THE SKY WAS REMARKABLY CLEAR on the day of Will Byers's funeral, and everyone gathered under the shockingly warm sun to hear the preacher's words. Eli was blocking said speech out, his eyes trained on the small brown casket that had just been lowered into the ground.
It was always a strange thing to see the dead body of your best friend be put into the ground at just twelve years old.
He felt entirely not apart of the funeral, as though he were some extra spectator, watching several feet away and in the shadows of other, unknown graves. Even now, watching the casket sit lamely in the rectangular trench, Eli didn't feel as though it was all real. Nothing had truly felt real ever since Will died, save for that unusual moment in the Byers's bedroom.
At the reception, Eli sat with his two sisters, Martha, and Rene quietly at a table, entrenched in his own painful thoughts. He was wedged in a tremendous conflict, between having hope that Will was still out there and Hawkins Lab really was behind a coverup, or accepting the miserable fact that he was gone.
Nobody had really spoken to Eli, no adult or child, not even his own sisters or friends. It was a somewhat unspoken, silent bubble that wafted around him that morning, commanding that nobody speak to the fragile boy and shatter his heart. Eli wasn't sure if he was grateful or insulted by the sudden avoidance of him.
"Look at those weirdos," Rene murmured, her mint blue eyes glaring at a group of boys in the distance. Eli suppressed a chuckle, knowing he could always rely on the Campbell girl to keep things feeling normal even in the most peculiar situations. He followed her gaze, his smile faltering when he discovered it was Mike, Lucas, and Dustin she was watching.
Mr. Clarke was hunched over the table while the three boys seemed to be listening intently, all three of their rumps barely sat in their seats. The science teacher was drawing unreadable figures on a paper plate, enthusiastically gesturing to his drawn marks to his audience. They were too far away to know what it was they were discussing, but the scene, especially at a funeral reception, was entirely unusual.
"What are they doing?" Eve pondered, and Eli scoffed in disapproval.
"They can't seriously be having a science lesson right now," he spat. Shockingly, the Brooks boy was clambering out of his seat and began heading towards the group just as Mr. Clarke abandoned the boys to their own company.
"Hey guys," Eli greeted them casually, and his curiosity mingled with faint annoyance had melted away any possibility of nerves from socializing. His amber eyes bore particularly into the flat plate that laid in the center of the table. "What are you guys doing?"
All three boys jumped up in sync, their eyes huge. Dustin's hand lashed out and furiously wrapped around the plate, drawing it to his chest and away from Eli's perfect view of it. Eli squinted his eyes at the three, noting how anxious they all seemed.
"Hey Eli," Mike greeted him with a soft voice, attempting to remain cool but there was a slight twitch to his freckled face that suggested he shared his friends' apprehension. "What's up? Are you okay?"
Eli decided to ignore the itchy tingling in his chest from the Wheeler's concern, and instead redirected his focus to the now crushed plate under Dustin's grasp. "What was Mr. Clarke talking about?" He questioned, waving his thumb towards the paper plate.
"Oh, uh, nothing," Mike lied, causing irritation as well as possible disappointment to trickle into Eli's heart. "He was just, um, making sure we were okay."
"Yeah," Lucas agreed, an unconvincing frown pasted on his face.
"Mhm," Dustin poorly attempted to portray his sadness too, but there were Nilla Wafer crumbs sprinkling out of his mouth.
Eli sighed through his nostrils, an ounce of bravery twinkling in his chest as he took the paper plate from Dustin's quivering hand. He unfolded it, gazing upon the drawing of a stick man, a line, a strange dot, and arrows carefully. He also noticed a fairly large hole stabbed in the center, but he couldn't make sense of any of it. "What's this? Something to do with science?"
Mike pressed his lips together uncomfortably, blinking slowly before caving. "Yeah, I guess," he answered, and his followers' faces dropped in astonishment. "He was just telling us about this concept of different dimensions."
That got Eli's attention. "Different dimensions?"
"Yeah, for fun," Lucas cut in hastily, his dark eyes pinned on the interrogative Brooks boy. "It's all theoretical."
Eli narrowed his eyes again, examining the scared faces of each boy. Only Mike was still gazing up at him, and even he seemed restless and in need of Eli to stop his intense questioning. He wanted to further inquire about the information Mr. Clarke had just given them, but his anger took over. "Why are you guys talking about science at Will's funeral?"
Mike's eyes widened with realization, noticing how insensitive their behavior must've appeared to the clueless boy. "We were just trying to get Mr. Clarke to stop asking about Will," his lies fell shakily out of his lips. "We want time to grieve alone."
Eli scoffed, and for the first time, he felt a bitter distaste towards Will's three D&D friends. "Are you guys even upset about what happened? We lost Will! He's gone! And apparently all you guys care about is some dumb science lesson?"
The three boys stared back wordlessly, their slightly parted mouths and saucer eyes suggesting they were taken aback by his sudden rage. This was entirely out of character for him, and the way fury boiled in his dark eyes made them squirm uncomfortably in their seats.
It made Mike think back to a few days ago, when he watched Eli mercilessly collide his fist with Troy's face. He had never seen such powerful anger fall across the timid boy's face. And now he was seeing it again.
Another figure appeared beside Eli, and to his amazement, Martha was wrapping her hands around his shoulders. The teenager was smiling apologetically at the other boys, her fudge eyes whispering her condolences with no real words. "Why don't we leave these guys alone, Eli? I've got something to show you."
Eli let himself being swept away, but he kept his angry eyes pinned to the shameful group persistently. They particularly fell back onto Mike Wheeler's form, and that's when he recognized the stinging in his chest to be one of hurt, not hatred. He felt betrayed by Mike, in the sheer honesty of things. After the Wheeler's unusual visit to the Brooks house, Eli had assumed Mike cared for Will just as much as he did. But now he could see him clearly, whispering secrets and having strange science lessons in the middle of Will's funeral.
But what was unbeknownst to the Brooks boy, was that he didn't just feel like Mike was a traitor. He felt excluded, drawn to the sidelines and pushed away from whatever the group was exploring together. His mind was smart enough to know that learning about different dimensions couldn't just be a coincidence, and now he was hungry to be apart of whatever expedition the boys were doing.
"What was that all about?" Martha asked, and instead of throwing themselves back at the table where Rene and Eve were curiously watching the enraged Brooks boy, she directed them to a quiet row of seats near the exit.
"I don't know," Eli admitted weakly, plopping onto the chair exhaustedly. "It just seems like they don't care."
"I'm sure they do," Martha's buttery hand was massaging his arm nicely. "Everyone grieves in different ways, you know."
Eli tapped his bent knuckles against his forehead, shielding his emotional face in his fists. "Maybe I'm just being ridiculous."
"No—"
"I just can't make any sense of it!" He jerked up again, and his face was cherry red but there was no true threat of tears to bleed. "We're here, at Will's funeral. I just watched them bury his casket. But..." Hesitation ripped at his gut, and he trailed off uselessly.
"But?"
"But...it feels like he's not gone. I still feel him," Eli rested two fingers onto where his heart should be, and now he was really feeling ridiculous. "I don't know. It's probably just me being dumb," he waved a sorry hand, wishing the teenage girl would just go away.
"No! You're not," Martha reached out and grabbed the hand that was placed methodically on his heart. "Look, some strange shit has been happening, huh? Don't think I forgot what happened earlier this week with your sisters," Martha lowered her voice warily as she spoke that sentence. "If you say Will's still out there, I believe you. He could be in that place."
Eli's brain was churning with possibility now, and he leaned forward into his thoughts. "They said they were talking about different dimensions. Maybe they know something."
"Maybe," Martha nodded supportingly.
"But it still doesn't make sense how Hawkins Lab comes into play," Eli was half-murmuring to himself, his face growing cross and appearing older and wiser.
"Hawkins Lab?"
"Yeah," Eli began to explain. "I was at my Dad's work and there were these two doctors talking about them. Apparently they're some government program, and they faked his body or something."
Martha's eyes had expanded into two large lakes gleaming down at the younger boy. "Are you serious?"
"I don't know. It's just a theory," his limp shoulders shrugged uselessly, and he had sunken back into his gloomy state. "I just can't help but wonder if they have Will."
"Shouldn't we find out?" Martha proposed, and she was practically beaming with excitement and curiosity. "I mean, what if it's all connected?"
Eli glanced back up from his bent knees, the prospect of such an absurdly unusual theory making his heart race. "What do you mean?" He pressed, but he had already begun to speculate himself what she was going to say.
"I mean the lab, the government, that weird place your sisters got trapped in, the monster."
Eli's heartbeat had quickened so suddenly and rapidly he could hear the pounding through the blood roaring in his ears. "You...you mean..."
"We should do something," Martha interrupted his weak stammering, lounging back in her chair as plans began to sprout like weeds in her brain. "We could do some research on the lab. Oh! And maybe even try to visit? Maybe. That's probably crazy. Oh, and we might have to go back to that place. It's dangerous as hell but maybe if we were properly equipped—"
The Baker girl's ramblings had been abruptly halted by Eli's arms swinging around her torso, wrapping her a quick, kiddish hug. "Thank you," he smiled, and it was the first genuine smile he had felt in the last few dreary days.
"For what?" The girl grinned incredulously, unaware of the impact she had just imprinted on the younger Brooks.
"For listening," he answered. "And being a good friend."
Martha returned this smile once more, and after a brief, savory moment, she snapped back to reality. "We need to get your sisters involved. Oh! And maybe that friend of Eve's—"
"No," Eli deftly cut her off, becoming shockingly serious as his eyes darkened. "We can't bring Rene into this."
"What? Why?"
Eli's hands began to fling around as he attempted to elaborate. "Be-Because...she's, she's...she wouldn't take it seriously! And she would also be mad if she found out we hadn't told her about the other dimension already."
Martha pursed her lips in consideration. "I guess you're right. And it's probably bad to bring her into this anyway, given the danger."
Eli nodded, ignoring the way his chest tightened with heat at the word 'danger'. He knew they were probably way in over their heads. After all, they were just a bunch of teenagers and children diving into scary dimensions with flesh-eating monsters. Even just thinking about it made Eli question if this situation was real.
This wasn't supposed to happen,
at least not in the exasperatingly
boring town of hawkins, and certainly
not to an innocent boy like Will Byers.
"Alright, I'll go get Eve and Brandy," Martha nodded.
Eli shifted his chocolate eyes back to the main crowd at the reception, and he nodded with vague approval. "Yeah, explain everything to them. And hurry, while Rene's distracted with Dustin," he urged her, catching sight of the freckled female at the snack table with the Henderson boy.
Martha was only gone for a short minute or two, the time elapsing rapidly as Eli spent his time alone processing. When she returned, two loyal Brooks sisters were at either side, their expressions falling serious.
"So, what's the plan?" Brandy asked, and as if things weren't already astonishing enough, the older girl was looking at him for ideas.
Eli shook with the responsibility, feeling incapable of allowing himself to control such an impossible mission. But he had already done things this week that he would've never dreamt of before. So he shifted forward in his seat, and began to concoct a plan.
"Well first, we need to do research. See what kind of things go on at Hawkins Lab and if it's anyway related to child experiments or other dimensions."
"Would that even show up in the news, though?" Eve questioned.
"It's worth a try," Eli replied determinedly.
"Yeah, but what then?" Brandy asked.
A moment of intense silence passed before the next words slipped out. "We have to go back."
Instantly knowing what he was referring to, both Brooks sisters stiffened and even showed slight resistance. "Eli, that place is a hell hole," Brandy reminded him coldly.
"But we have to!" He urged, emotion filtering into his plea. "What if Will really is in there? With that thing? Plus, we can go in there better armed now that we know what we're up against. And we'll have each other."
"But you haven't been in there!" Eve protested, and to Eli's complete surprise, tears danced in the corners of her eyes. "I thought I was gonna die in there," she whimpered, and it was then that he realized the trauma his sister had experienced while trapped in the new dimension.
"Look," Eli leaned forward, and even forced himself to grab her hand. His chest burned with the discomfort of the situation's emotional investment, but he ignored it. He was leaving all of his comfort zones this week. "I'm scared too. But Will is my best friend, and he's out there all alone. I can feel it. You would do it for Rene, wouldn't you?"
He was sure he had asked the question to her before, but this time its weight carried. She nodded slowly, wiping away a stray tear with her bent wrist.
"And I would be there to help you," Eli encouraged. "So please. Help me get Will back."
Eve hesitated, because for all her selfishness, she didn't want to enter that dark, freezing cavern ever again. But she knew how much Will meant to Eli. She had seen it in the way he would practically glow while reading stories to him, or even just the way he beamed before leaving to visit him. It was an irreplaceable bond, the bond of two childhood best friends. And Eve loved her brother, knowing she couldn't let that bond slip away from him while it was still in reach.
"Of course I'll help you, E."
Eli smiled his thanks, and he didn't notice he was crying until a striking warm tear slipped past his cheek.
Brandy shifted her weight uncomfortably, uncertain of how to respond to such a sentimental transaction between her two younger siblings. Because just like Eli, emotions weren't her strong suit. "So, how are we gonna get to the library? It's not like Dad is gonna let us go anywhere after our fights. And I can't drive."
"I'll drive," Martha swooped in impressively fast, sliding a set of silver car keys out of her coat pocket. "I'll just say we went to go get ice cream or something. To cheer Eli up."
Eli grinned at first at the perfectly crafted excuse, but the excitement fell short as guilt dripped in. If Will was really gone, then he was using his fake grief (when it should be real grief) as a passageway to run around town. But he was so certain in Will being alive, and that's when he remembered Mike and his friends. They had also been feigning their grief.
The Brooks boy gazed back into the reception hall, catching Mike discussing quietly with Lucas, a rather stern expression sewn into his face. Dustin was still exchanging desserts with Rene, their faces lit up with humor. His eyes slid back to Mike and Lucas, just in time for the Wheeler boy to catch his eye. Eli held that stare dauntingly, wondering if there were any answers in that look.
Eli knew. He knew. He knew deep down that Mike and his friends weren't oblivious to Will's case, and that they too had their secrets. But for some unknown reason, he ignored that minuscule gut feeling.
"When are we going, then?" Brandy had asked, her wary expression glued to the keys Martha had shown off.
"Now." Martha responded, shocking all three siblings equally. "What?" She demanded cluelessly, looking at their gaping figures.
"Now?" Brandy repeated incredulously.
"Yes, now! It would be a bit more suspicious if I took you guys out for ice cream any other day than today."
"I guess," Eli agreed suspiciously, narrowing his eyes. "What if Dad says no?"
"He's not gonna say no," Martha lightly slapped an encouraging hand on his shoulder. "Just let me work some of that Martha charm on him. I'll be back."
Eve sauntered over to her brother, joining him in the empty seat at his right. "What did you say to Mike?"
Eli shook the question away, not wanting to answer it. "I was just mad," his answer was frustratingly vague, but only because Eli had become a hypocrite of his own words now, and he felt that guilt like a heavy stone in his stomach.
"He looked pretty hurt," Eve admitted, and the awful feeling in Eli's chest worsened, but it didn't overpower his ambition to stick to the plan and find Will.
"I'll apologize later."
Martha entered into the smaller area again, a triumphant grin waggling on her face that could only mean she had succeeded. "Ready for some ice cream?" She teased with her glistening white smile.
Eli smiled back. "Let's go."
The car ride was a fairly silent, comfortable one but with a strain of anxiety from their mission. Eli watched the town buildings pass by like small blurbs, his brain hardly able to concentrate on anything but the task at hand.
"Hey, how are we gonna manage to make it back to that place?" Brandy piped up, chewing on her bubble gum thoughtfully. Everyone knew what 'place' she was referring to.
"We'll sneak out," Eli replied, once again causing the entire party to gawk at him stupidly.
"Elijah Brooks suggesting we break the rules?" Brandy guffawed, her eyes glimmering in amusement. "Who are you and what have you done with my brother?"
Eli shook his head bashfully, the muscles around his mouth straining to fight back the smile. "Whatever. It's the only way. Dad works tomorrow and Mom won't even notice we're gone."
Brandy nodded before wheeling around to face the front of the vehicle again, glancing over at her best friend. "You cool with that, Mae?"
Martha nodded, not taking her steady gaze off of the road. "Should be good with me. My parents almost never pay attention to me anyway. They trust me." She winced, her lips patting open into an 'o' shape. "Which might not be the case if we get caught."
"We won't," Eve interjected with fierce insistence.
"And if we do," Eli followed up, "it'll be because we found Will. And we'll be too much of a group of heroes for them to care."
Brandy scoffed, a puff of air leaving her bemused lips as she folded her arms loosely. "Heroes," she muttered half to herself, keeping her warm gaze out the window for the rest of the ride.
They arrived at the library, and Eli almost giggled at how ridiculously they might have looked. They jumped out of the car with extreme purpose, marching to the library doors with more sincerity than any normal teenager would that came to the library.
There were only two computers, meaning Eli and Eve had to share while Brandy and Martha sat opposite of them. "If you find anything, print it!" Eli commanded, already jabbing his fingers at the bulky keyboard.
"Yes sir," Brandy huffed, exchanging humorous glances with Martha before returning to the screen in front of them.
Just as Eve had suspected, many of the articles had superficial information about the lab posted, such as its opening date and its team. There were a few other sites that spoke on the medical and technological advancements of the lab, but nothing major or controversial. Until.
"Wait, E, look," Eve stuck a finger out at the screen, directing it to one of the newspaper articles he had almost passed up. "Look at this. 'Hawkins Lab Accused of Illegal Child Experiments'."
"Brandy and I just found something too!" Martha chirped up, but warily kept her voice to a cautious volume. "'Mother Claims of Abducted Baby, Taken by Hawkins Lab'."
Eli's eyes scoured the page, his body flowing with adrenaline and heat as the words on each page became darker and more alarming. "It says here they were caught with more than ten children used in various experiments."
"What the fuck?" Brandy cursed under her breathe, her eyes examining the same shell-shocking paragraphs. "This is some serious shit."
"Wait, look," Eli pointed at another article. "They might be using those kids as spies. To fight the Russians."
"There's no way," Brandy grumbled. "That shit's gotta be just a theory. How did this stuff even make it to the papers? Aren't they a massive government organization?"
Martha frowned at the screen before wheeling around and heading for the printer with a stack of coins, retrieving every article they printed out before any curious stranger's eyes could find them. "Okay. We got everything we need. What now?"
They had been there for nearly an hour, and Eli knew it was time to go back home before their parents grew suspicious and furious. But he hung loosely in his chair, unable to focus on anything but the inky letters that danced in front of his face. He couldn't believe anything he was reading.
"E, c'mon," Eve shook his arm, snapping him out of his thoughts. "We need to get home before Dad kills us."
"Right," he stuttered, his hands clutching the printed sheets nervously. "Let's go."
"Holy shit!" Brandy screeched once the last car door of Martha's Mazda was sealed shut, disconnecting the line between them and the outside world. "We have a child-abducting, Russian-fighting lab in our own town!"
"We need to go to the lab," Martha uttered in some sort of uneasy realization.
"No," Eli denied strongly. "Not before we go through that portal again."
"But why?" Brandy whined, and her fear from their discovered research, combined with her past nightmares about the unnamed monster, made her nauseous at the idea of going back. "We have tangible proof that this lab is kidnapping children and using them. And you said it yourself, people think they faked his death. Why wouldn't they have them?"
"I," Eli's words fell flat on a useless tongue. "I don't know."
Brandy huffed disapprovingly, not meeting her brother's gaze and instead stared straight ahead as the car swerved out of the parking lot.
"But I don't think they have him! I swear!" Eli pleaded. "He's in that place. I can feel it. I've dreamt about it more than once."
"Then what was the point of getting all this evidence?" Martha sighed; even she was beginning to lose some of her strained patience.
"Maybe the lab knows about the other dimension," Eve spoke up, her shaky voice causing the car to collapse into silence.
Eli's chest had grown taut again with nerves, and he gripped his seatbelt until his nails were scratching the material. "It's a possibility."
"Right, so," Brandy's voice was laced with annoyance, and Eli didn't know why or when his sister had become so irritated. "This lab, which steals people's kids and uses them for spycraft and scientific experiments, knows about this dark dimension with a scary monster that Will might possibly be in. It still doesn't explain why they faked his death."
"Because they don't want people to find out about the other world," Eli answered stiffly, almost entirely confident in his hypothesis.
"Because they're running experiments in the other world," Eve breathed, and her face stretched into a gasp. "And if people found out about the other world, they'll find out about their secret science work."
"Exactly!" Eli shrieked, excited and booming with pride at his sister. At least someone had caught on.
"Hold on," Martha rubbed two fingers against her right temple, exhaling through her flared nostrils. "We don't know any of this to be true. We can't prove any of this!"
"Yeah, and for fuck's sake, we're just kids!" Brandy exclaimed. "And after reading that shit at the library, this is way bigger than any of us."
"We can't enlist the police to help us," Eli shot down the idea, knowing it was going to arise in the next sentence or two. "They're a government organization too. We can't be sure they will actually help find Will."
"This is so stupid," Brandy muttered, fully agitated.
"What is your problem?" Eli challenged, his overtly bitter tone shocking his older sister, but only momentarily.
She spun around, shooting daggers at the younger boy. "My problem is that I don't want to fucking die trying to find your friend! And while I believe you when you say he's not dead, I think it's a suicide mission for just the four of us to go in there."
"We have to do this for Will! It seems like I'm the only one that cares about him!" Eli shouted.
"Yeah, well he wouldn't want you to go following the tracks of a killer monster just to find him!"
"Hey, you don't know shit about what he'd want!"
"Enough!" Martha screamed angrily, and with one fervent motion, she turned the wheel sharply and the car swooped over to the side of the road. Her hand harshly switched the gear to park, and she whirled around to glare at the bickering siblings. "I'm sick of this!"
Her coarse, dark eyes retreated to Brandy. "Look, Bran, this is scary. Scary for all of us. But I have seen you take down six foot douchebags in the halls without a single fuck."
The word slipped off her tongue icily, and everyone in the car jumped back slightly. It wasn't like Martha to curse. In fact, it wasn't like Martha to grow angry and boisterous like this, with hand gestures that jabbed the air too quickly to understand.
"I know it's not the same, but what I'm saying is you're the toughest, bravest person I know. You've faced monsters worse than this. Look at your dad!" She shrieked, although her face immediately became crestfallen with regret.
"Gee, thanks," Brandy murmured scornfully, while Eli and Eve's eyes just darted to the floor of the backseat.
"I'm sorry," Martha apologized sincerely, before her face hardened again. "But you know I'm right. And if Will is really out there, then he's a twelve year old boy lost, alone, and terrified out there. He needs help, and we're the only ones with even a clue of where he is."
Then, another sentence came out. "You'd do it if it were Eli or Eve."
Both of the twins' heads popped up, eyeing their sister uneasily. Brandy had her head bent slightly, trying to hide her light maroon cheeks under the collar of her coat. "Stop it."
"You would," Martha urged, and spoke to her best friend as though the younger siblings weren't there. "You almost broke a girl's nose just because of what she said about your brother. You're protective of them, despite this emotionless exterior you try to keep up."
"What's with the sudden attack, Martha?"
"You know I'm right," Martha pressed. "This is a human's life we're talking about. He may not be in that place, but we've got to try. He's a kid, just like us."
The silence that succeeded her words was unlike any other, drowning with anxiety and apprehension. But Martha persistently gazed at the uneasy teen, refusing to presume driving until she had answer. Her response, although just one word, was a blissful tune to everyone's ears.
"Okay."