↣ 𝘕𝘦𝘳𝘥 𝘎𝘢𝘮𝘦𝘴

Will appeared pale, unwell, and entirely different, which made Bailey's stomach lurch as she stood besides the kitchen, watched by everyone. Even though Hopper was arguing with another cop on the phone, nobody was buying their narrative.

"I don't know how many people are there! I don't know how many people are left alive!"He continued to fight into the phone despite the fact that the woman on the other end was clearly not paying attention.

As Steve noticed that Bailey appeared to be completely absorbed in his thoughts, he recalled their previous chat and realised that the truth was staring him in the face. The truth was that Bailey was the one his heart desires, but he couldn't get the boy he wanted.

As his pulse raced, Steve's body longed for the gentle caress of Bailey. But it's really improper to love a boy and feel that way, isn't it?

"They didn't believe you, did they?" Dustin questioned as hopper hung up the phone.

"We'll see." Hopper responded.

"We'll see"? We can't just sit here while those things are loose!" Mike exclaimed out loud.

"We stay here, and we wait for help." Hopper spoke firmly before moving around them to go talk to Joyce.

"So, you're the wealthy kid everyone's talking about?" Bailey, taken off guard by the question, looked over at Max as she spoke.

He remarked, "My parents are wealthy, but I'm not." He questioned whether his parents were concerned about his whereabouts. "One day, I hope to show you my house, which is currently undergoing renovations. When they're done, I hope they'll begin working on the garden. It must be fixed."

Steve listened to him; perhaps he would follow through on it. Bailey enjoys being shown that he is loved and that he wants a partner that genuinely cares for him. After all of this, he mentally noted that he would demonstrate that he was prepared to fix himself.

"Did you guys know that Bob was the original founder of Hawkins AV?" They all turned to look at Mike, who was holding a box when he asked. Some members of the group were devastated by Bob's news. Although Bailey only recently learned who he was, he appeared like a great man.

"Really?"

"He petitioned the school to start it and everything. Then he had a fund-raiser for equipment. Mr. Clarke learned everything from him. Pretty awesome, right?" He turned to face the gathering and said.

"Yeah." Lucas and Dustin said at the same time.

Mike approached the table and set the cube down on it. "We can't let him die in vain."

"What do you want to do, Mike?" Dustin asked tensely. "The Chief's right on this. We can't stop those Demo-dogs on our own."

"Demo-dogs?" Max asked confused.

"Demogorgon" he said placing one hand up. "dogs." He then placed the other hand up and placed them together. "Demo-dogs. It's like a compound. It's like a play on words..."

"Okay" Max answered.

"I mean, when it was just Dart, maybe..."

"But there's an army now." Lucas continued.

"Precisely." Dustin said.

"His army." Mike announces as they looked at him.

"What do you mean?" Steve questioned as he looked over at the young boy.

"His army...Maybe if we stop him, we can stop his army, too." Mike turned and entered Will's room, the final bedroom along the corridor. Max, Dustin, and Lucas all followed him right away. Steve followed Bailey as they entered the bedroom after walking down the hallway.

Another of Will's drawings was in Mike's hand. The scene was a roadway with a forest in the distance. There was a big black shadow in the sky. It resembled a spider with its tall head, slender body, and eight legs. Red fog, red lightning, and dark grey clouds surrounded the creature.

"The shadow monster." Dustin said.

"It got Will that day on the field." Mike continues. "The doctor said it was like a virus, it infected him."

"And so this virus, it's connecting him to the tunnels?" Max inquires.

"To the tunnels, to the monsters, to the Upside Down, everything."

"Whoa. Slow down. Slow down." Steve says as he tries to make sense of everything.

"Okay, so, the shadow monster's inside everything." Mike explained to them. "And if the vines feel something like pain, then so does Will."

"And so does Dart." Lucas added

"Yeah. Like what Mr. Clarke taught us...the hive mind."

"Hive mind?" Steve asked confused.

Dustin turned to face him. "A collective consciousness. It's a super-organism."

"And this is the thing that controls everything. It's the brain." Mike said as he pointed to the drawing.

"Like the mind flayer." Dustin says as his eyes widened by the realisation.

Dustin went to get a DND book, and Bailey's shoulders shrank when he saw where this was going.

𐬽𐬼𐬽

A book that Dustin had set on the table had been opened to a certain section as animals were drawn across it. Although Bailey loved books and imagination and could talk about them for hours, he found this kind of fantasy to be a little unsettling.

"The mind flayer." Dustin announced as he looked around the table.

"What the hell is that?" Hopper inquired.

"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."

"Oh, my God, none of this is real. This is a kids' game." Hopper said not believing them.

"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 says as he trailed off.

"Analogy." Lucas continued

Dustin only glanced at him. "Analogy? That's what you're worried about? Fine. An analogy for understanding whatever the hell this is."

"Okay, so this mind flamer thing..." Nancy questioned.

"Flayer." Dustin corrected her. "Mind flayer."

"What does it want?" Nancy asks with a shake of her head.

"To conquer us, basically. It believes it's the master race." Dustin responded.

"Like the Germans?" Steve inquired.

Dustin simply looked at Steve. "Uh, the Nazis?"

"Yeah, yeah, yeah, the Nazis," Steve agreed.

"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," Mike added.

"We are talking about the destruction of our world as we know it," Lucas stated.

Nancy lifted the book to examine it more closely after glancing down at the Mind Flayer's photo. "Okay, so if this thing is like a brain that's controlling everything, then if we kill it-"

"We kill everything it controls," Mike finished.

"We win," Dustin replied.

"Theoretically," Lucas said.

"Great, so how do you kill this thing?" Hopper questioned. "Shoot it with Fireballs or something?"

"No, no, no, no Fire - no Fireballs," Dustin responded. "Uh, you summon an undead army, uh, because zombies, you know, they don't - they don't have brains, and the Mind Flayer, it likes brains." He saw the way Dustin noticed Hopper's glare of annoyance, "It's just a game. It's a game."

Hopper threw the book down on the table. "What the hell are we doing here?"

"I thought we were waiting for your military backup."

"We are!"

"How are they gonna stop this?" Mike argues throwing something onto the table. "You can't just shoot this with gun."

"You don't know that!" Hopper argued back at them. "We don't know anything!"

"We know it's already killed everybody in that lab." Mike reminded him.

"We know the monsters are gonna molt again." Lucas spoke up.

"We know that it's only a matter of time before those tunnels reach this town." Dustin finished.

"They're right." When everyone turned around, they saw Joyce standing in the corridor, her face displaying heartbreak over the loss of a loved one. But she was determined to put an end to this, and her eyes were filled with rage.

"We have to kill it. I want to kill it."

Hopper approached her gently. "Me, too, Joyce, okay? But how do we do that? We don't exactly know what we're dealing with here."

"No." After saying that, Mike got up and walked up to Will, who was sedated on the couch." but he does. if anyone knows how to destroy this thing, it's will. he's connected to it. he'll know it's weaknesses."

"i thought we couldn't trust him anymore," As the group gathered Mike in front of Will, Max said, perplexed. "that he's a spy for the mind flayer now."

"Yeah, but he can't spy if he doesn't know where he is."

────────────────────────

𝗔𝘂𝘁𝗵𝗼𝗿'𝘀 𝗡𝗼𝘁𝗲𝘀

- Steve is so close to truly admitting his feelings for Bailey we are so close. But does Bailey feel the same way or is someone truly in the way

To all the people that have supported me closely- Tags: @norasnetflix @wrensofvizla @KleeAlise11 @kiesluverr

𝘸𝘦𝘭𝘭 𝘐 𝘩𝘰𝘱𝘦 𝘵𝘰 𝘴𝘦𝘦 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘪𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘯𝘦𝘹𝘵 𝘶𝘱𝘥𝘢𝘵e