---

     "WILL!" Miles shouted, frantically shaking his friend as he tried to pull him from his daze. He looked across the field to see the rest of the party plus Ms. Byers running towards the pair. "I just found him here, I don't know what's wrong." He told the woman with tears in his eyes. "I think he's having another episode."

     Joyce looked at her son fearfully, shaking his shoulders, "Will! Will! Will! Sweetie, wake up! It's mom." She begged, "Will! Will, wake up. Can you hear me? Will, please, just wake up. Please, up! It's mom!" She yelled desperately, "It's me!"

     The boy gasped, his eyes flew open and MIles felt like he could finally breathe again, "Oh my god." He huffed.

     Miles went and grabbed Will's backpack and everything from the AV room and met him and Joyce out by their car, putting his things in the backseat. He waved as they drove off down the road.

     Later when Miles got home he went to the Byers' to check on Will. Joyce answered the door and told the boy that Will was asleep and would let him know he stopped by, explaining that he didn't feel well and that if he didn't feel well in the morning he might not be at school.

     The next day he got up and sat waiting for a while in hopes Will would be fine and come to school, but when he didn't come outside Miles left, meeting the rest of his friends at the dumpster where they had all agreed they would search for Dart together.

     When he got there it was Mike, Lucas, and Max and they were getting ready to draw straws (or sticks they found randomly outside). "Oh, thank god." Lucas sighed in relief, kicking up another stick.

     "What's going on?" Miles questioned.

     "We're drawing straws, whoever gets the short one has to go inside the dumpster," Mike explained.

     Miles grimaced, "Alright." He reached for a stick, being stopped by Mike.

     "We all have to have our eyes closed."

     The boy nodded, "Okay." He closed his eyes and reached into the pile, completely unaware of how everyone else kept their eyes open, and left Miles with the shortest stick. He opened his eyes, looking around with a frown, "Alright." He huffed.

     He struggled, clumsily falling over the edge and into the dumpster, groaning as he hit the mounds of trash. He began his search, and after ten minutes he spoke up, "I'm not finding anything, guys."

     "Don't be a baby, just keep looking!" Mike shouted.

     Max rolled her eyes, feeling bad for the boy, "This is so disgusting. Is this really necessary?"

     Dustin came running around the corner, "What the hell is going on?"

     "What do you think?" Mike questioned. "We're looking for Dart."

     "Can I come out now?" Miles called to the group.

     "You guys really made Miles do it?" Dustin questioned to which the group only shrugged. "Yes, you can come out."

     The boy pulled himself up over the ledge, "Can I get a spot?" Dustin and Max came over, standing beneath the boy with their arms outstretched. He jumped down, landing on his feet, the pair reached over, steadying the boy. "Thanks." He huffed.

     Max grimaced, "You smell." He lifted his arm, sniffing himself, grimacing as well. The girl moved a few feet away.

     "Hi, Max." Dustin smiled at the girl.

     "Hi."

     "Where's Will?"

---

     MILES REALLY MISSED WILL. The last time he'd had to go a school day without seeing him was when he was in the Upside Down. Through every class, he'd sit staring at the door. hoping he'd walk in, trying to ignore the feeling that there was something seriously wrong with the boy.

     The boy had spent every quarter he had during lunch trying to call the Byers, never getting a response. He huffed, setting the payphone back down in its holder before running back over to his friends.

     "Anything?" Lucas questioned. 

     The boy shook his head, "We need to talk. Let's meet in the AV room, preferably right now."

     Max got up to join them, Mike turned around, "Party members only."

     "Come on, Mike," Dustin whined.

     The boy looked at Miles and back to Dustin, "No! This is non-negotiable."

     "Sorry." The rest of the group chorused before heading inside and into the AV room.

     Miles sighed, looking at his feet, "Will didn't want me to tell anyone, but on Halloween night when he had that episode, he said he saw a shadow in the sky."

     Lucas furrowed his eyebrows, "A shadow? What kind of shadow?"

     The boy shrugged, "I don't know, but it scared him like really scared him." Miles shook his head, "If Will does have True Sight and can see into the upside-down... he might've seen the shadow yesterday."

     "So that's why he was frozen like that?" Dustin asked.

     "Maybe."

     "Can it hurt him?" Lucas asked. "I mean if this shadow thing isn't from our world..."

     "I don't know." Miles looked at Mike and Dustin, hoping they had an explanation.

     Mike shook his head, "I don't know."

     Dustin furrowed his eyebrows in contemplation, "Well, if you're in another plane, you can't interact with the material plane, so theoretically, no, the shadow can't hurt him."

     "Yeah, if that's even what's happening." Said Mike. "This isn't D & D. This is real life."

     "So what do we do?" Asked Lucas.

     "We acquire more knowledge."

     Miles nodded his head, "I'll go to Will's after school and see what's going on."

     Mike nodded his head, "I'll come with you." 

     He looked at Lucas and Dustin, "You guys should stay here and look for Dart."

     "Dart? What's he got to do with this?" Dustin questioned defensively.

      Miles sighed, "Will said he heard him in the Upside Down. He's got to have something to do with this, sorry Dustin."

     "If we find Dart, maybe we can solve this whole thing." Mike reasoned. "Maybe we can help Will."

---

     JOYCE SIGHED, OPENING THE DOOR SMILING, "HEY, MILES." She looked to the other boy with the same warm smile, "Mike."

     "Is Will here?" Mike asked.

     Joyce's face contorted in discomfort, "I- you know now isn't really a good time."

"Is he okay?" Miles cut in.

     The woman sighed, stepping out onto the porch, shutting the door behind her, "Yeah. You know he's... he's just not feeling real well. He's laying down." She grabbed each boy by the shoulder, leading them off the porch, "I'll tell him you guys stopped by."

     The woman turned to walk back into the house. The boys looked at each other in slight panic. "It's about the shadow monster, isn't it?" Mike questioned.

---

     "IT"S LIKE- IT'S LIKE I FEEL WHAT THE SHADOW MONSTER'S FEELING." Will explained to Miles in his room while Mike and Joyce worked to put each of Will's drawings in the correct place. The boy looked deathly ill and it hurt Miles to see him like this. "See what he's seeing." He finished.

     Miles came to sit next to the boy, "Him in the Upside Down?"

     Will nodded, "Some of him is there. But some of him is here too."

     "Here?" Miles questioned.

     "In this house and... in me." Will began to cry, shaking, "It's like- It's like he's reaching into Hawkins more and more, and the more he spreads, the more connected to him I feel."

     "And the more you see your Now Memories," Miles spoke.

     "At first I just felt it in the back of my head." Will reached up to rub the back of his neck. "I didn't even really know it was there." Miles scooted a few inches closer, looking at the other boy with growing concern. "It's like when you have a dream... and you can't remember it unless you think really hard. It was like that. But now it's like... Now I remember. I remember all the time."

     "What if-" Miles began hesitantly. "What if it's a good thing?"

     "Good?"

     "You're like a superspy; you've got knowledge." He smiled at Will, "You can spy on the shadow monster. If you know everything that's going on with him... maybe we can figure out how to stop him. Maybe this is all happening for a reason." He said hopefully. 

     Will turned to look at the boy, "You really think so?"

     "Yeah. Only the amazing Will The Wise could get a super cool power like that, right?"

     Miles followed Will's shifting gaze to the floor where a picture he'd drawn of the shadow monster lay. "What if he figures out we're spying on him?" The boy spoke fearfully. "What if he spies back?"

     "He won't."

     "How do you know?"

     Miles reached over, pausing hesitantly for a moment before taking Will's trembling hand in his own, shaking his head, "I won't let him. We're not gonna let that happen."

---

     MIKE AND MILES STAYED THE NIGHT, EACH SETTING UP A PLACE TO SLEEP ON THE FLOOR. By the time morning came, Mike lay asleep in his sleeping bag, Will in his bed as Miles paced around the room like he'd been doing all night, a million thoughts keeping him from sleep.

     Will gasped, sitting up straight in bed causing Mike to sit up and Miles to rush to the boy's side, "Hey. Hey, it's okay. It was just a dream." He soothed, rubbing the boy's back. Will nodded, taking in deep breaths as he calmed down. "What happened?" 

     The boy looked Miles straight in the eye, "I saw him." The trio got up, and walking into the living room, Will approached his mother, "Mom." She didn't respond, "Mom. Mom!"

     The woman jumped, turning around, "Yeah?"

     "I saw him."

     "You saw who, baby?"

     "Hopper." He stated, "I think he's in trouble... I think he's going to die." Will stood up straight and went straight back to his room, Mike, Miles, and Joyce following behind. He sat at his desk and began to draw. A minute or so later he laid the crayon down.

     Joyce picked up the drawing, "Is this where you saw Hopper?"

     Will nodded, "I think so, yeah."

     "Okay," Joyce said taking the drawing, everyone but Will left the room to search for where the drawing would go. They each went their separate ways.

     "Here!" Mike shouted from near the refrigerator.

     Joyce placed the drawing, "Okay, so... so Hopper is here?"

     "Yeah." Miles nodded, looking at Mike.

     "Now we just need to find out where here is, right?" The boy spoke.

     "Right." Joyce agreed.

     "Did he say anything?" Mike questioned. "I mean before he left?"

     Joyce huffed, shaking her head, "Uh, some... something about vines?" They heard a vehicle approaching, "Hopper." Joyce said hopefully. They ran to the front of the house only to see it was Bob.

     Joyce went out to talk to him and five minutes later he was inside, overwhelmed as he tried to understand the pictures on the walls. "You drew all these yourself?" Bob asked Will. The boy nodded. "Why, exactly?"

     "I- I told you the rules," Joyce said quickly. "No questions, okay? We- we just need you to help us figure out what..." The woman walked away, turning around as she approached the kitchen, "Bob? Bob!" She called. "Over here. They all moved to the kitchen. The woman drew a large X over the spot Will said Hopper was, "Where this is."

     "That's the objective." Said Mike.

     Miles nodded along, "Find the X."

     "Yeah? What's at the X? Pirate treasure?" Bob laughed.

     "Bob," Joyce said seriously. "No questions."

     "Okay. Let me talk to you for a second." He led Joyce away. "Hang on guys."

     The boys moved, sitting quietly at the table.  A minute later Bob and Joyce came around the corner, the man listing off places as he pointed at different drawings. Bob laughed in triumph when he got back into the kitchen, "Ha! Don't you get it? It's not a puzzle, it's a map. It's a map of Hawkins. Right, Will?" He questioned looking at the boy.

     Will just stared back in awe.

---

     BOB HAD WORKED OUT THE MAP AND THE FIVE WERE NOW IN THE BOB-MOBILE HEADING ABOUT A QUARTER-MILE SOUTHEAST OF DANFORD. Joyce drove with Bob in the passenger seat, Mike behind Joyce and Will behind Bob, and Miles being directly between his two friends in the middle of the back seat. Mike huffed in annoyance, looking out at the miles of empty fields around them, "There's nothing. There's nothing here."

     "Are- are we close?" Joyce asked.

     "We're in the vicinity," Bob responded, head shoved in the map.

     "What's that mean, the vicinity?"

     Bob shrugged, "it means we're close. I don't know. It's not precise."

     Joyce sighed, "But we did all that work."

     "I told you, the scale ratio is not exactly one-to-one. We needed to take-"

     "Turn right," Will said suddenly.

     "What?" Joyce questioned.

     "I saw him." The boy said staring forward at the back of Bob's seat.

     "Where?"

     "Not here!" Will exclaimed. "In my now-memories."

     "In your what?" Bob asked in confusion.

     "Turn right!"

     The woman did as he said, turning right immediately. The car of people screamed as she ran over a sign and a pile of hay bails. They didn't stop screaming until the car came to stop, directly behind Hopper's truck.

     "Are you okay?" Joyce asked nobody in particular.

     Miles huffed in amazement, smiling at the boy beside him, "Superspy."

     "What's Jim doing here?" Bob asked. "Joyce?"

     The woman turned around in her seat, "Boys, I need you to stay here."

     "No." Will quickly shook his head. "Mom, mom, mom, it's not safe."

     "That's why I need you to stay here." She pointed, "Stay here." Joyce and Bob got out of the car, closing their doors behind them.

     The boys sat on the edge of their seats as they waited. Running out of patience, the boys got out of the car, carefully approaching the hole Bob and Joyce had gone into. "Do you see anything?" Mike asked Will. "I mean, in your now memories?"

     Will shook his head. The trio slowly turned as they heard the sound of multiple cars approaching. Scientists from Hawkins Lab piled out of each van, most wearing hazmat suits, a few went down after Joyce, Bob, and Hopper.

     Suddenly Will grabbed his side in pain, crumbling to the ground. Miles fell beside him, "Will? Will! What's wrong?" He asked worriedly. The boy said nothing in response, only continuing to writhe in pain. Miles sat a hand on his shoulder, "Will!" He called with a strained voice, tears stung his eyes not knowing what to do.

     Will flipped over onto his back, shaking violently as he let out an inhuman scream.

---

okay, it's a ways a way but for season 4, should i put miles in California or hawkins? on one hand hawkins brings sadness, trauma, and heartbreak, and on the other California brings love... what r we thinking?

vote and comment or I'll find a way to send demodogs to your house :O

~lee

06/16/2022