"Fear not, for I am with you. Be not dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you. Yes, I will help you. I will uphold you with my righteous right hand."

The Pastor looked up from his bible at the mournful gathering. Sidney wouldn't be lying that she was surprised to see so many people had shown for Will's funeral.

She sat beside her son, who sat by Lucas, Dustin, Mike and his mom in that order.

She blinked blankly at the amounts of roses as the Pastor continued, "It's times like these that our faith is challenged. How, if He is truly benevolent...could God take from us someone so young, so innocent?"

Sidney looked over and notices Jonathan, peering around at the guests and was equally disgusted with the proceeding. She also noticed Nancy who glanced around, she knows that Nancy and Jonathan knows something she doesn't or at least already suspected.

"We are here today to find comfort in the truth of scripture, and to surround Will and his family..."

"Just wait till we tell Will," Dustin whispered towards the boys,l, "that Jennifer Haynes was crying at his funeral."

They all looked over to the crying blonde, the boys gave incredulous looks before being shushed by Mrs. Wheeler. Sidney could only thankfully glance at the boys, though a bit odd why they're not as sad as they would be.

Now the question on if her son was keeping something, started to come into thought.

As people filed away, Sidney immediately got up, "Well as much as I'd like to stay, I have to get going." She turns over to Karen who got up and hugged, "Thank you for allowing Wyatt to stay with you and Mike for a while. I'm sorry for placing this on you."

"It's alright I get it," Karen told her, "You focus on doing what you need to do. I'll take care of Wyatt."

Sidney gave her a smile before biding the kids farewell as the church bell tolled, many others quietly leaving the cemetery for the reception.

Sidney eventually found Jonathan, who led her to Nancy waiting for the two by a black cast iron fence.

"Okay then," Sidney glared at the kids, "You both better have a good reason on how we save the girls. Because if this is some joke, there will be consequences."

"So uh, Barbara and Jesse went to this party with me-"

Sidney sighed, disappointed of Nancy's recent behavior and now it's effecting her daughter and most likely Barb as well. Now they got kidnapped, everything that Sidney had a fear-feeling would happen.

"Please don't blame Jesse, she didn't want to go....I pressured her to do so," Nancy pleaded with her. "I didn't think-"

"Exactly," Sidney spoke calmly, "You didn't think, all you wanted was to go down this path because of an obsession with Steve Harrington and wanted to drag my daughter, you best friend, down with you. Now they're gone and you better hope they're not dead."

A small growl came out of her lips, the Detective having a heart enough to not give the teenager her wraith-like she normally would to others, as Nancy's head lowered, "I...I didn't know they'd stay around for me."

That's what loyalty of friendships do to you

"They were there and one second, they were gone," Jonathan explained to her.

"The other cops think that they ran away," Nancy told her. "And they wouldn't believe us if we told them."

"But you would," Jonathan said, "You've been looking at Will's case and didn't believe he died. So you'd believe us on this."

"And you think there was this form of creature?" Sidney asked, "That abducted my daughter and Barb?"

"And Will," Jonathan said. "The creature that Nancy saw took Barb and Jesse had no face, like flowers with clawed teeth on the face."

Sidney's eyes widened in realization, "The same description your mom claimed."

Jonathan nodded, "Meaning the Will in the funeral was fake,"

"What a surprise," Sidney said sarcastically. "So if Joyce was right in every detail then we have monsters living in our walls."

What's next? Under the bed?

"My mom," Jonathan said, lowering his voice. "I thought she was crazy 'cause she said that's not Will's body. That he's alive. I want to-"

"Apologize later, I understand you Jonathan and I wouldn't believe my mom too if she told me that monsters actually exist, which oooh boy they do," Both she and Jonathan let out a chuckle. "So what do you have."

"Well," Jonathan held out a map to the two females. "This is where we know for sure it's been."

"So that's Harrington's house, and the woods where they found Will's bike, and the Byers's house," Sidney said, pointing to each spot that was marked. "Good work on your strategy kid."

Jonathan smiled at that compliment.

"It's all so close," Nancy realized.

"Yeah, exactly," Jonathan nodded. "I mean, it's all within a mile or something. Whatever this thing is, it's not traveling far."

"You're meaning to go out there," Sidney guessed.

"We might not find anything," Jonathan said.

"I found something," Nancy pointed out. "And if we do see it then what?"

"Stay back and I'll kill it." She told them, who gave her surprise faces. "What? Not like you'd be the type of people to stay behind when I tell you all to let me handle it. And you're my guide to possibly getting to the bottom of this in the meantime."

Jonathan gave a relieved smile, sharing a look with Nancy before they follow Sidney to her car.

"I'll have your car sent over, we'll use mine in the meantime," Sidney told them, unlocking the car before opening the front door.

"This is a terrible idea," Nancy said, crossing her arms over her chest.

"Yeah, well, it's the best we've got," Jonathan reminded her, grabbing the passenger door.

"Feel free to come up with a better plan Wheeler," Sidney popped her head out of the car to face her, "But know that no one else but here is gonna believe you which was why you came to me, right? And because we found out this bit late, seems this is our only best shot."

Nancy sighed, getting inside the car before driving away.

"Oh, hey, there," the teacher said as they approached. "How are you kids holding up?"

Wyatt felt numb but shrugged, "I'm...feeling better....well...we are." He glanced towards Lucas to go along with it.

"Man," Dustin said loudly, looking at his palm. "These aren't real Nilla Wafers."

Inwardly, Wyatt silently nudged him.

"We were wondering if you had time to talk?" Mike asked.

"We have some questions," Lucas elaborated.

"A lot of questions," Mike finished.

"So you know how in Cosmos, Carl talks about other dimensions?" Mike was asking. "Like, beyond our world?"

They were sitting at one of the tables with Mr. Clarke, trying to crack the code of traveling between dimensions without raising any red flags.

"Yeah, sure," Mr. Clarke said. "Theoretically."

"Right, theoretically," Mike agreed.

"So, theoretically," Lucas said next, "how do we travel there?"

"You guys have been thinking about Hugh Everett's Many-Worlds Interpretation, haven't you?" Mr. Clarke asked them.

Wyatt raised his eyebrow, looking over toward Mike and the two in a mutual nervous-state.

"Well, basically," Mr. Clarke stated, "there are parallel universes. Just like our world, but just infinite variations of it. Which means there's a world out there where none of this tragic stuff ever happened."

"Sounds like having cake," Wyatt quipped.

"Yeah, that's not what we're talking about," Lucas said, shaking his head.

"Oh," their teacher said, at a bit of a loss.

"We were thinking of more of an evil dimension," Dustin explained through a mouthful of fake nilla wafers, which disgusted Wyatt. "Like the Vale of Shadows. You know the Vale of Shadows?"

"An echo of the Material Plane, where necrotic and shadow magic-"

"Yeah, exactly," Mike said. "If that did exist, a place like the Vale of Shadows, how would we travel there?"

"Theoretically," Lucas reminded them.

"Well," Mr. Clarke said, pausing for a moment. He picked up the paper plate in front of him and pulled out the one beneath, then took a pen from his jacket. "Picture...an acrobat..."

He drew two lines across the place and a little stick figure on top of it for them to see.

"Standing on a tightrope," he said. "Now the tightrope is our dimension. And our dimension has rules. You can move forwards, or backward. But what if, right next to our acrobat, there is a flea?"

Huh, interesting

"Now, the flea can travel back and forth," he explained. "Just like the acrobat. Right?"

They all made various sounds of an agreement once again.

"Here's where things get really interesting," Mr. Clark then said, holding up a finger. "The flea can also travel this way...along the side of the rope. He can even go...underneath the rope."

"Upside down," All four boys said at once.

"Exactly," Mr. Clarke agreed.

"But we're not the flea, we're the acrobat," Mike pointed out.

Wyatt shrugged, "Makes in a metaphor."

"Correct Jones, yes," Mr. Clarke said. "We're the acrobat."

"So, we can't go upside down?" Lucas asked.

"No."

"Well, is there any way for the acrobat to get to the Upside Down?" Dustin asked, which made Wyatt nearly stammered.

How the hell he has not called them out on their off-choice conversation while at their friend's funeral is beyond him. But he decided not to make any reaction at this point, at least try to, at which he's failing.

"Well, you'd have to create a massive amount of energy," Mr. Clarke said, still in his teacher mode. "More than humans are capable of creating, mind you, to open up some kind of tear in time and space, and then..."

He picked up the plate again and folded it in half before stabbing it through with his own. "You create a doorway."

"Like a gate?" Dustin suggested.

"Sure, like a gate. But again, this is all-"

"Theoretical," Lucas nodded.

"But..." Mike started. "But what if this gate already existed?"

"Well, if it did," Mr. Clark mused. "I...I think we'd know. It would disrupt gravity, the magnetic field, and our environment. Heck, it might even swallow us up whole."

All of the kids shifted in their seats, exchanging glances.

"Science is neat," their teacher said. "But I'm afraid it's not very forgiving."

"Yeah," Wyatt said, trying his best to keep his voice from shaking, "We can tell."