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━━━━ " 📂  "

𝙋 𝘼 𝙍 𝘼 𝘿 𝙄 𝙎 𝙀

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THE SUN WAS FALLING QUICKLY NOW, thrust forward by the quickly approaching winter, and the group of five worked hurriedly to prepare the junkyard to set their trap and secure the bus. Piles of old metal were attached against the faded yellow, larger sheets used to barricade the door, old oil drums rolled over to build up the protection around them, a ladder hauled up through the open skylight, old fencing protecting the windows, tires pulled onto the roof through a factory-line set up to create safety on the low top of the bus, gasoline poured from the pile of meat to the door, ready to set alight when Dart appeared.

And then, when the sun had left the sky and only the dark blue light cast shadows over the world, they made their way into the bus and closed the once automated doors behind them with the system Sadie had managed to rig extremely quickly merely for that purpose. Lucas had nominated himself to take position as look-out on the roof and he climbed up with his binoculars and wrist-rocket with adequate rocks for safety, settling there.

Dustin remained standing, but Max chose one of the old seats, Steve sat down near the door and Sadie on the edge of the steps by him, back pressed against the old leather seat the driver would have once sat on but she was too afraid too - it was most certainly rotting, and she had no idea where the stains had come from.

"The gasoline was a nice touch." Sadie interrupted the tense silence that had fallen within the bus as they awaited any signs of movement. The book in her hands and the miniature flashlight she kept attached to her keychain fell loose as she turned attention elsewhere.

"Yeah - I - er I know you didn't mention it, but I thought of it when I was out getting the meat." Steve replied. "After what happened with Jonathan last year, I kinda thought it would be a good idea just in case." From his pocket emerged a lighter Sadie recognised and he began flicking it, the only sound in the bus even as Dustin paced.

The toes of their shoes were almost touching and their eyes met in the half-darkness before darting away, a small smile hidden on Steve's face as he continued to flick his lighter. Dustin came to a stop, crouching down beside Steve. "Eyes off my sister." He hissed, before standing and continuing his pacing, Sadie's gaze narrowing towards Dustin before returning to her book, flashlight steadily moving over each page..

"So you really fought one of these things before?" Max couldn't quite understand what was going on between the three of them but instead turned her attention to the bat that had carefully been extracted from Sadie's bag and was now sitting on one side of the Harrington. 

The lighter clicked again, remaining alight as Steve nodded. "And you're, like, totally 100% sure it wasn't a bear?"

"Shit." Dustin exclaimed and eyes were on him. "Don't be an idiot, okay? It wasn't a bear. Why are you even here if you don't believe us. Just go home."

Sadie's eyebrows raised. "It was too slimy to be a bear." She told the younger girl, a lot kinder than Dustin had been. "Bears haven't been spotted in the state for over a hundred years."

"And you fought it too, right?" Max's eyes flickered over to the girl then Steve, pointedly. "With him?"

"It attacked me, dragged me under and Steve saved me with his bat." Sadie nodded. "I was your regular damsel in distress."

"I mean, I wouldn't put it down to that. If it was Jonathan who had been grabbed you would have easily been able to save him." Steve shrugged. "But it wasn't a bear... like Dustin said."

"Yeah. And if you still don't believe us you can go home." Dustin repeated, harsh words cutting through the silence and Max stood up, eyebrows raised and clearly amused.

"Geesh." Max scoffed, heading towards the ladder. "Someone's cranky. Past your bedtime?" She didn't get a reply as she placed her foot on the first rung, pulling herself up and disappearing onto the roof.

Steve watched with a grin, pride in his eyes as he averted his gaze to the younger boy. "That's good." He complimented. "Just show her you don't care."

"I don't."

Sadie's eyebrows raised, and Steve winked.

"Why are you winking, Steve?" Dustin sounded annoyed. "Stop."

The smile on Steve's face faded as he began clicking his lighter open and shut again. Sadie shifted in her seat and nudged his foot with her own, and when he looked up he found a fist raised to her mouth and stifling a laugh. The smile was returned as he moved to peer out the small gap in the doorway, fingers flexing around the handle of the bat by his side in case of seeing something unexpected out in the fog.

They were playing the waiting game now, waiting for Lucas to see something amongst his murmured conversation with Max on the roof. Sadie had the utmost faith in her brain and planning abilities, but she always knew there was a possibility of it not working and Dart not finding the meat, therefore leading to them waiting there all night with no results. But the night was young, and the amount of meat they had thrown into the woodlands as they were passing was alarmingly high.

Besides, if Sadie figured anything about Demogorgons, it was that they had quite the sense of smell; they were attracted to places by spilt blood, and it wasn't crazy to link that to being able to smell meat as well.

There was a growl somewhere in the fog and once again, the silence was broken. Within the bus, Sadie and Steve scrambled to their feet, shoulders pressing against each other as they stared out of the grid fencing protecting the window. Dustin joined them. "Do you see anything?" Sadie whispered, Steve's face incredibly close to her own as their eyes met and darted away quickly, shaking his head. "Lucas?" The volume of her whisper heightened and her words carried up to the roof.

"Lucas, what's going on?" Dustin called, a little louder.

"Hold on!" Came the reply. "I've got eyes! Ten o'clock... ten o'clock!"

It had worked. Beside her, Steve's eyes moved wildly over the scene and she raised her hand, pointing a finger to the silhouette seen emerging out of the fog. She was shaking. "There." She muttered, and as her hand dropped she felt another wrap around it, tight.

"What's he doing?" Dustin asked.

"I don't know," Steve replied. Outside of the bus, a low chittering could be heard and they continued to watch the fog, where Dart wasn't moving, at all. "He's not taking the bait. Why is he not taking the bait?"

"Maybe he's not hungry." Dustin offered.

"Maybe," Sadie began, and the grasp on her hand tightened even further. "Maybe he's sick of cow?" Steve met her eyes again, something within them sparking and he took a step back, automatically pulling her with him and their hands dropping as Dustin turned. "Steve-"

The Harrington turned towards the door, reaching for the bat. "Steve?" Sadie repeated, voice filtered with worry.

Dustin pushed past her shoulder. "Steve? Steve - what are you doing? Steve?"

"I didn't mean it literally." Sadie huffed. "I meant it as in like... you know. Not this - Steve?"

Steve turned back towards them, holding the lighter up. "Just get ready." He threw the lighter, Dustin ensuring he caught it before watching as the Harrington opened the door and Sadie closed it behind him.

It was lucky the siblings could watch him from the window, otherwise, their nerves would reach tremendous heights. They watched as Steve slowly moved forward into the fog and towards the meat, bat raised and ready to attack should he need to. He continued forward with cautious steps, the chittering of Dart growing louder.

A whistle broke through the silence. "Come on buddy," Steve called into the night, with that luring quality of trying to convince a dog to do a trick. He whistled again, louder this time.

Behind them, Max scrambled down the ladder. "What's he doing?" She asked.

"Expanding the menu," Dustin said simply, although that harsh quality to his voice was gone.

"Come on, buddy." Steve continued on with his attempts to convince the creature out of wherever it was hiding. "Come on, buddy. Dart?" He called out the familiar name, hoping it would invoke the almost-Demogorgon to move forward. "Come on. Dinner time. Human tastes better than cat, I promise."

"Cat?" Max whispered.

"Dart ate our cat." Sadie replied, far too nonchalant for what it was. She had no time now to worry about that, and it seemed neither did Max, who glossed over the fact.

"That's insane. He's insane."

Dustin didn't say anything for a moment. "He's awesome." He returned.

Steve swung the bat around and finally, finally, the fog cleared and then Dart stood, but not yet moving.

"Steve, watch out!" Lucas shouted from the roof.

"A little busy here!"

"Three o'clock! Three o'clock!" Came the news from Lucas and Sadie's heart dropped.

"What?" She exclaimed, leaning forward to try and see out the window. "Oh shit. Oh shit - there's more!" She rushed to the rigged system, pushing the button and pulling the door back herself as soon as it opened. Dustin appeared in front of her.

"Steve!" He shouted. "Abort! Abort!"

Peering out into the fog-ridden junkyard showed Sadie only one thing. Steve had to get out of there. It was one thing fighting against a single... Dart - but to go against several? It was a death wish, especially now that it seemed they had doubled in size, yet again. One of the creatures made the first move and that seemed to incite the others as they hurtled towards Steve, launching themselves into the air.

He narrowly missed one, rolling across a car bonnet and landing on his feet, bat used for its original purpose and swung harshly, sending another of the creatures away. He had cleared a path - his only available path - and spurred on by the shouts of the group awaiting him he ran towards the doors, a third and fourth creature hurtling behind him but managing to reach the safety of the bus and shoved the door with his foot.

Steve hurried to add another piece of corrugated metal to the door as several of the almost-Demogorgon creatures continued to fling themselves into the metal almost as though they were desperate to get in. But, like the Demogorgon the previous year, all they wished for was to harm those currently using the bus as safety.

"Shit!" Dustin exclaimed.

"Are they rabid or something?" Max asked, her eyes flickering towards Sadie.

"I... I don't know. I can't think of anything-" The Henderson floundered, holding onto Steve's shoulder as she joined him in pushing the metal against the door with the pressure of her foot.

"They can't get in! They can't!" Lucas screamed, just as what seemed to be even more of the creatures attacked and the bus began to tilt backwards from the force of it. And, just as they were recovering from having to grab on to something, anything to steady themselves, the sound of metal tearing launched them into a new frenzy to try and get away from the door.

Because one of the dogs had found a weakness in the metal, and flailing in the rip it had created was its slimy arm. Behind them, Dustin, Max and Lucas escaped to the back of the bus whilst Sadie, who had found her hand clutching Steve's jacket, found herself reaching for the baseball bat.

"Give me this." She didn't wait for Steve to complain before seizing the handle of the bat and raising it above her head, bringing it down with a practised aim and far more force than she expected, repeating the action several times over as Dustin tried to call for help.

There was a scream and the sound of metal clanging and rupturing as another creature wedged its claws into the structure of the bus, but just as Sadie had brought the bat down once again, she stilled. Her eyes travelled upwards, where large bangs could be heard and something in her gut dropped as her eyes landed on the open hatch.

Sadie moved to stand in front of Max as she screamed, but at the last moment, Steve seized the bat, a look of far too much worry for her written plainly across his features. Instead of the Henderson defending them, he stood below the hatch. "You want some!" He yelled, antagonising it further. "Come get this!"

The enlarged creature let out a roar, its flower-like mouth opening wider than Sadie believed it could go, revealing hundreds of tiny pointed teeth, as though it was lined with knives. But then, just like that, it had stopped. Not because it was injured, no - but it was looking away, mouth returning like the bud of a flower.

The five watched in anticipatory terror, the bat still raised and his elbows tensed, ready for attack. But the attack was never needed and moments late the creature turned away from the skylight and jumped from the bus, jolting the structure once again.

Just as suddenly as the multiple versions of whatever the hell Dart really was had turned up, they were gone and only silence in the junkyard remained from their visit. Elsewhere, however, the echo of the creatures' roars sounded into the night and slowly got quieter and the group relaxed only a little.

The grip Sadie had on the back of Steve's jacket loosened as they tried to peer out the makeshift windows to see what was going on. But nothing could be seen within the junkyard through that, and it was decided that they would exit the vehicle as cautiously as possible to try and see anything else.

However, even when the door was opened again and Steve lead them out, Sadie did not move. Cogs were whirring in her brain quicker than they had been before, piecing together pieces of information that may have been obvious in the back of her mind, but hadn't come together before, or she hadn't been properly told before.

She knew everything had to do with the lab. It was Hawkins Lab which had produced this mystery, beginning with MKUltra. She supposed they hadn't expected all this to come from it, but there was no denying that everything had originated there. All of their problems, from Will going missing to a girl with superpowers appearing in the woods, it was the lab.

And Sadie knew that both Hopper and Mrs Byers kept a considerable amount details from them to do with what they experienced with the workers behind it. She had suspected them of much more than a governmental presence in the town for so long, but the idea that sparked in her mind just made so much sense that she could final sew together the scraps of thoughts contained in there for so long.

Slowly, she turned away from the group as they hesitantly exited the vehicle and instead climbed up the ladder, avoiding the slime produced by the creature hanging above them. She rested there for a moment, finding Lucas's binoculars and in the dim light, held up the compass on her necklace, pointing the binoculars accord to a location she knew exactly where to pinpoint from a deep examination of the map of the town.

Sadie knew her location in Hawkins exactly at almost all times. It was rare for her not to, and as she followed the sound of the last monster roar, ears straining into the night as she confirmed her hypothesis.

"What are you thinking, Henderson?" Steve's voice broke through her concentration and she looked down the ladder hole to find that they had re-entered the bus, all unharmed and now all staring up at her.

"You said they're going somewhere, right?" Sadie began, echoing his words that had been spoken upon their checking of the presence in the junkyard. Steve nodded. "But to suddenly retreat like that.. there has to be a signal or a sense for them to go. There's something called an alarm signal in animal communication, an antipredator adaption in the form of a signal emitted from social creatures in response to danger. Often, the creatures understand not only where the signal is coming from, but who exactly called it and thus making it an entirely reliable system. It promotes survival against predators. It can work in all different ways."

"But this way?" Dustin asked.

"In this scenario, they're going somewhere specific. And something is calling for them, but from what I can gather it's not just another dog. It's got to be something bigger." Sadie replied.

"Where is this 'something bigger'?" Steve continued, and although neither he nor Sadie would be aware of it (considering Steve was unable to inspect his own expression and Sadie was too focused on other, more important matters) there was a look of complete admiration in his eyes. "Where are they going?"

He had absolute faith that she knew, but when Sadie fell quiet for a moment his trust didn't mirror in a certain new member of the party who, despite knowledge of the smarts that ran in the Henderson family, Max turned to the three boys around her to question, Dustin and Lucas simultaneously shushing her, the latter quickly apologising after.

"...Home." Sadie finally answered, an odd, final tone to her voice. "They're going home."

"Sorry - I'm new here," Max spoke up. "Where's home?"

Sadie allowed herself a moment to think before absolutely everything slotted into place. "The lab. They're going to the lab. Or somewhere near there. Everything happens near the lab. Will disappeared near the lab, Steve's house is near the lab where... you know -" Sadie heaved in a sigh and continued, "- anyways, Dale and Henry went hunting near the lab before going missing. Eleven came from the lab and told us about The Gate - and The Gate has to be in the lab - it's got to be by the lab. They're going to the lab and... and if I have figured this out correctly... The Gate is the 'something bigger'."

There was a moment of silence.

"What?" Lucas blinked.

"Think about it." Sadie threw him his binoculars before swinging her legs over the side of the ladder and climbing down. "From what Will can remember, and his descriptions are pretty avid, the Upside Down is some kind of organism within itself. It might be a dark version of our world, but it is, in its entirety, alive."

She began to pace in front of them, gesturing with her fingers rapidly. "The Upside Down is alive. The Demogorgon, and the younger version of the Demogorgon that we all encountered - well I suppose you could consider them it's young. They are the Upside Down's children, so to speak. is everyone with me?"

Dustin nodded rapidly, and the others followed suit, although they seemed a little hesitant and a fraction more confused.

"And this Gate that Eleven was talking about, I have a feeling - no, a theory - that it's no picket fence, but instead something more like a scar. A gigantic cut between worlds. And when a cut is open for too long it becomes..."

"Infected." Max filled in.

"Exactly. So, if I am correct, over the past year The Gate that Eleven opened has gotten bigger and its contents have bled into our world. It began with the Demogorgon, and now it's come in the form of tiny little pollywog-like creatures. And generally, if you have a massive cut like that you get it treated, right? So I'm thinking that now, considering everything that happened with Will, those who have taken over from Brenner have been doing everything in their power to stop the spread of the infection, to stop the infection of the wound that The Gate is." Sadie continued, very almost at the end of her explanation, mind continuing to work overtime to figure it all out.

"Thus, bringing me back to my original point. I believe that something big is happening at the lab right now to treat The Gate. Something is hurting it and it's emitting an alarm signal to its young to not only protect their 'mother creature' but also attack those harming it." Sadie drew in a breath. "Dustin, when you talked to Mrs Byers the day after Will had the biggest of his episodes what did she tell you?"

"She said something about... oh." Her younger brother's face fell. "Taking him into the lab for testing."

"Right. And as unfortunate as it might be... if there's going to be some sort of problem with the Upside Down, I believe Will would be heavily involved. And I think he's part of what called the younger Demogorgons back. They're trying to fix the gap and inconsistency in the balance of the world and it's hurting the Upside Down, ergo, hurting anything remotely connected to it."

It had become nothing short of a spiral of her hypotheses, but there wasn't a person around her who didn't believe her. The admiration in Steve's eyes only grew. "You are so smart it's insane." He breathed out, the smile blossoming on Sadie's lips at the compliment oh-so-pretty. There was a muffled laugh and he seemed to return to his more serious self. "Well, in that case, you heard the women." He swung his bat by his side. "I'm guessing we're going to the lab, then?"

"Yeah, pretty much." Sadie nodded before beginning to collect her stuff, bag swinging over her shoulder after she pushed her book back into it. "Leftover candy bars, everyone, and flashlights." She offered, doling out handfuls of everything and once everyone was satiated and happily regaining their strength on chocolate and too-sickly caramel, they set off, Sadie and Steve in the lead.

"I am guessing you know the way," Steve asked her, watching as she nodded and nibbled thoughtfully on the edge of her Mars bar. "I meant it, by the way. Everything you just said was mind-numbingly insane it was so smart. People say you're clever but you nowhere near get enough credit for it."

"I'm guessing it made sense, then." Sadie grinned, their shoulders brushing as they walked. "I was worried it turned into a ramble, but I just seemed to realise everything all at once and it was quite overwhelming."

"Yeah, shockingly, I got every word. Almost every word." Steve quickly altered his statement and she laughed again, happily falling into place beside him as they marched through woodland in the direction of more civilisation. That way they could move to the lab.

Several feet behind them, Max grinned, turning to Dustin as they began to follow behind the two older teenagers. "Dude, Steve is like totally in love with your sister." She jeered, nudging his side, completely recovered from the attack of the creatures upon the bus.

"You think I don't know?" Dustin swore. "The douche was going on about how she's different and special and shit..."

"You think she likes him too?" Lucas asked, invading the conversation as he appeared on the other side of Max.

"There's a possibility." Dustin nodded. "Something happened on Halloween, but I don't know what."

"I can find out for you." Max offered, words too bright for the situation they were in.

"Huh?"

"Girls feel more comfortable around each other." The red-head shrugged. "I'll ask on the walk. We have time, just take Steve and I can talk to her."

"You're underestimating my relationship with my sister!" Dustin exclaimed bitterly. "And you're grossly overestimating Sadie's care for being a girl and the typical stereotypes and stuff."

"Don't care - she's cool. I think she's actually the coolest person in this town, believe it or not." Max swallowed. "I'm not monopolising on stereotypes of being a girl, it's just common fact at this point."

And Dustin could only stare as Max made her way forward to join the two at the front, promptly interrupting their conversation as though she had no other care in the world.