YOUR SONG | steve harrington

043

"The Mind Flayer, it built this monster in Hawkins, to stop El, to kill her and pave a way in our world," Mike continued the explanation to everyone since they had all gathered around near the fountain. They had basically explained everything and now everyone was just confused.

"And it almost did. That was just one tiny piece of it," Nancy added.

"How big is this thing?" Hopper asked.

"It's big. Thirty feet, at least," Jonathan described.

"Yeah. And it sorta destroyed your cabin," Lucas told Hopper and the man sighed. "Sorry."

"Okay, so, just to be clear, this...this big fleshy spider thing that hurt El, it's like some kind of gigantic...weapon?" Steve slowly said to understand.

"Yes," Nancy answered.

"But instead of, like, screws and metal, the Mind Flayer made its weapon...with melted people," Steve continued.

"Yes, exactly."

"Yeah, okay. I — Yeah, I'm just making sure."

"And we thought Russians were the height of our problems," Beverly muttered and Steve ironically chuckled, shaking his head.

"Are we sure this thing is still out there, still alive?" Joyce questioned.

"El beat the shit out of it, but, yeah, it's still alive," Max told her.

"But if we close the gate again—"

"We cut the brain off from the body," Max continued for Will.

"And kill it. Theoretically," Lucas added.

"Wouldn't that also kill Billy? Since you said he's being controlled by the Mind Flayer, too?" Alicia pointed out, glancing at Beverly, who had bit the inside of her cheek.

"Not if we can force the Mind Flayer out of him like we did with Will," Max said, still holding out some hope that her brother could be saved even though he was a gigantic piece of shit.

"How are we gonna have time to do that, though? Last time...it took a while," Jonathan spoke up, looking at his brother, who had frowned a bit.

"We can find a way," Max said, nodding her head. The others all subtly glanced at each other, not knowing if there even would be a way.

"Yoo-hoo!" Murray then shouted as he waved papers around in the air. "Yoo-hoo!"

"Okay, who is this guy again?" Carmen spoke up, arching a brow curiously.

"You don't wanna know," Hopper and Joyce breathed out at the same time, earning an odd look from the children before they all followed Murray towards the table he was nearby.

Murray placed a piece of paper down on the table that had a mini drawing of the underground place the Russians were camping in. "Okay, this is what Alexei called 'the hub.' Now, the hub takes us to the vault room," he began.

"Who's Alexei?" Chris questioned, furrowing his brows a bit.

Joyce, Hopper, and Murray glanced at one another, a sad look overcoming them. "A friend," they all answered, and some of the others gave each other a confused look since they didn't know anyone named Alexei.

"Okay, where's the gate?" Hopper queried after a moment, getting back on topic.

"Right here." He pointed at the drawing. "I don't know the scale on this, but I think it's fairly close to the vault room, maybe 50 feet or so," Murray answered.

"More like 500," Erica cut in and Murray gave her a look. "What, you're just gonna waltz in there like it's commie Disneyland or something?"

"I'm sorry, who are you?" Murray asked.