BAD IDEA - STRANGER THINGS

'I need your Compasses'

*ੈ✩‧₊˚

Rah stood next to Mike, staring ahead at the coffin in front of her. She knew Will wasn't in there, but it was too real. Her throat felt restricted as she tried her best not to let any tears spill.

The girl looked over to Dustin as he nudged her side, "Just wait until we tell Will that Jennifer Hayes was crying at his funeral." the boy said laughing, before he was shushed.

Rah looked up at the girl, watching as she cried. Jennifer caught Rah's eye and gave her a teary smile, Rah returned the smile and looked back at the grave, that was weird.

The graveside service had ended and the guests were now congregating inside. 

"Mr. Clark?" Mike grabs the teacher's attention. "Oh, hey there" he greeted. "How are you guys holding up?"

"We're in mourning." Lucas told him, "man, these aren't real nilla wafers- Ow!" Dustin yelped out, after Rah had kicked him.

"We were wondering if you had time to talk?" Mike directed back to Mr. Clark, "we have some questions."

"So you know how in Cosmos, Carl Sagan talks about other dimensions? Like, beyond our world?" "Yeah, sure. Theoretically" the teacher agrees. "Right, theoretically." Mike adds.

"So theoretically, how do we travel there?" Lucas asks. "You guys have been thinking about Hugh Everett's many-worlds interpretation, haven't you?" Mr. Clark assumes. "Uh, what?" Rah asks the kids all shrugged at each other.

"Well, basically, there are parallel universes. Just like our world but just infinite variations of it. Which means there is a world out there, where none of this tragic stuff ever happened" The teacher was cut off by Lucas, "Yeah that's not what we're talking about' he says. "Oh," "we were thinking more of an evil dimension, like the Vale of Shadows," Dustin explained. "You know the Vale of Shadows?"

Rah sat on the chair listening to the boys talk to the teacher about how they could 'theoretically' travel to another dimension. The girl knew how.

Her head started to ring out of the conversation as she heard the clock on the wall, ticking louder than usual.

"Hey, Rah?" Lucas waved his hand in front of the girl's face, "oh, sorry" she apologized quietly, "what's happening?" Rah asked. "We've got to go explain what Mr. Clark said to El."

"Are you okay?" Mike pointed towards the blood running from her nose. "Yeah, don't worry" the girl told him, he raised an eyebrow at her in response, "just leave it."

-

"It would take a lot of energy to build a gate like this," Mike explained to Eleven as he poked a hole through the paper with his pencil. "But that's got to be what happened. Otherwise, how else did Will get there, right?"

"right."

"What we want to know is, do you know where this gate is?" Lucas asked the younger girl, getting a shake of her head in return.

"Then how do you know about the upside down?" the boy asked angrily. "Calm down Lucas, we'll figure it out." Rah said, trying to diffuse the tension.

The girl looked over to Dustin, watching as he paced back and forth. "Dustin? What are you doing?" she raised her eyebrows at him.

"Dustin!" Mike yelled out.

"I.. I need to see your compasses." Dustin told them all. "What?"

"Your compasses. All of your compasses, right now!"

The boys got out all of the compasses they had and set them down on the table.

"Who just carries compasses?" Rah questioned.

"What's exciting about this?"

"Well, they're all facing north, right?" Dustin answered. "Yeah so? Lucas inquired. "Well that's not true north" the boy explained. "What do you mean?"

"I mean exactly what I just said, that's not true north." Dustin sighed, "are guys seriously this dense?"

Lucas shrugged his shoulders and Rah put a hand to her chest feigning offence, "I'm hurt Dustin."

"The sun rises in the east and sets in the west, right? Which means that's true north." the boy continued to explain, pointing towards the correct way.

"So what you're saying is that the compasses are broken?" Mike asked. Dustin sighed again and looked towards the boy.

"Do you even understand how a compass works? Do you see a battery pack on this thing?" Dustin sassed, "no."

"No you don't because it doesn't need one." he was about to continue but was interrupted, "oh! I know this, the needle is naturally drawn to the earth's magnetic north pole." Rah rushed out. She smiled over at Dustin.

"How do you know that?" Mike wondered out loud, "are you being sexist Mike?" Rah threw back at him sarcastically. "What? No! I am not being sexist" the boy defends himself. "uh , i think you are-"

"Anyways" Lucas spoke over the top of them, "what's wrong with the compasses?" he asked.

"Well, that's what I couldn't figure out, but then I remembered. You can change the direction of a compass with a magnet. If there's a presence of a more powerful magnetic field, the needle deflects to that power. And then," Dustin continued. "I remembered what Mr Clark said, the gate would have so much power-"

"it could disrupt the electromagnetic field" mike finished.

"So what? If we follow the compasses, they should lead us to the gate?" Rah asked, "exactly."

The girl looked over to Eleven nervously, this won't be good.