What is this place?!

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Dedication: Foodismypriority LY!

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The two boys sat in mikes basement sporting mixed looks of confusion and sallowness. Their Halloween candy was laid out in front of them in a messy scattered pile on a coffee table where they had dumped it only minutes before. Many action figures laced shelf's off to their right while retro movie posters hung on numerous places off to the left and the entire room felt cosy and familiar.

They still wore the ghostbusters costumes but had discarded the accessories long ago. There was an awkward silence that was only disturbed by the slow heavy breathing of the two. At first, Mike had made sure that Will was okay by pestering him repeatedly with multiple questions. Will obliged to answering but Mike could see that the boy didn't want to speak so he hadn't elaborated any further.

"It's like... like I'm stuck" Will attempted to explain after Mike had made it evident that he wanted some sort of justification.

"Like stuck in the upside-down? Mike asked egging his friend on.

"No" he sighed while trying to think of a way to simplify the things he'd seen. "you know on a view master when it gets like..." he paused looking for the right words but Mike understood.

"Caught between two slides?"

"Yeah, Yeah. Like that." Will confirmed. "like one sides our world and the other... the other slide is the upside-down." he looked at Mike to make sure he was following every word. "And- And there was this noise coming from everywhere and then I saw something."

"The Demogorgon?"

"No. It was like, this huge shadow in the sky, only it was alive and it was coming for me" Will said.

"Is this all real? or is it like the doctors say, all in your head?" Mike asked cautiously.

"I don't know... I just..." he trailed off. A pause of silence followed but was disturbed when Will lifted his head suddenly, remembering something."but, but"

"Will, what is it? what's wrong?" Mike asked worriedly.

"Joey"

"Joey? what? what about Joey?"

"he was there, I saw him. I-I talked to him!"Will stammered.

"in the upsidedown?"Mike asked.

"Well yeah, kind of. He called my name and he saw the monster too. He told me to run that's why we were both behind the wall when you found us."

"Do you think he's been in the upside-down before? Maybe he could help you" Mike pondered aloud.

"I guess it might have been part of it all-I probably imagined him there but I-I was sure he was talking to me." Will sighed, defeated. "Just please don't tell the others, okay? They just won't understand."

Mike nodded and then proceeded to talk to Will. it was like a therapy session for both of them and sort of made them feel better in the end.

"I dunno, sometimes I feel like I'm going crazy"

"me too."

Mike looked at Will after he had spoken."Hey, well, if we're both going crazy, then we'll go crazy together, right?"

Will chuckled lowly "yeah. crazy together."

ØØØØØ

It still hurt. To blink, to speak, to lay, to do anything. Joey's head banged like there was no tomorrow, not that he could see himself surviving past that evening. The pain in his temple near blinded him as he tried to blink open his eyes. Sweat poured down his reddening face as he heaved his head to look at his sister as she walked in with a fresh pack of frozen vegetables.

"Lay back down dumbass"Fri said as she took a seat beside his bed.

Reluctantly he allowed his head contact with his boiling pillow. The cold surface of the frozen packet was rested gently on his sweat ridden forehead by Fria. Sighing in relief he closed his eyes once more.

"Not letting you go that quickly," She said reluctantly, trying to get some sort of information out of Joey.

Joey sighed in pain and discomfort as he shifted his position in his bed again. "What the hell happened back there?" Fria asked earnestly.

"I don't know really. I just saw Will like, freaking out, so I went to talk to him, to see if he was alright" he gulped. "you know?"

Fria nodded her head in a way that told him just keep going.

"and-ugh, when I got to him I accidentally read him" Joey muttered quickly in shame.

"Joey!"His sister said, punching him on his shoulder but only a tad. He yelped in pain but Fria thought he deserved it. In the twin's dictionary 'reading someone' was when Joseph entered someone mental state in times of stress, worry, anger, euphoria or just in general.

This meant that on occasions when he let down his cognitive barrier the person that he was 'reading' could see him. It was a strict rule between the two that he could not do it in public or with people who didn't know about them.

"I didn't mean to! I just looked at him and I was in a different world" he defended tending to his sore shoulder.

"How could you 'not mean to'" Fria said making the apostrophe markings mid-air with her fingers.

"Why would I want to even if I did! It was dark and there was this shadow-in the sky and I-it had legs and-and"Joey shouted trying to remember every horrifying detail.

He continued to mutter mix of all of the descriptions he had evaluated in his head that night.

"Joe, Joey?" She said latching onto his shoulders. "It's okay, calm down. What do you mean by 'different world'?"

He stopped his muttering and looked up at Fria. "Can I show you?"

"Go for it bud"

Joey grabbed his sister's cold hand and laced it on his own. She waited patiently for him to find the right memory. A sudden jolt of energy shot through her hand like the rapid growth of electricity through your pain receptors when you get shocked by an electric fence. It reached her eyes and her head jolted back violently as her eyes shone white. It didn't hurt at all but everything felt numb and unreal.

An image played in front of her eyes, like a movie. The area was an exact copy of her world but it also wasn't. Dust molecules floated in the air that made it particularly hard to see. Everything had a blue kind of tinge to it except the sky which blazed bright red.

In the perspective of Joey, she spotted Will standing up. She shouted something at him and he responded confused.

Still looking at the memory unfolding, Fria spoke up. "Joey, what is this place?"

While Joey concentrated hard on keeping his sister inside his recollection he replied. "I don't know but it definitely isn't Hawkins".

The memory played and Fria's eyes got wider every minute. Question after question followed until she spotted herself shaking Joey out of his daze.

She was snapped back to their room where her brother flopped back onto his single bed, exhausted. "Do you think Will remembers seeing you? She whispered, slightly shaken after the event.

"Well I'd say so, but he couldn't track it to my powers. Could he?" Joey asked doubtfully.

"No, I don't know where or what that place was but he doesn't know anyone from the lab. Right?