triumphantly.

"Hi," they chorused, Lily's heart leaping into her throat as a wide grin spread across her face at the sight of her sister, and Max waved back at her with a matching smile.

"Holy shit, this is trippy." Robin mused as Dustin continued to laugh.

"Bada, bada, boom!" he shouted.

"Alright, Henderson, this is great, and all, but how exactly are we going to get out of here?" Nick asked. "A gate at the bottom of the lake was one thing, but how are we supposed to get out through the ceiling?"

"I might have a theory that can help with that," he explained proudly. "I'm just going to need a mattress, and a bedsheet or two."

"Yeah, yeah, take what you need." Eddie offered. "My room's in the way back, Nick's is across from the bathroom."

Lily watched as the kids disappeared from sight, the only audible sounds being that of footsteps moving around the trailer on the other side of the gate. After a moment, Lucas and Max pushed Eddie's mattress back into view, laying it down in front of them to reveal three large stains scattered across its surface.

"Those stains are, uh..." Eddie began to explain, but his voice faltered as he studied the mattress with a confused expression. "I don't know what those stains are." he said sheepishly.

Lily narrowed her eyes at the boy for a moment as he stared up at the gate, avoiding her gaze, and she finally followed his eyes up to see Dustin and Erica come back into view, holding the two sheets tied together in several knots, creating a rope.

"Not quite sure how these physics are gonna work," Dustin explained as he looked back up at the older teens. "But uh, here goes nothing."

Dustin tossed up one end of the sheet rope, holding onto the other end as it passed through the gate. As the gravity shifted, now weighing down the section of the rope in the Upside Down, it fell to the floor with a dull thud, resting at their feet.

"There we go," Dustin said, still holding onto his end, though he began to step back off of Eddie's mattress. "And if my theory is correct..." he trailed off, slowly letting go of the rope, though where Lily had expected it to fall through with the rest of the sheet, it held in place, weighed down by its own form of gravity. "Huh. Abracadabra."

"Holy shit," Max murmured, looking at the sheet in awe.

"Alright, pull on it!" Dustin yelled up to them. "See if it holds!"

Robin slowly stepped up to the rope, holding on tight as she began to put her weight on it. However, the rope still stayed securely in place as Dustin began to laugh once more, a triumphant grin plastered on the young boy's face.

"This is the craziest shit I've ever seen in my life." Erica mused. "And I've seen some crazy shit."

"Well, I guess I'm the guinea pig." Robin said as she grabbed the rope again, hopping up as she began to climb and grunting with the effort.

Lily watched as Robin climbed up higher on the rope, the kids on the other side stepping back to give her room. As she moved through the gate, the gravity suddenly switched, and the girl was no longer climbing, but instead tumbling to the ground, where she landed on her back on the mattress on the other side.

"Thank God," Robin said as Dustin extended a hand, helping her up. "That was fun."

"After you," Eddie spoke up, gesturing for Lily to approach the rope, and she nodded, taking one final glance back at her friends before jumping up to catch her feet on one of the knots.

Lily pulled herself up the rope as she began to climb, the lit interior of the Munsons' trailer on the other side of the gate growing closer and closer. She peeked her head through, and continued climbing as she began to brace herself for the shifting gravity. As it switched, she lost hold of the rope, a surprised yelp escaping her body as she fell onto the mattress.

"Whoa," Lily said, taking the hand that Max held out in her direction, and she allowed her sister to pull her to her feet before Max wrapped her arms around Lily tightly in a hug. "Hey there," she said, hugging Max back with a relieved smile.

"I'm just glad you're okay," Max said, though she was soon interrupted by the sound of Eddie falling to the mattress in front of them.

"That," Eddie said, pulling himself up into a sitting position as Lucas helped him up. "Was fun. Shit," he grinned, rising to his feet. "Oh, hey, I have something for you." he said to Lily as he gestured for her to wait a moment while he rushed back into his bedroom.

Lily helped Debbie up as she landed on the mattress, followed by Sarah, and she looked back as Eddie returned, holding something behind his back, shielding it from her view. Her eyebrows furrowed together in confusion as she waited to see what he'd been waiting to give her, though he made no move to step forward.

"Whatcha got there?" she asked, trying to peer around him to see what was in his hands.

"I held onto this for you, hoped the day might come when you'd want it back." he explained, holding out her old Hellfire Club shirt. It was wrinkled and the logo was slightly more faded than she'd remembered it being when she'd given it back to him, but there was no doubt that it was the same shirt.

"Thank you," she said, taking it in her hands as a small smile crossed her face.

"Not that you didn't look good in your cheerleading uniform, but I always thought you looked way better wearing that." he admitted, and she chuckled softly.

"Nancy?" Nick's voice came through the gate, panic lacing the girl's tone as Eddie and Lily looked back up at the gaping hole in the ceiling.

"Hey!" Steve began to scream, and Lily hopped back up onto the mattress, her friends once again coming into view. "Stay with me, Nancy! Hey!"

On the other side of the gate, next to the rope, Steve and Nick stood in front of Nancy, shaking her tense form, but the girl made no notice of it, staring ahead into space. Lily's blood turned to ice as she remembered the way she'd attempted to shake Max awake only a few days ago, and, though she couldn't see Nancy's eyes, she knew her irises had gone milky white.

"Something's wrong," Sarah said as the others approached the mattress.

"I know what it is," Max said solemnly, pulling Lily's attention down to her sister. "It's Vecna."