𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐍𝐃 𝐁𝐘 𝐌𝐄- (ᴇᴅᴅɪᴇ ᴍᴜɴsᴏɴ)¹

𝟎𝟖|𝐁𝐨𝐛 𝐍𝐞𝐰𝐛𝐲; 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐒𝐮𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐨

"We stay here, and we wait for help," Hopper said, like he believed they had no more options than that. And then he left.

Elias sighed again, probably for the millionth time that night, and turned to look at Steve. "You okay?" He asked, his voice quite in the sombre silence that had suddenly enveloped them that small space they were all in.

Steve made a humming sound at the back of his throat, which wasn't really that bad of a clear answer, so Elias decided to drop it.

From somewhere down the hall, he heard a muffled cry and thud as the lights in the house began to flicker. His heartbeat picked up at the implication— lights seem to flicker whenever anything Upside Down related is close by— and he pushed himself up to stand quickly. "What was that?" He asked.

From the table a few feet away from him, Lucas gazed at him sadly. "It's fine. That's just Vee. His powers do that sometimes," he answered him just as Mike stood up and walked away from the table. Bridget did the same, although she went down the hall, towards the direction of the sound.

Elias nodded slowly, willing to accept that this was now his new normal. "Right," he replied. "Is he...is he okay?"

"Bob was his uncle," Lucas continued. "They were really close to him, you know. And he didn't make it out of the lab, so..." He trailed off, having no need to finish that sentence.

From where he stood, Mike spoke up without looking at them. "Did you guys know that Bob was the original founder of Hawkins AV?"

"Really?" Jenny asked, looking as if she was trying hard not to cry.

Mike turned to face them, a small blue cube in his hands. "He petitioned the school to start it and everything. Then he had a fundraiser for the equipment. Mr. Clarke leaned everything from him. Pretty awesome, right?"

Elias didn't remember hearing about any of this, from when he was in the club, but agreed with Mike. Bob sounded like an awesome guy, and even though he didn't know him, it was horrible that he got killed by those things. No one deserved to die like that.

Jenny sniffled and wipe her face with her sweater. "Yeah," both Lucas and Dustin answered.

Mike came up and stood by the table, placing the cube at the centre. "We can't let him die in vain," he said with all seriousness.

"Well, what do you wanna do, Mike? The Chief's right on this. We can't stop those demo-dogs on our own," Dustin argued, and everyone looked at him incredulously.

Dustin started to explain what he meant to Max in that condescending way of his when she questioned his choice in words, until she got tired of it and shut him down.

"I mean, when it was just Dart, maybe..." He continued.

"But there's a whole army now," Lucas chipped in.

"Precisely."

"His army," Mike said, a look on his face like he'd just realised something major. Everyone looked at him.

"What do you mean?" Steve asked.

"His army. Maybe if we stop Him, we can stop His army, too!"

Mike rushed into into living room and everyone followed after him. He picked up one of the many drawings on the desk and presented it to them as they all gathered around him.

Elias's first thought was a very vehement what the fuck?

Because, why was one of his hallucinations from when he was a kid drawn on paper when he never shared them with anyone?

"The shadow monster," Dustin used that moniker to described the spidery shadow looming over what suspiciously looked like one of the fields in Hawkins.

"It got Will that day on the field," Mike continued. "The doctor said it was like a virus, it infected him."