An older man stood in front of Will Byers' casket, a book opened in his hands as he read lines from the page. Olivia stood next to Lucas, one out of the four boys she has known since forever. He would look up at her every once in a while, making sure that she was okay. The young boy knew this was hard for her since her parents weren't the easiest comforters in her life.

Olivia noticed an older man sitting next to Jonathan, causing her brows to draw closer to each other as she studied him. She had no idea who the man was, but from the looks of it and from what stories Jonathan and Will told her, she assumed it was their father.

Everyone in the funeral tossed single roses onto Will's casket, some crying while others remained with soft expressions. Olivia stood back by her parents, too hurt to go up and do something. Anything.

As everyone began scattering out, Olivia wandered off away from her parents, who didn't notice. She stood behind Joyce Byers as she gently laid her hand on her shoulder. The older woman turned around, first a distraught look on her face, but I quickly turned into relief when her eyes met Olivia's.

"I'm so sorry about everything." The hazel-eyed girl's expression softened as she noticed how stressed the mother looked. Olivia gave her a soft hug before releasing gently.

"It's good to see you, sweetheart." Joyce muttered softly, looking around anxiously at the crowd of people.

"If it makes you feel any better," Olivia started, a small smile on her face. "I think Will is still out there and I know someone is going to find him." The mother quickly gave her a lightly smile, relieved that someone believed she was still sane. Olivia had known Joyce for a long time, and she was like a second mother figure to the teenager.

"Thank you, Liv." Joyce smiled once more before realizing that Olivia was looking behind herself, her eyes glued to the three boys. "You can go." She reassured her. Olivia gave her a thankful look before sauntering off to Mike, Lucas and Dustin.

She got to the trio, noticing Mike looking most upset out of the rest. "Are you guys okay?" She muttered cautiously, knowing how hard this must be for the boys.

Mike turned around to the older girl, relief washing over him to see such a warm and familiar face. He quickly wrapped his arms around her stomach, closing his eyes as his head rested on her torso. She smiled barely before hugging him back.

After they released from the hug, she gave Lucas and Dustin each desperate hugs, which they both needed.

"Look, I gotta go find your sister," The dark-haired girl looked as Mike as she spoke. "But if you need anything, don't be scared to call, okay?"

The three boys all gave her precious smiles before she walked off, her eyes spotting Nancy in the distance. She then looked not far away and saw Jonathan.

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The three teenagers sat on the ground, all of them leaning up against a metal pole fence. Jonathan held a map in his hands, the two girls looking at him from beside him. 

"This is where we know for sure it's been, right?" Jonathan asked as he looked torwards Nancy and Olivia.

"So, that's..." Nancy began, pointing at the paper, but before she could finish, Olivia jumped in.

"Steve's house." She stated confidently, immediately recognizing the area since she's been to his house more times than in counting.

"And that's the woods where they found Will's bike and..." Jonathan pointed to one of the drawn red X's on the paper, then motioning his hand to another red X not far from it. "That's my house."

"It's all so close." Nancy stated, her brows drawn together in focus.

"Yeah. Exactly." Jonathan agreed quickly. "I mean, it's all within a mile or something. Whatever this thing is, it's... it's not traveling far."

"So what then? We got hunting for this thing, hoping we find it at it's friendliest moment?" Olivia cringed in fear, the thought of seeing the creature in real life terrified her.

"We might not find anything." The boy stated, signaling that he was agreeing with her without actually saying it.

"I found something." Nancy replied knowingly, her brows raised. The light-haired girl looked down at the map again. "And if we do see it... then what?"

Jonathan and Olivia glared at each other, both of their minds filled with the same idea. "We kill it." They both spoke in sync, their eyes looking back and forth at one another. The hazel-eyed girl wasn't too fond of chasing after a monster-like creature with her former friend and the boy who exposed her pain to Steve, but if it meant ending the pain everyone was suffering from, she wanted to be a part of it.

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Olivia decided to go to the after-party, hoping to watch out for the kids and show support to the Byers. The girl went over to the boys once her eyes landed on them. They were all sitting at a circle table, an older man sitting across from them. The hazel-eyed girl approached them before spotting the face of the man.

"Hey, Mr. Clarke." Recognition flooded through her as she looked at the man. Mike, Dustin and Lucas all looked at the two in confusion.

"Wait, how do you know Mr. Clarke?" Lucas asked with furrowed brows.

Olivia sat down in the open seat next to Mike, a smirk on her lips. "He was my teacher when I was your age." Her eyes averted back and forth between the three boys, who all nodded in understanding. "What's going on?" The girl questioned cautiously when her eyes laid on the plate in front of Mr. Clarke, a tight rope, arrows, stick figure and a flea all drawn on the paper plate.

"Oh, uh..." Dustin stuttered, looking between his friends. "Well..."

"Dustin?" Mr. Clarke noticed the mothering look on Olivia's face as she looked at the three boys, technically demanding them to tell her what was going on.

"Mr. Clarke was just showing us a theoretical example of a different dimension." Mike simplified things for Olivia, and Lucas and Dustin gave him warning glares. But, the truth was, Mike trusted her with almost anything, and so did the other two at times.

The four of them all turned to the teacher, a look of slight confusion on his face. "Oh, you can continue." Mike stated confidently, ignoring how Dustin and Lucas looked at him. She understood how the boys didn't want her in their business, but from what she has learned in the past 48 hours, she couldn't help but wonder if this theoretical dimension could harm the boys.

Mr. Clarke cleared his throat before continuing. "Okay, so I told you how we could travel backwards and forwards, but not up and down, while the flea can do all." Olivia drew her brows together in concentration. "Here's where things get really interesting."

Olivia looked between the boys, realizing they were taking it more serious than she figured. With that, the teacher drew arrows along the side of the right rope. "The flea can also travel this way... along the side of the rope. He can even go... underneath the rope." He said while drawing another arrow once more, except it was directed to the bottom of the rope.

The dark-haired girl watched as all of their faces immediately fell from interest to shock. She was concerned for their sudden burst of focus, and she couldn't help but wonder if they were involved in something similar to what she is.

"Upside down." The boys spoke in unison.

"Exactly." Mr. Clarke agreed obviously as he shrugged his shoulders.

"But we're not the flea, we're the acrobat."

"In this metaphor, yes, we're the acrobat." Mr. Clarke agreed with the boy again.

"So we can't go upside down?" Olivia turned her head at Lucas, the confusion suffocating her. She placed her head in her hands, letting out a bewildered sigh.

Mr. Clarke shook his head at the boys. "No."

"Well, is there any way for the acrobat to get into the Upside down?" Dustin's tone turned into desperation, which caused the teacher to frown. Olivia quickly turned her head to Dustin, not only out of confusion, but worry for the boys' safety. They were some of the closest and trusted people to her.

"Well... you'd have to create a massive amount of energy. More than humans are currently capable of creating," Mr. Clarke spoke with his hands. "mind you, to open up some kind of tear in time and space, and then..." Next thing the four new, the teacher folded up the plate and stabbed a hole through it with his pen. They all barely jumped back, watching as he looked at them. Olivia thought this all was insane, but she was going to make sure they told her exactly what they were planning.

"You create a doorway." He said.

"So what... Like a gate?" Olivia interviened in the conversation, which none of the boys seemed to mind.

"Sure. Like a gate." He nodded softly. "But again, this is all-"

"Theoretical." Lucas finished his sentence, a soft nod coming from him.

"But... but what if this gate already existed?" Mike questioned the teacher.

"Well, if it did, I..." His question put the teacher in confusion, but then quickly found his answer. "I think we'd know. It would disrupt gravity, the magnetic field, our environment. Heck, it might even swallow us up whole." The boys exchanged worried glances.

Olivia stood up shortly after and giving her goodbyes to the teacher before quickly following after the boys. She caught up to them, quickly jumping in front of them before they could escape. "What's going on that you are in such a rush for?"

Mike, Dustin and Lucas all exchanged glances before Mike grasped onto Olivia's hand and without any warning, walking her and his friends into a small room down the hall.

Lucas sighed before twisting the lock on the door. The three boys sat down, while Olivia stayed standing, curiosity making her heart skip beats.

"Liv, you're gonna want to sit down for this." Mike said, making it sound like a life-or-death situation. The dark-haired girl looked at Dustin and Lucas for clarification, and the quickly nodded.

"It's kind of a lot." Lucas let out a nervous chuckle before she sat down in front of them, her hands nervously picking at her nails. And right in front of her, the three boys spilled out everything they had happened to them in the course of a few days, leading up to a girl they found in the woods named Eleven, and now, finding a gate to the place called "The Upside down." Of course, Olivia was freaked out by this sudden news, which they trusted her enough with. She didn't know what to say. All that could escape her lips was, "Holy shit."

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Mike, Lucas and Dustin felt safe enough to bring Olivia back to the Wheeler house, where they told her the girl would be. She understood how they could trust her. She was always the one to be there for them if they couldn't go to their parents or their siblings, but this... This was completely unexpected.

Olivia bounded behind the boys to the basement, wearing something less funeral setting. She wore jeans, white tennis shoes, and a pale red long sleeve shirt. Two thin strips of hair were pinned back, meeting in the back of her head.

Olivia got to the bottom of the stairs, the girl with blonde curled hair sitting on the couch. She looked up from the walkie-talkie she was messing with, wide eyed and her mouth slightly open.

"Am I seeing things right?" The hazel-eyed girl looked at the boys as if they had lost their minds, which she stood by confidently.

"It was all Mike's idea." Lucas put his hands up in defense, which Mike grimaced at quickly.

Olivia ignored their beginning arguing, walking over to the scared little girl as sitting next to her gently. "Hey, El. I'm Liv." She noticed the girl looking down shyly, so she put her hand on top of El's. "Listen, I promise I won't tell anyone about you, you're safe." El gave her a soft smile before looking up at her. "And you're pretty."

Olivia and Eleven smiled at each other before El all of the sudden attacked her with a hug. The older girl was shocked but eventually exchanged the hug gently. Mike had also told her about everything she had gone through at the Hawkins lab, so she knew to be delicate with her.

Mike took out a piece of paper and drew the same example as Mr. Clarke did. Then, when he was done explaining it to Eleven, he stabbed a hole into it, also like Mr. Clarke. El jumped back slightly but settling once he put the paper down.

"It would take a lot of energy to build a gate like this. But that's got to be what happened. Otherwise, how'd Will get there, right?" Mike sat by Eleven while Lucas and Olivia sat next to each other across from them, both leaning forward. On the other hand, Dustin was pacing back and forth.

"What we want to know is, do you know where the gate is?" Olivia turned to Lucas as he started asking questions. When El shook her head shyly, it was clear that Lucas got frustrated. "Then how do you know about the Upside down?" Olivia noticed his raised tone, so she lightly hit him in the back of the head before turning to El.

"Don't yell at her, dingus, she's already scared enough." El smiled to herself at the interaction before turning to look at Dustin, who was still pacing.

Dustin had a compass held out in front of him as he walked back and forth in his spot. "Dustin, what are you doing?" As the boys continued to call out at Dustin, he eventually stopped and turned to them.

"I... I need to see your compasses."

"What?" The hazel-eyed girl questioned in concern.

"Your compasses. All of your compasses, right now!" The four exchanged glances before Mike and Lucas pulled out all of the compasses that they had, while Olivia and Eleven stood by the table. Olivia was standing behind El, her hands on her shoulders.