Opposites Attract || Steve Harrington

Chapter Twenty-three: The Mind Flayer

Mike sets the blue box down onto the table and looks up at his friends. "We can't let him die in vain." Dustin sighs. "Well, what do you want to do, Mike? The Chief's right on this. We can't stop those Demo-dogs on their own." "Demo-dogs?" Max asked. 

Jessica steps out of Steve's grasp and approaches the table. "What the hell are Demo-dogs?" Dustin sighs. "Demogorgon dogs." He holds his hands out, bringing them together. "Demo-dogs. It's like a compound. It's like a play on words-" 

"Okay!" Jessica and Max say in unison, stopping Dustin. 

"I mean, when it was just Dart, maybe..." Dustin trails off. "But there's an army now," Lucas reminds him. "Precisely." "His army," Mike says in realization. Steve looks over at Mike. "What do you mean?" he asks him. "His army. Maybe if we stop him, we can stop his army, too." Mike runs over to a stack of papers, grabbing a drawing from the top. The party, plus Jessica and Steve follow him. Mike holds the drawing out to the group.

"The shadow monster," Dustin says once he sees the drawing. "It got Will that day on the field. The doctor said it was like a virus, it infected him." "And so this virus, it's connecting him to the tunnels?" Max asks. "To the tunnels, monsters, the Upside Down, everything." Mike tells them.

"Whoa, whoa. Slow down. Slow down," Steve instructs, taking the drawing out of Mike's hands. He looks it over in confusion. "Okay, so, the shadow monster's inside everything. And if the vines feel something like pain, then so does Will." "And so does Dart," Lucas says. Mike nods. "Yeah. Like what Mr. Clarke taught us. The hive mind."

"Hive mind?" Steve asks.

"A collective consciousness. It's a super-organism," Dustin explains to Steve. Mike points at the monster in the drawing. "And this is the thing that controls everything. It's the brain." Dustin rips the drawing out of Steve's hands. "Like the mind flayer."

Jessica's head snaps up. "The mind flayer? Holy shit." 

"The what?" both Max and Steve ask at the same time. "Where's Will's D&D manual?" Jessica asks Mike. "It's in his bedroom." "I'll go get it!" Dustin exclaims running off to Will's bedroom. He returns a few seconds later and slams the book down onto the table. Everyone in the house, except for Will and Joyce, gathered around the table. Dustin opens the book and flips to the page where there was a drawing of the Mind Flayer. 

"The mind flayer," Dustin states, looking up at everyone. "What the hell is that?" Hopper asks him. "It's a monster from an unknown dimension. It's so ancient that it doesn't even know it's true home. Okay, it enslaves races of other dimensions by taking over their brains using its highly-developed psionic powers."

Hopper sighs. "Oh, my God, none of this is real. This is a kids' game." Dustin shakes his head. "No, it's a manual. And it's not for kids." He points a finger at Hopper. "And unless you know something that we don't," he then lowers his finger, jabbing it at the book. "This is the best metaphor-" "Analogy," Lucas corrects him. 

Dustin looks over at Lucas with a raised brow. "Analogy? That's what you're worried about?" Dustin shakes his head. "Fine. An analogy for understanding whatever the hell this is." "Okay, so this mind flamer thing-" "Flayer," Jessica spoke up from besides, Dustin. "Mind flayer." Nancy sighs and looks over at the Henderson siblings. "What does it want?" "To conquer us, basically. It believes it's the master race," Dustin informs them.

"L-l-like the Germans?" Steve stutters out. Everyone turns their heads toward Steve. "Uh, the Nazis?" Dustin asks him. Steve nods. "Yeah, yeah, yeah, the Nazis." "Uh...If the Nazis were from another dimension, totally. Uh, it views other races, like us, as inferior to itself." 

"To make it easier on the people that don't know D&D, basically it wants to spread, take over other dimensions." Jessica explains as Steve, Nancy and Jonathan nod in understanding. "We are talking about the destruction of our world as we know it." Lucas informs everyone.