"9-1-1, what's your emergency?"

"Help, we need help!"

"Sir, what's wrong?"

"My daughter...she, she's not responding to us. She's struggling to breathe, I-I don't know what's going on..."

"Sir, I'm going to need you to take a few deep breaths and calmly explain the situation."

"She...It's like she sees something that we can't see. I-I don't know what. She just keeps saying 'danger', over and over and over...Please, just get somebody out here and help us! We live at 1267 Ivywood Lane!"

"I understand your frustration, sir, but please try to remain calm...We've got an ambulance en route, please stay on the line while we wait for them to reach you."

"..."

"Sir?"

"..."

"Sir? Sir, are you there?"

"OH MY GOD--"

Click.

The phone line went dead. The man slowly removed the headphones from his ears and set them on the table in front of him. He could hear the faint sounds of frantic voices coming from the headsets of his coworkers beside him.

He pressed a phone to his ear, the buzzing of the dial tone adding to the cacophony of eavesdropped sounds. There was an exaggerated pause between every number he dialed. He sat still, like a robot, as he waited for the other end to pick up. Finally they did. Heavy, impatient breaths answered him, waiting for his words.

"Dr. Brenner, I think we've got something."

"Whoa, what is this place?" Mike asked as they stepped through the back door of Scoops Ahoy and into an endless hallway of cement and metal.

"It leads to the movie theater!" Dustin smiled. "Pretty cool, huh? Found it all by myself!"

"Ah hem..." Steve cleared his throat loudly from the door.

"...and with Steve's help," Dustin added. "Anyways, I figured we could talk here. No one ever uses this so it'll be totally private." Dustin looked to One as he said "private".

"Does this work?" Mike asked One. She was a little startled as everyone turned to look at her. One stared curiously at Steve who was still lingering in the doorway before deciding whether to speak.

"Yes," she said quietly. "It works."

The group gathered around One and took a seat on the floor. Steve remained standing, but he shut the door and took a few steps forward so that he could also hear. After his previous involvement with the Demogorgon and demodogs, he figured that this concerned him as well. Plus, he was incredibly curious about the new girl.

"Okay," Mike said once they were all settled and they were sure that nobody else would be joining them. "Start from the beginning."

"I don't remember..." One said, alighting a series of frustrated groans from Mike, Lucas, and Dustin.

"Seriously?" Dustin said, irritated that he had seemingly revealed his secret passage for nothing.

"I don't remember...the beginning," One finished, shutting them up mid-grumble.

"What do you remember?" Eleven asked after giving the three boys side-eye for interrupting One. They apologized with nervous smiles.

"A place," One answered.

"What place?" Max asked.

One just shook her head. She didn't know what to call it.

"Can you describe it to us?"

"Darkness..." One began to explain. Her mouth quivered and her eyelids twitched as she shut her eyes so that she could better describe it. She always saw it when she closed her eyes. "Ash...Monsters..." The reverberation of roars in her head sent a shiver down her spine and snapped her eyes open.

Looks and whispers passed around the circle.

"It can't be..."

"Do you think?"

"But the gate was sealed..."

"This place..." Will's voice rose above the murmurs. "Did it look like here, but different?" The tingling on the back of Will's neck was already giving him the answer but he had to confirm it. One's small nod sent the group careening back in fear and she looked at each of their faces in confusion.

"The Upside Down..." Eleven, Max, Mike, Dustin, Will, Lucas, and Steve said collectively.

"Upside...down?" One asked, the words tasting funny in her mouth. They carried a weight. 

"It's what we call the place you're talking about," Mike explained. "You were there?"

Another small nod.

"You know of it?" One asked in confusion. She tried to look into their eyes for answers but everybody's glances were shifted downwards.

"Unfortunately," Mike responded. A subconscious shiver ran through him as flashes of haunting memories appeared uninvited in his mind.

"But how did you get there?" Lucas asked. "Did you go through a rift?"

"Not exactly," One said, her eyes glancing behind the group at the stale white walls.

"How then? And how did you get out?"

One remained quiet, refusing to answer.

"How long were you there for?" Dustin intervened, seeing that Lucas was getting nowhere.

"Long time." One's response was met with more murmurs.

"Impossible!"

"She should be dead!"

"She's lying!"

"How did you protect yourself from the demogorgons?" Mike asked, but he was met with a blank gaze. She clearly wasn't familiar with their terminology. "Monsters," Mike clarified.

One responded by electrocuting her hands. The group instinctively jumped back.

"Oh shit!" Steve's cursing was accompanied by the sound of him falling on his ass and scooting back across the linoleum floor.

The blue light dimmed from her hands after her answer was made clear.

"But wait..." Max piped up. "How is your hair so short and why is it dyed? Unless—" Max's eyes instantly widened as she leaned forward and whispered the next part: "Is that blood?"

One couldn't help but laugh. The foreign sound bounced off the walls and echoed down the hallway. "Not blood," One reassured her. "I cut and colored it."

She was met with a surrounding look of confusion. "That place..." One continued to explain, trying to recall the term they had used. "...the 'Upside Down'...is the same as here, just lifeless. There are still hair salons and scissors and hair dye. Old and kind of gross, but there."

"Whoa..." Mike said in surprise. "I think that's the most you've ever spoken."

"I can speak," One reassured them. "I just didn't have much need to while I was...there."

"Wait, wait..." Dustin said, waving his hands to get everyone's attention again. "If you had enough time and priority for your hair in a dimension of dangerous monsters, exactly how long is a 'long time'?"

"What year is it?" One asked.

Dustin looked around to his group mates in disbelief before answering. "1985."

"Eight years." One replied after some quick math. "I was in the Upside Down for eight years."

★ ☆ ★ ☆ ★