Y/n's pov
We were all scattered among the Byers house, the rest of the party and I, including Max, occupied the dining table. Jonathan was in the living room with Nancy and an unconscious Will, Steve was in the kitchen, Mrs. Byers was in one of the bedrooms and Hopper was on the phone.
"Sam Owens. Dr. Sam Owens." The chief said into the phone, looking more agitated by the second.
"I don't know how many people are there! I don't know how many people are left alive!" Hopper snapped as we all watched him.
I heard Steve sigh from the kitchen and continue his pacing.
"Call the po- I am the police! Chief Jim Hopper!" Hopper barked into the phone.
The chief scoffed and walked back over to the wall that the phone was mounted on.
"Yes, the number I gave you. Yeah... 6767. I will be here." Hopper said, slamming the phone back onto the hook.
"They didn't believe you did they?" Dustin and I asked in unison.
"Hey! You two stop doing that. It's freakin' me out. But, we'll see." Hopper said.
"We'll see? We can't just sit here while those things are loose!" Mike retorted.
"We stay here and we wait for help." Hopper growled, walking off down the hall.
The whole house was silent. No one spoke. No one even moved.
No one was safe.
Then, Mike got up and walked away and came back to reveal a pile of puzzles and games in his hands.
"Did you guys know that Bob was the original founder of Hawkins A.V. club?" Mike asked.
"No way." I said, surprised.
"Really?" Lucas asked, his interest now peaked.
"He petitioned the school to start it and everything. Then he had a fund raiser for equipment. Mr. Clarke learned everything from him. Pretty awesome, right?" Mike explained.
Choruses of agreement rippled across us and Mike spoke once more.
"We can't let him die in vain." He said.
"Well, what do you want to do, Mike? The chief's right on this." I said.
"We can't stop those demodogs on our own." Dustin added.
"Demodogs?" Max asked with an unimpressed stare.
Dustin looked around at us expectantly, with a disappointed face.
"Demodogs. It's catchy, I like it." I smiled.
The others looked confused still.
"Demogorgon dogs. Demodogs. It's like a compound. A play on words." Dustin explained with an upset face.
"Okay." Max conceded.
"I mean, when it was just Dart, totally." Dustin said.
"But now there's a whole army." I added.
"Precisely." Dustin nodded.
"His army..." Mike mumbled.
"What?" Lucas asked.
"What do you mean?" Steve asked, pushing himself off the fridge he was leaning on.
"His army!" Mike repeated in excitement.
"Maybe if we stop him, we can stop his army too." Mike said.
Mike marched down the hallway towards Will's room, grabbed a drawing and shoved it into Dustin's hands.
"The shadow monster." Dustin murmured, looking down at the drawing as we all circled him.
"It got Will that day on the field. The doctor said it was like a virus and it infected him." Mike said.
"And so this virus, it's, what? connecting him to the tunnels?" Max asked, her brows knitted together in thought.
"To the tunnels, to the monsters, to the upside down, to everything." Mike said.
"'Kay, woah, woah, woah, slow down, slow down." Steve said, taking the drawing from Dustin.
"Okay, so. The shadow monster's inside Will. And if the vines feel something like pain, then so does Will." Mike explained.
"And so does Dart." Lucas added.
"Yeah." Mike said.
"It's like what Mr. Clarke taught us. The hive mind." I said.
"Hive mind?" Steve asked.
"It's some sort of collective consciousness." I explained.
"Basically it's this super-organism." Dustin added.
"Kind of like a control panel." I said.
"And this thing that controls everything, it's the brain." Mike said, pointing to the drawing.
"Like the mind flayer." Dustin and I said in unison.
Lucas and I both snapped our fingers and pointed at each other, the realization coming upon us.
Right away the original members of the party understood, but it was the opposite for Max and Steve.
"What?" Steve and Max asked, completely lost in our nerd talk.
——
Will's D&D handbook was thrown onto the centre of the table by Dustin, a loud "thwack" sounding as the cover hit the hard wood of the table.
I opened the book and flipped to the page of "PSIONIC MONSTERS."
"The mind flayer." Dustin and I said.
"What the hell is that?" Hopper asked, coming back to the table.
Word count: 766