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❛ sᴏᴍᴇᴛʜɪɴɢ ᴡɪᴄᴋᴇᴅ​​​​​​​​​​. ❜ ° . ༄
- ͙۪۪˚   ▎❛ 𝐄𝐈𝐆𝐇𝐓 ❜   ▎˚ ͙۪۪̥◌
»»————- ꒰ ᴛʜᴇ ᴍᴇssᴀɢᴇ ꒱


❝ DON'T PUSH ME 'CAUSE
I'M CLOSE TO THE EDGE ❞

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They arrived at the source of the lab not long after, though it was quite long enough in Jessie's opinion. When they finally stopped, she stumbled to a halt and bent slightly as she placed her hands on her knees to catch her breath. She missed the identity of their location as her blood pounded in her ears even after she stopped moving. She focused on getting her breathing under control instead. The dizzy, spinning feeling in her head finally subsided as a man's voice shouted through the trees: "who's there?"

Max tugged Jessie forward as the group went on the move again towards the sound. She didn't have the breath to complain as they burst from the trees to see—

"Steve?" Nancy and Jonathan asked in unison.

"Nancy?"

"Johnathan."

"What are you doing here?"

"What are you doing here?"

"We're looking for Mike and Will," Nancy explained.

"They're not in there, are they?" Dustin asked.

"We're not sure."

"Why?"

Jessie slowly counted to ten in her head as she guessed the final seconds of her usual ten-minute recovery period. Sure enough, her breath had eased back to normal and she could participate in conversation again. There wasn't much to say, though, as they listened to the muted roars of the Demogorgons inside the lab. All at once, the lights in lab returned, catching their attention.

"The power's back!" Johnathan exclaimed before he ran into the guard booth and started pressing buttons. His efforts proved futile as the gate remained shut.

"Let me try," Dustin insisted as he tried to push the older boy out of the way.

"Hang on."

"Let me try, Johnathan! Son of a bitch!"

Johnathan surrendered to his insistence and stepped back to allow Dustin free reign of the controls. The boy eyed the buttons for a minute before he began to hit them repeatedly.

Now recovered from their run, Jessie leaned against the doorway of the booth and watched him boredly. "That's not going to work."

"Shut up!"

"You look like an idiot," she commented flatly.

"Like you'd look any smarter," he snapped and continued his aggressive button-pushing. A few minutes later, the gate opened. "Ha! See?" 

.・。.・゜✫・.・✫・゜・。.

Johnathan and Nancy drove to the lab and were gone for what seemed like an interminable amount of time. Then, things happened very quickly after that.

Two cars drove out of the hospital entrance, causing the teens to jump out of the way as a familiar police car screeched to a halt next to them. Hopper was in the driver's seat and he wasted no time in ordering them to get in the car. After a tense drive, they made it to the relative safety of the Byers' house.

They were mostly quiet as they recovered from the high stress at the lab. Will rested on the couch as his mother comforted him while Hopper was on the phone to report the attack. Steve paced anxiously around the small house while the teens sat together in an unusually agreeable silence.

"They didn't believe you, did they?" Dustin asked once Hopper had hung up.

"We'll see."

"We'll see?" Mike repeated incredulously. "We can't just sit here while those things are on the loose!"

"We stay here and we wait for help," the older man replied sternly.

Jessie rested her cheek on her hand as she leaned her elbow on the table. The sudden burst of activity left her drained and for the first time in the hours she'd been gone, she wondered how her father was faring. The most she'd ever left him alone for was a day at a time, last year during the thick of their adventure. She hoped he was doing alright and a part of her wondered if she'd ever see him again. Max must have noticed the downturn of her emotions and used her foot to gently nudge the other girl's leg. "You okay, kooky?"

Jessie straightened. "Yeah. Yeah, I'm fine."

The redhead eyed her suspiciously. "How are you so calm still? Doesn't any of this freak you out?"

She shrugged. "It's not worse than last year. Besides, I'm fearless, remember?"

Max didn't need the brunette's reminder. The image of her staring down a Demogorgon from only a few hours ago was still crystal-clear in her mind. Jessie hadn't even hesitated to jump in between her and the creature. She could almost feel the girl's strong, protective grip on her wrist as she stood firmly in front of her. The pistol in her hand had been raised at a steady, unyielding angle and her hand hadn't even shook as she prepared to shoot the thing. Even as much as she denied that being fearless wasn't a good thing, Max couldn't help but think of her as a challenger. A fighter. A survivor.

Eventually, Mike stood and wandered over to a blue cube that rested on the nearby coffee table. He picked it up and ran his fingers over the smooth surface as he spoke: "did you guys know that Bob was the original founder of Hawkins AV?"

"Really?" Lucas asked.

"He petitioned the school to start it and everything. Then he had a fundraiser for the equipment. Mr. Clarke learned everything from him. Pretty awesome, right?"

"Yeah," the boys agreed.

He placed the cube down on the dining table. "We can't let him die in vain."

"What do you want to do, Mike?" Dustin questioned him. "The chief's right on this and we can't stop those Demo-dogs on our own."

"Demo-dogs?" Max echoed.

"Demogorgons. . . dogs," he explained. "Demo-dogs. . . it's like a compound. It's like a. . . like a play on words."

"Okay," the redhead interrupted him. "We get it."

"I mean, when it was just Dart, then maybe. . ."

"But there's, like, a whole army now," Lucas added as he shook his head.

"Precisely!"

"His army," Mike realized.

"What do you mean?"

"His army," he repeated. "Maybe if we stop him, we can stop his army too!"

The dark-haired boy hurried over to the kitchen counter where Will's drawings lay in a haphazard heap. He grabbed the first one and handed it to Dustin. "The shadow monster."

"It got Will that day on the field," he explained. "The doctor said it was a virus. It infected him!"

"And so. . . this virus, it's connecting him to the tunnels?" Max asked.

"To the tunnels, to the monsters, to the upside down! Everything!"

"Whoa, whoa, slow down. Slow down," Steve cut in as he took the picture.

"Okay, so the shadow monster's inside everything and if the virus feels something, like pain, then so does Will—"

"And so does Dart," Lucas added.

"Yeah. Like what Mr. Clarke taught us. The hive mind."

"Hive mind?"

"A collective consciousness," Jessie answered. At the surprised looks she received from the boys, she gave them an indignant one in return. "Hey, I can be smart sometimes!"

"And this is the thing that controls everything," Mike pointed to the drawing. "It's the brain."

"Like the mind flayer!" 

"The what?"

"What?"

Dustin groaned and walked over to take a heavy book off the shelf. He opened it as he slammed it down on the table. "The mind flayer."

"What the hell is that?" Hopper demanded as he entered the room.

"It's a monster from an unknown dimension. It's so ancient that it doesn't even know its true home. Okay, it enslaves races of other dimensions by taking over their brains using its highly-developed psionic powers."

The older man lost patience with them. "Oh, my God, none of this is real. This is a kids' game."

"No, it's a manual. And it's not for kids." The curly-haired boy pointed at him sternly. "Unless you know something that we don't, this is the best metaphor—"

"Analogy," Lucas interrupted him.

"Analogy? That's what you're worried about? Fine. An analogy for understanding whatever the hell this is."

"Okay, so this mind flamer thing—"

"—Flayer. Mind flayer."

"What does it want?"

"To conquer us, basically. It believes it's the master race."

"Why does it always have to come back to race?" Jessie mumbled.

"Like the-like the, Germans?" Steve suggested.

"Uh, the Nazis?"

"—Yeah, yeah, yeah, the Nazis."

"If the Nazis were from another dimension, totally," Dustin answered. "Uh, it views other races like us as inferior to itself."

"It wants to spread, take over other dimensions," Mike put in.

Lucas nodded. "We are talking about the destruction of our world as we know it."

"That's great. That's great. That's really great. Jesus!" Steve exclaimed.

"Okay, so if this thing is like a brain that's controlling everything, then if we kill it. . ."

"We kill everything it controls."

"We win."

"Theoretically."

"Great. So how do you kill this thing? Shoot it with Fireballs or something?" Hopper demanded.

Dustin chuckled. "No. No, no Fire— no Fireballs Uh, you summon an undead army, uh, because. . . because zombies, you know, they don't have brains, and the mind flayer, it. . . it. . . it likes brains. It's just a game. It's a game."

"What the hell are we doing here?" the older man asked as he threw the book down on the table.

"I thought we were waiting for your military backup."

"We are!"

"How are they gonna stop this? You can't just shoot this with guns," Mike pointed out.

"You don't know that! We don't know anything!"

"We know it's already killed everybody in that lab."

"We know the monsters are gonna molt again," Lucas put in.

"Personally I'd rather fight a dog than a bear if we're talking about size," Jessie added.

"We know that it's only a matter of time before those tunnels reach this town," Dustin finished.

"They're right," Joyce's faint voice sounded from behind them, causing the group to turn to her. "We have to kill it. I want to kill it."

"Me, too. Me too, Joyce, okay? But how do we do that? We don't exactly know what we're dealing with here."

"No, but he does," Mike said as he looked at Will. "If anyone knows how to destroy this thing, it's Will. He's connected to it. He'll know it's weakness."

"I thought we couldn't trust him anymore?" Max remembered. "That he's a spy for the Mind Flayer now."

"And who knows when he'll wake up."

"Yeah, but. . . he can't spy if he doesn't know where he is." 

.・。.・゜✫・.・✫・゜・。.

There was another interminable waiting period while those closest to Will tried to bring the boy back. Jessie sat on the Byers' couch as an unmovable object while Nancy and Steve paced around the house. Max and Lucas had disappeared down the hallway and to be honest, she was more concerned with living through the night than what her teenage hormones were currently making her feel. Dustin was sitting at the kitchen table when the rest of the group charged in. As it turned out, Will was speaking to them through Morse Code.

Hopper raced to the kitchen table and drew a piece of paper and a pen to him as he began scribbling something down. The curly-haired boy watched him curiously. "What happened?"

"I think he's talking, just not with words."

"Hey, what is that?" Steve asked as he stood with his hands on his hips to study the lines and dots.

"Morse code," the younger teens answered in unison.

"H-E-R-E."

"'Here,'" they read, rather unnecessarily.

"Will's still in there. He's talking to us."

"Dash-dot-dash-dot," Dustin reported.

Nancy took the pen and began translating the letters:

"C!"

"L!"

"O!"

"S!"

"E!"

"G."

"A."

"T."

"E!"

When Nancy finished writing, they read the message together: "'close gate.'" 

The phone began to ring without warning, causing them to jump at the sudden noise. Dustin raced to pick it up. "Shit, shit, shit!"

It stopped for a moment when he picked up the receiver but when he replaced it, it only continued to ring. Nancy ran over and with a grunt, she pulled the whole device from the wall before she threw it on the ground.

Jessie's face settled into a grim expression as Max looked around worriedly. "Do you think he heard that?"

"It was just a phone," Steve protested. "That could be anywhere, right?"

"We're doomed," the brunette announced flatly. Her words were supported by the distant sound of the monster's howling.

"That's not good."

The younger teens went to the window to gaze out at the black night in the hopes of seeing any signs of the Demo-dogs, but they were immediately scolded by Hopper: "hey, hey! Get away from the windows!"

There was a flurry of motion as the adults looked for things to guard themselves with and the older man found a gun hidden in a panel behind the Byers' wall. He returned to the family room and held it out. "Do you know how to use this?"

"What?" Johnathan asked.

"I can," Nancy spoke up and took the weapon from him.

The familiar calmness surrounded her again as everyone else's fear mounted. Jessie maintained her composure as she drew out her still-unused pistol from her pocket and unlatched the safety, which she'd put back when it had become clear earlier that she hadn't needed the weapon. (She wasn't that much of an idiot to carry around an unarmed gun.)

There was movement as the rest of the group grabbed whatever they could find to defend themselves with as the pressure of their opponent became more potent every second. She felt a hand grasp her free wrist and without warning, her heart sped up slightly because she didn't have to look to know who it was.

The sounds of the creatures became louder and she was certain that they were circling the house to probably try to find the best way to break in.

"What are they doing?"

A loud crash from one side of the house made them swing towards the noise before a similar sound came from the opposite side and they turned in that direction. Without warning, one of the Demo-dogs went flying through the window and they jumped back, fearing the worst.

"Holy shit!"

"Is it. . . dead?"

"I hope so."

As Hopper went to test the animal with his boot, Jessie's attention caught on the sharp click! that came from the now-unlocked door. The doorknob turned slowly as the panel of wood creaked in protest at being opened. A girl with short, greased-back brown hair and dressed in black clothes stepped over the threshold. Even if Jessie hadn't recognized her immediately, the telltale sign of blood dripping from her nose was enough to identify who she was.

The brunette straightened and gave her a rare, bright smile as she cheered, "I knew you weren't dead!"

[edited jul. 2022]