We made it back to Mike's house. El laid on the couch with Mike sitting on the end of it. Lucas sat on a chair across from Mike, and Dustin and I sat on the wooden stairs leading up to the main floor of his house.
"What was Will saying?" Mike asked. "Like home... Like home... but dark?" He stood up, his hands in his pockets.
"And empty." Lucas added.
Dustin sighed. "Empty and cold. Wait, did he say cold?"
"I think so?" I answered him.
"I don't know. The stupid radio kept going in and out." Lucas huffed.
Dustin sighed again. "It's like riddles in the dark."
"Hey, at least we know he's out there!" I told the boys, trying to brighten their mood. Dustin nodded and pursed his lips together in agreeance.
"Like home. Like his house?" Mike asked.
"Or maybe like Hawkins." Lucas theorized, pointing at Mike.
"Upside down." El mumbled.
"What'd she say?" Lucas questioned.
"Upside down." Mike repeated.
"What?" Lucas asked again as Mike ran over to his table.
"Upside down!" The boy repeated himself. He took his board game that was on the back side and flipped it over as he sat down. Dustin, Lucas, and I followed over to see what he was doing. "When El showed us where Will was, she flipped the board over, remember?" He flipped the board over again, revealing the black side of the board. "Upside down. Dark. Empty."
I grinned as it clicked in my head. The boys grumbled in confusion. "Do you understand what he's talking about?" Lucas asked. I rolled my eyes.
Dustin took in a breath before he answered shortly. "No."
"Seriously? And I thought you guys were supposed to be the nerdy ones!" I looked back and forth between the two of them.
"Guys, come on, think about it. When El took us to find Will, she took us to his house, right?" Mike continued, liking the fact that I already caught on to what he was saying.
"Yeah. And he wasn't there." Lucas said sarcastically.
"But what if he was there? What if we just couldn't see him?" I asked Lucas, leading him onto what Mike and I were getting at. "What if he was on the other side?" Dustin and Lucas exchanged glances as Mike flipped over the board, revealing the playable side.
"What if this is Hawkins and..." Mike flipped the board over once more. "this is where Will is? The Upside Down."
"Like the Vale of Shadows." Dustin connected. He liked to make connections often, I realized.
"What?" I asked. Dustin brought out his large Dungeons & Dragons book and placed it on the table. He began flipping through it before he stopped on a page that read "The Vale of Shadows".
Dustin began reading out the text on the page. "The Vale of Shadows is a dimension that is a dark reflection or echo of our world. It is a place of decay and death. A plane out of phase. A place of monsters. It is right next to you, and you don't even see it." Dustin lifted his head from the page, looking between us all dramatically.
"An alternate dimension." I mumbled.
"But... how... how do we get there?" Lucas stammered through his words in shock and disbelief.
"You cast Shadow Walk." Dustin answered like the smart-ass he is.
"In real life, dummy." Lucas argued.
ΔΙΑΒΑΖΕΙΣ
𝙆𝙞𝙣𝙜𝙨 // 𝑺𝒕𝒆𝒗𝒆 𝑯𝒂𝒓𝒓𝒊𝒏𝒈𝒕𝒐𝒏 𝒙 𝑹𝒆𝒂𝒅𝒆𝒓
FanfictionMoving into the small town of Hawkins during her sophomore year of high school wasn't a treat, but she didn't let it ruin her spirits too much. In fact, she even made some new friends along the way. Granted, most of them were in middle school and we...
