far too young to die ✰ m.w.

CHAPTER FOUR

"Okay. God."

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.

"We didn't think it was anything at first," Will explained once Eleven and Max had arrived. Dustin still had not gotten back to them.

"I think we just didn't want to believe it," Emily said. "Which is why we didn't tell anyone until last night."

"The first time we felt it was at Day of the Dead."

"Power went out that night, too," Mike remembered.

"And then we felt it again at the field near the Nelson farm the next day."

"That's when we knew that something was wrong," Emily added.

"Then it happened again yesterday outside Castle Byers."

"What does it feel like?" Max asked.

"It's almost like... you know when you drop on a rollercoaster?"

"Sure," Mike answered.

"Yeah," said Max.

"No," Eleven said.

"It's like..." Will began, "everything inside your body is just sinking all at once, but... this is worse. Your body... it goes cold and- and you can't breathe. I've felt it before, we both have," he motioned to his sister, "whenever he was close."

"Whenever who was close?" Max questioned.

"The Mind Flayer," both twins said at once.

"I closed the gate," Eleven reminded them.

"I know, but..." Will said, "what if he never left? What if we locked him out here with us?"

To better explain, Will got up and went to the table, grabbing a piece of paper and a black crayon on the way.

"This is him," he explained, drawing a rough sketch of the Mind Flayer as he talked. "All of him. But, that day on the field, a part of him attached itself to me." He wiped his hand across the drawing, leaving a coat of black dust on his hand. "My mom got it out of me... and Eleven closed the gate." He flipped the paper over on its blank side. "But the part that was still in me, what if it's still in our world?" He pressed his dust-covered hand onto the paper, leaving behind a black handprint. "In Hawkins."

"I- I don't understand. The Demo-dogs died when El closed the gate," Max brought up. "If the brain dies, the body dies."

"We can't take any chances," Mike said. "We need to assume the worst. The Mind Flayer's back."

"Yeah. And if he is," Will said, "he'd want to attach himself to someone again. A new me."

"A new host," Lucas said.

"How can you tell if someone is a host?" Eleven asked.

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.

The girls explained what they had found out about Billy over the past few days, and Max and Eleven told them all about what they had observed when they found the girl that Billy was with, whose name was Heather, at her house, having what looked like a normal dinner with her parents and Billy. Max insisted they were both fine, but Eleven seemed unsure but was confident in what she had seen when she spied on Billy. To confirm whether Billy was the Mind Flayer's new host or not, the group decided they would go to the community pool, where Heather and Billy worked as lifeguards, to observe Billy to see if there was anything off about him.