STARCROSSED ▷ steve harrington

10. the mind flayer - part two

CHAPTER TEN - THE MIND FLAYER
PART TWO

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MIKE QUICKLY FLIPPED through the pages of the book, finally stopping on one that was titled: Mind Flayer. Jackie stared at the drawing on the page in shock, out of all the things she imagined in her head, the picture was definitely worse. But what was even scarier was the fact that this Flayer thing actually resembled what Will had drawn.

"The Mind Flayer," Dustin announced to the group huddled around the table. He glanced around at all of them, taking in their reactions.

"The hell is that?" Hopper asked from beside Jackie, her head turning in his direction as he spoke. Hopper was intimidating, actually, he was one of the scariest people she'd ever met and she'd only knew him for five hours. However, he was so sarcastic at times that it made her do a double take. From the stories the kids had told her to pass time that night, he sounded like a total badass.

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

"Oh my God, none of this is real. It's a kid's game," Hopper broke in, annoyed.

"No," Dustin protested. "It's a manual, and it's not for kids. And unless you know something that we don't, this is the best metaphor—"

"Analogy," Lucas corrected, cutting him off.

"Analogy? That's what you're worried about right now? Fine. Analogy."

"Knowing big words also isn't going to get you brownie points with my sister but you know, A for effort."

"That's not—"

"Uh-uh," Jackie wiggled her finger in Lucas's face, ignoring Max's warning glare. "You can't slip that shit past me I know everything."

"Okay, so this mind-flamer thing—" Nancy started.

"Flayer," Dustin said immediately. "Mind flayer."

Nancy sighed dramatically. "So what does it want?"

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

"Like the Germans," Steve stated.

"I was gonna say like Billy, but that works," Jackie mumbled, elbowing him in the ribs. "Even though it was the Nazis, dumbass."

"Oh, right. Yeah."

"Uh," Dustin stammered, his voice faltering for the first time that night. "If the Nazis were from another dimension, totally. It views other races, like us, as inferior to itself."

"It wants to spread," Mike carried on. "Take over other dimensions."

"We are talking about the destruction of our world as we know it," Lucas said, his expression more serious than Jackie had ever seen.

"That's great," Steve threw his hands up in the air. "That's really great. Jesus."

"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." Mike concluded, sounding awfully confident.

"Theoretically."

"Oh great, so how do you kill this thing? Shoot fireballs or something?" Hopper asked, brows raised.

Dustin chuckled. "No, no. No fireballs. You summon an undead army."