"Listen to the wind blow, watch the sunrise
Running in the shadows, damn your love, damn your lies"

The Chain
By Fleetwood Mac (1977)

Valerie and the rest waited at the gate as Jonathan and Nancy drove up to the lab to check it out and to see if Mike and Will were up there. Valerie stood next to Steve in the middle of the road. She softly rested her head against his shoulder as her eyes fluttered, struggling to keep them open from exhaustion. "Guys?" Max said softly causing the group to look up the road and see the cars zooming towards them. Steve quickly yanked Valerie to the side causing her to headbutt his chest and groan. "Sorry," Steve said causing her to hold her head and shake her head.

"Come on, let's go!" Chief Hopper drove up besides them and shouted at them causing all of them to jump into the car with Valerie behind Steve's seat. They all drove to the Byer's home where they all ended up in different rooms with Jonathan and Nancy next to Will who was unconscious on the couch. Joyce sat in one of the bedrooms whilst Hopper was on the phone and the rest of the kids sat at the dining room table. Valerie and Steve lent on a kitchen counter, Valerie biting her nails as a nervous habit. It had been a hard night for everyone and Valerie was just praying that they would live to see another day.

"Hey, it's going to be okay," Steve said putting his arm over her shoulders and slowly moving his hand up and down her arm. This usually would make her heart flutter, but as she looked up at Steve, she only saw him staring sadly at Nancy who had her hand on Jonathan's shoulder. "They didn't believe you, did they?" She heard Dustin say to a frustrated Hopper who had just hung up the phone by slamming it down. "We'll see." The Chief simply said causing Mike to lose his mind a little bit. There was no doubt in her mind that no one would believe the chief. Creatures running around Hawkins sounded like a prank any kid would tell the cops. "'We'll see?' We can't just sit here while those things are loose!"

"We stay here, and we wait for help." With those words, Hopper ended the conversation by walking out of the room leaving everyone in silence. "Did you guys know that Bob was the original founder of Hawkins AV?" Valerie had been briefed on what had happened to Bob in Hawkins lab. When she was in Middle School, she was in the AV club before passing along Dustin and the boys everything she knew but she never knew about Bob. "Really?" Lucas asked quietly. "He petitioned the school to start it and everything. Then he had a fundraiser for equipment. Mr. Clarke learned everything from him. Pretty awesome, right? We can't let him die in vain." Mike's speech gave all of them inspiration. Valerie stood up and walked out of Steve's grip, leaning on the back of Dustin's chair instead.

"What do you want to do about it, Mike?" She asked before her brother looked at her confused. "The Chief's right on this. We can't stop those Demo-dogs on our own." Valerie smiled at the nickname that Dustin had given them. "Demo-dogs?" Max questioned causing Dustin to get a bit flustered. "Demogorgon dogs. Demo-dogs. It's like a compound. It's like a play on words--" Valerie loved seeing her brother all flustered over a girl. It was adorable. "Okay." She said causing him to stop and look at his hand, a faint blush rising to his cheeks. Valerie smirked and patted his head causing him to wave his hand at her in annoyance. "I mean, when it was just Dart, maybe--"

"But there's an army now." Lucas summed up causing the Valerie to inaudibly sigh out and make her way back next to Steve at the kitchen counter. "His army." Valerie furrowed her eyebrows and leaned her head on Steve's shoulder causing his eyes to soften as the fluttered down to her. She looked so soft and exhausted. She didn't deserve this. "What do you mean?" Steve asked causing Valerie to lean slightly forward until she could see Mike's wide-eyed expression on his face. "His army. Maybe if we stop him, we can stop his army, too." Valerie's eyes widened as she played the concept over in her head. Mike ran and grabbed a picture of what Dustin had informed her was nicknamed the shadow monster.

"The shadow monster." Dustin grabbed the drawing away from so he and the rest could see it better. Valerie felt Steve looking over her shoulder causing her to shrink down a bit so he could see. "It got Will that day on the field. The doctor said it was like a virus, it infected him." The kids talked fast whilst the older teens observed their train of thought, nowhere near as smart as them. Valerie had pretty much-failed biology. One of her worst subjects along with maths. She knew tech and board games and that was it. She was only okay at the sciences.

"And so this virus, it's connecting him to the tunnels?" Max asked causing Mike to nod frantically. "To the tunnels, monsters, the Upside Down, everything." Valerie was starting to understand what they were talking about, but Steve was still behind. "Whoa. Slow down. Slow down." Steve said his eyes wide as he tried to grasp the concept. "Speak English," Valerie commented causing Mike to sigh and roll his eyes as they tried to keep up with this information. "Okay, so, the shadow monster's inside everything. And if the vines feel something like pain, then so does Will." Valerie put her hand over her mouth as she became shocked by what they were describing. "And so does Dart."

"Yeah. Like what Mr. Clarke taught us. The hive mind." Valerie did remember the basic concept of the hive mind so it wasn't that hard for her to grasp the concept. "Hive mind?" Steve asked, still not following along. Valerie may have done bad at science but she wasn't nearly as bad at school as Steve. "A collective consciousness. It's a super-organism." Dustin quietly explained to Steve. "And this is the thing that controls everything. It's the brain." Valerie's eyes widened as she locked eyes with her brother, both coming to the same exact conclusion."Like the mind flayer." They said at the same thing causing those unfamiliar with Dungeons and Dragons to become extremely confused.

"The mind flayer." The group in the kitchen had gathered everyone to the table in there as Dustin brought out Will's Monster manual and laid it out. Now, Valerie knew all about this. This was her shit. "What the hell is that?" Hooper commented resulting in Dustin giving further explanation. "It's a monster from an unknown dimension. It's so ancient that it doesn't even know its true home. Okay, it enslaves races of other dimensions by taking over their brains using its highly-developed psionic powers." Dustin seemed convinced that this was what it was, but Hopper shook his head and pointed out the obvious. "Oh, my God, none of this is real. This is a kids' game." He had a point there, but they had no other analogy for the shadow monster.

"No, it's a manual. And it's not for kids. And unless you know something that we don't, this is the best metaphor--" Dustin argued until Lucas interrupted him to correct him. "Analogy," Lucas commented causing everyone to turn their heads and look at him. Valerie was almost over this shit as she was too tired and hadn't had a coffee. "Analogy? That's what you're worried about? Fine. An analogy for understanding whatever the hell this is." Valerie wanted to laugh at the situation they were in, but instead contained herself and had a small smile go on her face.

"Okay, so this mind flamer thing--" Nancy asked, looking through the pages of the manual. "Flayer. Mind flayer." Dustin corrected her causing Nancy to sigh. "What does it want?" Valerie sighed as she thought hard about what they were up against. Yeah, it probably wasn't a Mind Flayer but it seemed close to it. "To conquer us, basically. It believes it's the master race." "Like the Germans?" Steve commented causing everyone to look at him like he was an idiot. "Uh, the Nazis?" Dustin corrected him causing Steve to stutter and nod. "Yeah, yeah, yeah, the Nazis." Valerie slowly patted his shoulder before noticing Nancy staring at her. She quickly shoved her hand into her pocket and focused back on her brother. "Uh. If the Nazis were from another dimension, totally. Uh, it views other races, like us, as inferior to itself."

"It wants to spread, take over other dimensions." Valerie was freaking out as they explained it further "We are talking about the destruction of our world as we know it." As the boys went on, Valerie noticed everyone starting to slowly freak out little by little like her. "That's great. That's great. That's really great. Jesus!" Steve went into full-on freak out mode causing Valerie to give him a reassuring smile. He returned it with his own and walked back next to her, his hands beginning to become clammy as he thought about the situation. "Okay, so if this thing is like a brain that's controlling everything, then if we kill it."

"We kill everything it controls," Mike told his sister who held the book up next to Valerie. Valerie glanced over at it and quickly read the description for it. "We win." Valerie gasped with a smile on her face. She knew it wasn't quite that simple but she just prayed that it might be. "Theoretically." Lucas put a damper on the tiny victory they got from understanding it, but Valerie was still happy. "Great. So how do you kill this thing? Shoot it with Fireballs or something?" Hopper grabbed the book and started frantically flipping through the pages.

"No. No, no Fire No Fireballs. Uh, you summon an undead army, uh, because-because zombies, you know, they don't have brains, and the mind flayer, it-it-It likes brains. It's just a game. It's a game." Everyone sighed as Hopper slammed the book on the table before pacing back. "What the hell are we doing here?" Valerie smiled at Dustin, reassuringly as he tried to come up with something else. "I thought we were waiting for your military backup," Dustin commented causing Valerie to scoff loudly. "Not likely"

"We are!" Hopper glared at Valerie causing her to put her hands up and back away. "How are they gonna stop this? You can't just shoot this with guns." The kids began arguing with Hopper and Valerie was getting more confused than ever. "You don't know that! We don't know anything!" he defended his tactics and even if Valerie believed Hopper was right, she stayed silent. She did not want to get on anyone's bad side on this already hellish night. "We know it's already killed everybody in that lab," Mike shouted at Hopper who was become visibly more annoyed. "We know the monsters are gonna molt again." Lucas backed up Mike. "We know that it's only a matter of time before those tunnels reach this town." Dustin added before it was silent for a moment.

"They're right. We have to kill it. I want to kill it." Valerie's heart broke as she watched the disgruntled Joyce come out for the first time since Bob had died. The mother had almost lost her son and still might. She had lost Bob, the man who loved her and her family despite the craziness of it all."Me, too. Me, too, Joyce, okay? But how do we do that? We don't exactly know what we're dealing with here." Hopper comforted her before they all turned to Mike who walked up next to Will."No. But he does. If anyone knows how to destroy this thing, it's Will. He's connected to it. He'll know its weakness."

"I thought we couldn't trust him anymore. That he's a spy for the mind flayer now." Valerie commented causing Mike to turn to them and give them their solution. "Yeah, but he can't spy if he doesn't know where he is." The answer to their problem became that they would go and make sure that they covered the Byers' shed to make sure that Will didn't recognize it. It was a little flawed but it might just work. For half an hour, everyone made sure to put scraps of paper over all of the walls, making the Byer's shed unrecognizable. By the end of it, every surface was taped and Will was tied to a pole in the middle. They were in the endgame now.

I am really trying to get this done soon because I have new classes over the next two weeks and I probably won't be able to write as often as I would like but I really will try to get another update out after this one in the next 24 hours. This chapter I'll admit was pre shitty. More or less a filler chapter if I ever saw one.

Thanks, Queenie.

(EDITED)