☆rocket science★ {Steve Harrington}

☆underneath the rope★

Lila picked at the collar of her black dress. Today was wills funeral. Even though she and the boys weren't even sure will was dead it still was a sad day. Funerals are always sad.

Lila grabs the hand of dustin beside her. He needs her today.

"Fear not, for I am with you." Pastor Charles speaks in front of the ceremony. "Be not dismayed, for I am your god. I will strengthen you. Yes I will help you. I will uphold you with my righteous right hand."

Lila looked around the big gathering around wills casket she was met with the eyes of familiar people and not familiar people. A cold breeze made its way through the crowd, fitting for a funeral.

"It's times like these that our faith is challenged. How if he is truly benevolent could god take from us someone so young, so innocent? It would be easy to turn away from god but we must remember that nothing, not even tragedy can separate us from his love. We are here to find comfort in the truth of scripture, and to surround will and his family,"

The pastors speaking is cut off by Dustin whispering beside Lila to Lucas and Mike. "Just wait tell we tell will Jennifer Hayes was crying at his funeral."

Lila holds back her smile and leans over to the boys. "Shhh be respectful."

They give her a look but she ignores it as they do go back to being quiet. After the service is over Lila walks over to the Byers.

"I'm so sorry for your loss Joyce." Joyce pats Lila on the shoulder. "Please let me know if there's anything I can do for you."

Joyce looks to be struggling to get words out. "Thank you for the kind offer Lila."

"Take care okay?" Lila gets a nod from Joyce and so she departs with Dustin to the wake.

Within the crowd of people the boys seem to find mr. Clark first. Lila greets him with a smile.

"It's nice to see you again Mr. Clark." Lila sticks out her hand to shake his. He gladly accepts it.

"You too, Miss Henderson." Mr. Clark then looks at the boys beside her. "Oh hey there. How are you boys holding up?"

Lila looks down at the trio and almost laughs. Lucas is struggling to come up with words to answer his teacher but when they come out they sound almost robotic.

"We're.. in... mourning." Lucas stuffs his hands in his suit pockets.

"Man these aren't real mills wafers." Dustin comments to which Lila rubs his back.

"We were wondering if you had time to talk!" Mike sighs. "We have some questions."

"A lot of questions." Dustin says with his mouthful. Lila sighs but she doesn't except any less from him.

"So, you know how in cosmos, Carl Sagan talks about other dimensions?" Mike ask as they lead Mr. Clark to an open table. "Like beyond our world?"

"Yeah, sure. Theoretically." The teacher shrugs.

"Right," mike says slowly. "Theoretically."

"So theoretically. How do we travel there?" Not knowing what the boys were gonna ask it shocks Lila. She drops her fork on the floor causing a clashing noise. She smiles and apologizes quietly.

"You guys have been thinking about Hugh Everett's many- world interpretation, haven't you?" Mr. Clarke asks with a smile but the boys don't give a response. "Basically, there are parallel universes. Just like our world but just infinite variations of it. Which mean there is a world out there where none of this tragic stuff ever happened."

"Yeah, that not what we're talking about." Lucas cuts him off.

"Oh."

"We are think of an evil dimension, like the veil of shadows." Dustin says with a smile. "You know the veil of shadows right?"

"An echo of the material plane, where necrotic and shadow magic-" before he can finish mike cuts him off.

"Yeah exactly." Mike uses his hands to speak now. "If that did exist, a place like the veil of shadows, how would we get there?"

"Theoretically." Lucas and Dustin add at the same time.

"Well." Mr. Clark uses his paper as a demonstration and grabs a pen from his coat pocket "picture.. an acrobat."

He draws a man on a tight rope on his plate. A simple drawing of a stick person.

"Standing on a tight rope, now the tight rope is our dimension. And our dimension has rules." He draws arrows now going forward and backwards. "You can move forward, or backwards. But what if right next to our acrobat, there is a flea?"

Lila watches careful as the teacher draws the doodle of the flea. "Now, the flea can also travel back and forth. Just like the acrobat. Right?"

All the boys and Lila now answer. "Right."

"Here where things get really interesting. The flea can also travel this way." He draws an arrow ontop of the tightrope. "Along the side of the tightrope. He can even go underneath the rope."

"Upside down." The four kids in front of the teacher say in Awe.

"Exactly." Mr. Clark nods.

"But we're not the flea we're the acrobat." Mike states. Mr. Clark nods only at him now.

"In this metaphor, yes, we're the acrobat."

"So, we can't go upside down?" Lucas asks seriously.

"No." Mr. Clark shakes his head with a small smile.

"Well, is there any way for the acrobat to get to the upside down?" Dustin asks urgently. Lila gives him a look from across the table but he ignores it.

"Well... you'd have to create a massive amount of energy." He shrugs. "More than humans are currently capable of creating, mind you, to open up some kind of tear in time and space and then..." he folds his plate in half and staves his pen through it causing Lila and Lucas to jump. "You create a doorway."

"Like a gate?" Dustin points his finger.

"Sure like a gate." Mr. Clark agrees. "But again this is all-"

"Theoretical" the group before him finishes before he can.

"But what if this gate already exist?" Mike asks with some fear showing in his voice.

"Well if it did I... I think we'd know." Mr Clark uses his hands to speak. "It would disrupt gravity, the magnetic field, our environment. "Heck might even swallow us up whole. Science is neat. But I'm afraid it's not very forgiving."

Mr. Clark smiles at the kids as he leans back in his seat. To him of course this is all theoretical but to us this is real. It's the truth.