Joyce
Someone knocks viciously on the door. "Go away, Lonnie," I say. He continues to pound on the door, harder this time. "Seriously!" I give up and go to the door. "I am gonna murd—" When it opens, Hopper is standing there, holding a sign that says "Don't say anything." He comes inside, quietly closing the door behind him. "What? What?" I whisper. He looks at all the lights hanging up around the ceiling and walls.

"Oh, Jesus," he mumbles.

He unscrews every single bulb, and when he's done, says, "It should be okay, I mean . . . I can't guarantee it, but it should be okay."

"What the hell is going on, Hopper?" I ask, still keeping my voice low.

"They bugged my place," he says.

"What?"

"They bugged my place. They put a microphone in my light. It's because I'm onto them and they know it. I don't know. . . ."

"Who?"

"I thought they might be watching you too. I don't know; the CIA, the NSA, Department of Energy . . . I don't know."

"You gotta explain this to me, 'cause I am not—"

"I went to the morgue last night, Joyce."

"What?"

"It wasn't him."

"What?"

"Will's body. It was a fake."

My knees feel weak and I slowly fall to the floor, my breathing shaky.

"You were right," Hopper says, leaning toward me. "This whole time, you were right."

I don't know whether to cry or smile.

(Y/N)
We make it to the lot of broken-down old cars by the time Dustin stops to say, "Oh, no."

"'Oh, no'? What's 'oh, no'?" Lucas asks.

"We're headed back home," Dustin says.

"What?" I ask.

"Are you sure?" Mike asks.

"Yeah, I'm sure," he says. "Setting sun, right there. We looped right back around."

"And you're just realizing this now?" Lucas asks exasperatedly.

"Why is this all on me?"

"Because you're the compass genius!" says Lucas.

"What do yours say?"

The three of us (Mike, Lucas, and me) look at our compasses. "North," we all say.

"Makes no damn sense," Dustin says.

"Did the gate move?" I suggest.

"No, I don't think it's the gate," Dustin says. "I think it's something else screwing with the compasses."

"Maybe it's something here," Mike says.

"No, it has to be, like, a super-magnet," says Dustin.

"It's not a magnet," Lucas says. "She's been acting weirder than normal." He gestures to El. "If she can slam doors with her mind, she can definitely screw up a compass."

"Why would she do that?" Mike asks.

"Because she's trying to sabotage our mission," Lucas says. "Because she's a traitor!" He walks toward her.

"Lucas, what are you doing?" I ask.

"You did it; didn't you?" he asks her, getting in her face. "You don't want us to reach the gate. You don't want us to find Will."

A pain shoots through my chest. Does she really not want us to? No, of course she does. She's nice. She wouldn't do that to me—er, us.

"Lucas, come on," Mike says. "Seriously, just leave her alone."

"Admit it," he says.

"No," she says quietly.

"Admit it!" he shouts, making her jump. He grabs her arm, looks at her sleeve, then swats it away. "Fresh blood. I knew it."

"Lucas, come on!" Mike says.

"I saw her wiping her nose on the tracks!" he says. "She was using her powers!"

"Bull! That's old blood! Right, El?" Mike asks her. She doesn't respond, but looks remorseful. "Right, El?"

"It's . . . not . . . It's not safe," she croaks.

"What did I tell you? She's been playing us from the beginning!" Lucas says.

"That's not true. She helped us find Will!" Mike argues.

"Find Will? Find Will?" Lucas says. "Where is he then? Huh? I don't see him."

I subconsciously grip Dustin's arm.

"Yeah, you know what I mean!" Mike says.

"No, I actually don't. Just think about it, Mike. She could've just told us where the Upside Down was right away, but she didn't. She just made us run around like a bunch of headless chickens."

"Both of you, calm down!" I say, retreating from Dustin.

"No! She used us! All of us!" Lucas says. "She helped just enough so she could get what she wants. Food and a bed. She's like a stray dog."

"Screw you, Lucas!" Mike snaps.

"No, screw you, Mike! You're blind . . . blind because you like that a girl's not grossed out by you."

"That's not true! (Y/N)'s not grossed out by me!"

My face flushes.

"Wake up, man!" Lucas says. "Wake the hell up! She knows where Will is, and now she's just letting him die in the Upside Down."

There's that pain again, like someone shot a bullet through my heart.

"Shut up!" Mike yells.

"For all we know, it's her fault," says Lucas.

"Shut up!"

"We're looking for some stupid monster . . . but did you ever stop to think that maybe she's the monster?"

"I said shut up!" Mike lunges onto Lucas, both of them plummeting to the ground.

"Stop!" Eleven shrieks.

"Knock it off, you idiots!" Dustin shouts.

"Stop it!" Eleven screams again.

"Mike, get off him!" I yell.

"Stop it!" Eleven lets out a screech and Lucas flies off Mike, landing on the ground beside a rusty car door. We rush over to him, except for Eleven.

"Lucas! Lucas! Lucas, are you all right?" Mike shakes him.

"Lucas, come on!"

"Lucas, wake up!"

"Lucas, are you all right?"

"Come on, Lucas!"

Mike turns to Eleven. "Why would you do that! What's wrong with you! What is wrong with you!"

Eleven
I stood there in the bath. I saw a man far away. He was talking Russian. He couldn't see me.

I heard a noise. The Russian man went away. I ran away.

I cry. I hurt Lucas. Mike hates me.

Mike
Lucas finally gets up.

"Lucas, are you okay?" (Y/N) asks.

"Lucas . . . Lucas, how many fingers am I holding up?" Dustin asks, holding out three fingers. "How many fingers?"

I reach out to Lucas's head. "Let me see your head."

He swats my hand away. "Get off me!"

"Just, Lucas . . . ," I say as he gets up. "Lucas, let me see."

"Get off me!" He walks off.

"Lucas, come on."

Dustin and (Y/N) grab my arms. "Let him be," (Y/N) says.

"Man, let him go," Dustin says.

Then I realize something's—someone's—missing. "Where is El? El! El!"

"Eleven!" Dustin calls.

"Eleven!"

"El!"

"Eleven!"

"El!"

"Eleven!"

Nancy
I freeze in amidst walking through the dark forest with Jonathan, hearing faint whimpers in the distance. Jonathan stops and turns to me. "What? You tired?" he asked.

"Shut up," I whisper.

"What?"

"I heard something."

We fall silent again and listen. It's still there. We pursue the direction from which the sound is coming. We finally find a poor deer lying on the ground—covered in scratches, bruises, and blood.

"Oh, God," I mumble.

Jonathan and I kneel next to it, examining the wounds with our flashlights. "It's been hit by a car," I conclude. "We can't just leave it."

Jonathan gestures to the pistol in my hand. I raise the pistol to the creature to put it out of its misery, but it's hard to do. I don't want to kill it, but it's going to die anyway. . . .

"I'll do it," Jonathan says.

"But I thought—"

"I'm not nine anymore."

I hand him the gun. We stand and he cocks the gun, aiming it at the poor creature. He hesitates and I await the gunshot, ready to look away when it happens.

But before it does happen, it's dragged away, out of our sight. Jonathan and I jump back, our mouths agape.

"What was that?" I ask breathlessly. We stumble around the forest, looking for it. I follow a trail of blood, which just . . . abruptly stops, leaving no trace. "Where'd it go?"

"I don't know," Jonathan says. "Do you see any more blood?"

"No."

I continue looking around until I find a large hole in the bottom of a tree trunk. It's oozing with some kind of goop, and pulsing with an eerie glow, which may just be my flashlight. Inside the hole is a bloody trail—what must have been left behind by the deer.

"Jonathan?" I call, not quite sure what to do. No answer. I look into the hole again, examining it more deeply. I take off my bag and climb inside through the webs of slime, flashlight in hand. When I reach the other side of the tree, I'm still in the forest, but everything seems bluer, colder, emptier, the air thicker. My light blinks as I explore around, careful not to stray too far from the tree that brought me here. I hit the flashlight, hoping it'll knock it back to working. I hear a noise and whip around to find a totally inhuman creature with an almost human-like body that seemed to be feeding on something—the deer. I back away, not wanting it to see me—until I back into a branch, which snaps and grabs the creature's attention. {Can you say HaRrY pOtTeR rEfErEnCe} It turns around to me and roars, and I scream. Its face looks like five big red flower petals that are lined with spiky white teeth.

I drop my flashlight and run. The only thing I can do is run.

Jonathan
I hear a shriek—and the only other person who's in this forest is Nancy.

"Nancy!" I scream, running to find her. I spot her bag and bat on the ground—but not her. "Nancy? Nancy? Nancy, where are you? Nancy!"

And little did they know the only known thing connecting the two worlds was closing at that very second.

Guess who finally got this done after like three weeks? This girl!
Sorrryyyy
Holiday break was hectic, and so was the week after, and so is this weel, but, hey, I did it.
Also, shoutout to my girl WeirdoWithAPurpose, who wrote a real great story about Will and me called Stranger Sims. If you're a cool human being, you'll check that out.
Also guess who got into Riverdale? Also this girl!
Heheheheheheheh
Also y'all should go check out my hilarious videos on Plotagon (@Trista_La_Vista) because hey why not shout myself out
Okay I think I'm done now.
:)