the super spy

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After school, Alina and Mike separated from the others and made their way to Alina's house. Alina thought it was quite strange to be out here with just him, and she realized that what she'd thought earlier had been true; she and Mike didn't spend that much one-on-one time together. It was peculiar, the friends you had that you never talked to when they were apart from the others, and both of the young teenagers felt that peculiarity as they made their way to Alina's house. As she got closer and closer, Alina's heart thudded more and more, and she had a sinking suspicion that whatever she would find at home was not good. But she forced herself to keep pedaling.

They arrived back home in good time, and Alina stopped to tie her shoes. While she was looping one bunny ear over another, she heard the telltale sound of Mike knocking on the door and stood up in confusion. "Will!" he was calling. "Mrs. Byers?"

Alina just rolled her eyes, pulling out the spare key from the pouch in her backpack. "Mike, you dumbass, I live here," she chuckled, before sobering up at the look on Mike's face. He was a lot more worried about Will than he had even let on today. And in his big brown eyes—puppy dog eyes, as Dustin had once referred to them as—she could see the fear in them. And so she stopped smiling.

Before she could put her keys in the door, however, it opened, revealing a frazzled-looking Joyce. Her face softened at the sight of the two kids standing on the porch. "Hey, Mike. Hi, Alina."

"Is Will here?" Mike immediately asked.

"You know what?" Joyce said. "Now is not a really good time."

"Is he okay?" Alina questioned, taking a step forward. Her heart began to pound harder.

Joyce breathed out a sigh, moving forward and closing the door behind her. "Yeah. You know, he's... he's not feeling real well. He's laying down, so I'll tell him you stopped by, okay? And Alina... how about you go to Lucas's for a while? You know, you don't want to be catching his..."

But Alina and Mike didn't move. "It's about the shadow monster," said Mike suddenly, and Joyce startled, "isn't it?"

"Did things get worse?" Alina added.

Joyce turned back to face them. Her jaw hardened. "Alright," she said finally. "Come on in."

And so the two stepped inside, and Alina could immediately tell one of the reasons Joyce had been reluctant to let them in. Nearly every inch of the house was papered with drawings. They were taped to the walls, they littered the ground, and they were spread across the furniture. Alina looked around wildly, her eyebrows knitting together in confusion as she stared at them.

They were mostly in blues and blacks, and they seemed erratically done, as if a four-year-old had gone at it with a crayon. But they were all connected, forming strange lines that twisted and forked, reminding her of lightning, but for some reason, Alina knew it wasn't. And even stranger, there was a faint glimmer of recognition inside of her when she stared at them, as if she knew what they were. Even though she'd never seen this in her entire life.

Joyce explained that this was what Will had been seeing for the past day, his now-memories, as they called them. Images that seemed to be at the back of his head, like they were old, but he knew they were happening now. She said he could feel them everywhere, taking over Hawkins, conquering and killing. The sight of them made shivers run down Alina's spine. Will had definitely gotten worse.

The Will Byers in question was currently sitting on the bottom bunk of the bed, his face contorted, his hair damp with sweat, his collar drenched with it. He didn't look good, not at all. Even Skywalker seemed to know to stay away from him, the quirky cat currently kneading the carpet in Joyce's room, letting out loud meows whenever Will left the safety of their room. Will's face was even paler than before, and as Mike paced the room, tracing his fingers over the drawings, it happened again.

Alina's mind split, and suddenly she was both standing at the door and sitting on the bed. She could feel the heat in this room, and it cut at her insides, her head (heads?) immediately breaking into sweats. And she wasn't just in this room. She could see herself everywhere yet again, but she knew what she was seeing wasn't her own thoughts. She knew the voices—all of those voices, all coming at once! —weren't her own. But instead of being afraid, Alina thought it was peaceful. She was no longer alone. She was one of something much bigger than herself. And so she festered.

Then she shot back into her own body, and wobbled, her hand gripping the side of the door. Blinking wildly, Alina gazed around her bedroom, but everything seemed to be normal, if not a little hot. She looked down to find that she was sweating, too, and she knotted her hair into a ponytail again, pulling off her sweater. Goosebumps rose on her bare arms.

"Al?" Mike questioned. "You okay?"

Alina shook her head to clear it. "Yeah, I'm fine," she said, even though things were certainly not fine. Just looking at Will made her stomach twist, but she had no idea why, and she could no longer deny that something was happening to her. Something that wasn't normal. "Will, can you just... tell us what you feel?"

"It's like... it's like I feel what the shadow monster is feeling," Will explained. "See what he's seeing." Alina could see, even from here, that the hairs on the back of his neck had risen. Slowly, she moved away from the door—which she was clutching hard, still feeling ill—and sat beside him on the bed. She put a cautious hand on his shoulder to find that Will was freezing cold. And yet sweat still poured from him.

Mike turned away from the drawings he was inspecting to look at his friend. "Like in the Upside Down?" he asked.

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

"Here, like, in this house?"

"In this house and in me." Will suddenly turned to look at Alina and Mike. "And I also feel him in—" before he could get whatever he was going to say out, however, he snapped his mouth shut, shaking his head. More sweat ran down his forehead. "Never mind."

"What were you going to say?" Alina asked.

"It's like... it's like he's reaching into Hawkins more and more," said Will, and Mike came over to sit on the other side of him. "And the more he spreads, the more connected to him I feel."

"And the more you see these now-memories," Mike said.

"At first I just felt it in the back of my head," said Will. He reached a shaking hand to his neck. "I didn't even really know it was there. 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..." his jaw clenched. "Now I remember. I remember all the time." He was trembling, and he wouldn't meet Alina's eyes. She had a feeling there was something he was hiding from her.

"Maybe... maybe that's good," said Mike suddenly, and her head snapped to face his.

"Good?" Alina and Will asked at the same time.

"Just think about it, Will. You're like a spy now. A superspy. Spying on the shadow monster. If you know what he's seeing and feeling... maybe that's how we can stop him." He looked around at the drawings papering their room. "Maybe all of this is happening for a reason."

"Yeah," said Alina, cheered by Mike's idea. "You can find his weaknesses. What he's afraid of, or what can kill him, and then we can do just that. We'll get you out of this, Will. We promise."

"You really think so?" Will asked.

Mike nodded. "Yeah. Yeah, I really do."

"Me too," Alina added.

Suddenly, Will's gaze moved to a drawing that was lying on his night table, and Alina's eyes instinctively followed. She let out a sharp gasp when she realized what it was. It was the drawing Joyce was talking about yesterday. It was the same shape as the rough sketch she'd shown them, but this rendition of the shadow monster was done in black. It had the same jutting limbs Alina had seen in her dream and on the field, and behind it, red lightning crackled, dark, heavy clouds conjugating above it. It was almost a replica of her dream.

True Sight, she reminded herself. Perhaps it also worked in dreams. But given all of the things that had been happening to her in the past couple of days... what if it was something else? All of this wasn't normal. Eleven had never gone through anything like what Alina was suffering. The heat flashes, the mind splitting, the collapsing, the sharp pains... what if it wasn't True Sight at all? What if it was—

Just as she thought that, something locked into place inside of Alina, and it banished the thought from her mind. Alina found herself blinking, looking around the room, wondering what she'd just been thinking about. But, as usual, the thought faded. She wouldn't worry. This sort of thing happened all the time. What really mattered now was comforting Will.

"What if he figures out we're spying on him?" Will asked. He was still trembling unnaturally. He sniffed. "What if he spies back?"

"He won't," said Mike fiercely.

"How do you know?"

Mike put his hand over Will's. "We won't let him."

"We're not going to let another monster take you," said Alina, her eyes blazing fiercely. "Not after last year. It was bad enough last year, when I didn't know you, but this year..." she clenched her fists, her eyes narrowing. "I'd like to see this son of a bitch try. Because I'm not going to let anything bad happen to any of us. Not again. Not after last year." She couldn't help but think of Eleven. It felt like forever since she'd been friends with the telekinetic girl, but that didn't heal the hole in her heart. Alina looked to the right of Mike, and she could almost picture her sitting there, in her pink dress and with her shaved head, a trickle of blood running from her nose.

Eleven would know what's happening to me. She knew what was happening from the very beginning. She could feel it. She could feel that I had abilities. Alina closed her eyes. I miss you, El. I miss you, dad.

Almost a year had gone by since Brandon Fairgrieves had died, and that was why Alina looked up to the ceiling now. She was almost surprised to find it unmarred by the drawings, but glad, in a way. She could almost pretend it was the ceiling of her old house, that her dad was in the room next door, that they were planning to have a movie marathon tonight. She could almost pretend things were normal, even though things had never been more different.

Gabriel Burton stared up at his own ceiling and pretended the same thing. That he was still in Chicago, that he and his dad were still okay, that he didn't have the scars striping his stomach. He could almost pretend like he was ten years old again—innocent, a boy who knew he was loved, a boy who had friends he knew cared about him. A boy who had a life where he knew what he was going to do.

A journalist, he imagined. He'd be a great one, too.

But then everything just had to happen. But then William Byers had to enter his life, and so did Alina and Dart. But then he had to be so confused. But then he had to question whether or not he was normal like he always thought he was. But then he had to wonder whether or not he was going to go to hell.

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a/n: okay i am very zoned out right now so i didn't really look at this chapter fully, so it's probably not the best, but here you go! also, i think mad'ouk week is finished by now, but i'm probably just gonna keep uploading chapter every day regardless, until we reach certain chapters, i guess. 

'till next time!