And the Earth, It Will Shake

Chapter One - Episode One: The Vanishing of Will Byers

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November 6th, 1983

Becoming a babysitter had a litany of positives and negatives.

Some of the positives were that you spent most of your time cooped up inside the nice, little suburban cul-de-sacs that the children's parents owned, a usually calm area where the only type of disturbance that existed was when storms rolled over and messed with the bulky cable box in the living room. The fridges were plentiful, and most of the stay-at-home moms would provide you with food for the evening if you hadn't already made anything for the kids to indulge in. Not to mention, the pay was great, meaning you wouldn't have to pick up any type of backbreaking, after-school or weekend job, where you'd have to face the cranky, general public.

Some of the cons, however, lay in the fact that you could never really get a moment of privacy or quiet when with the rowdy bunch.

"A shadow grows on the wall behind you, swallowing you in darkness. It's almost here..."

"What is it?"

"What if it's the Demogorgon? Oh, Jesus, we're so screwed if it's the Demogorgon."

"It's not the Demogorgon."

"An army of Troglodytes charge into the chamber!"

"Troglodytes-?"

"Told ya."

You had been talked into taking care of the group after running into a stressed Karen Wheeler while looking at job signs at town hall, the then mother of two overprotective of her kin. Her husband, unfortunately, wasn't as invested in his kids' wellbeing as she was, and as her eldest daughter grew older, no one in the family was inclined to pick up the slack of a babysitter. You'd been an eighth grader at the time, heading towards your first year of high school, when you accepted her proposal, taking Mike under your wing and, in turn, accepting the others into your small circle as well. The moms were all nice women, and even if you were a bit skeptical at first, you couldn't have been more grateful for the opportunity they presented you.

While you were lucky the kids weren't of any snobby nature and were polite to a degree, you would kill for just a sliver of peace and space, their imaginative brains fueling their energy into something only people their age could muster. It was endearing, sweet even, that they'd let themselves remain this close and continue their childish antics together, but you just wished they could be tranquil about it all.

But, and you would never admit it to anyone, much less the kids themselves, one of the highlights of babysitting the four twelve-year-olds was being privy to their "Dungeons and Dragons" campaigns. The characters that they played and stories that they acted out were so comfortably personal, you could only bring yourself to observe and absorb, wishing you had had a group of friends as caring and meticulous as them.

"Wait a minute. Did you hear that?" Mike Wheeler- A white, pale and lanky preteen with a mop of wavy, black hair- took a glance around the room, eyebrows drawn up in mock confusion as he addressed the others that sat in front of him. "That... That sound? Boom... Boom... Boom!"

Slamming his hands on the table hard, Mike causes the other boys to flinch back, worry marring their once hopeful expressions as they are given the news they hoped wouldn't land.

"That didn't come from the Troglodytes, no, that... That came from something else. The Demogorgon!"

Once more, the lanky kid brings his hand down onto the table, leaving behind a small figurine of something that resembled a human with two snakelike heads protruding from its neck. The rest of the group cries out in despair, all of them slumping back into their seats as they argue amongst themselves.