Emily Hopper aka 003 has been through a lot in the past year. She escaped Hawkins lab with her sister El, helped defeat the Demogorgon, and made some new friends along the way. All in all, she has had it rough, but things are starting to look up for...
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Dustin grabs a Dungeons and Dragons book, flips it to a certain page, and lays it down on the kitchen table. "The Mind Flayre." Dustin says, showing us the page.
"The hell is that?" Hopper asks as he looks at the book from over my shoulder. "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." Dustin quickly explains and I sigh.
"Oh my God, none of this is real. This is a kid's game." Hopper snaps as he gestures to the book. "Yeah, and you didn't think monsters and people with powers were real either, but it turns out they are." I snap at him and he gives me a sorrowful look.
"Exactly. And it's a manual, it's not for kids. And unless you know something that we don't this is the best metafore-" Dustin says before being cut off. "Analogy." Lucas corrects him and I roll my eyes. "Analogy. That's what you're worried about? Fine! Analogy for understanding whatever the hell this is." Dustin says, annoyed that Lucas interrupted him.
"Okay, so this, mind flamer, thing-" Nancy begins before being cut off. "Flayer. Mind Flayer." Dustin corrects, doing the same thing Lucas just did to him. Nancy sighs, but doesn't say anything about being interrupted. "-what does it want?" She finishes her question as she looks at Dustin. "To conquer us basically. You know, it believes it's the master race." Dustin explains and I nod.
"Like the Germans." Steve responds and we all give him concerned looks. "The Nazis." Dustin corrects him. "Yeah, yeah, the Nazis." Steve says as he looks around to see us all rolling our eyes and shaking our heads in disappointment.
"Uh, yeah, the Nazis if they were from another dimension, totally." Dustin responds, trying to get back on track. "Uh, it views other races like us as inferior to itself." Dustin says, restating what he said earlier. "It wants to spread and take over other dimensions." Mike adds in. "We're talking about the destruction of our world as we know it." Lucas says worriedly from beside Max.
"That's great. That's really great." Steve says sarcastically as he turns around and walks away from us. "Okay, so if this thing is like the brain, that's controlling everything, then if we kill it-" Nancy starts while picking up the book before Mike cuts in. "We kill everything it controls." Mike finishes for his sister.
"We win." Dustin says in a hopeful tone. "Theoretically." Lucas says, still concerned. "Alright great, so how do you kill this thing? You shoot it with fireballs or something?" Hopper asks as he takes the book from Nancy.
"No, no, no fireballs." Dustin replies with a laugh. "Uh, you summon an undead army, uh, because-because zombies you know th-they don't have brains, and th-the Mind Flayer it-it likes brains. It's just a game." Dustin says clearly frightened by Hopper and I roll my eyes.
"What the hell are we doing here?" Hopper asks while slamming the book down on the table. "I thought we were waiting for your military backup." Dustin replies sassily. "We are!" Hopper yells, getting annoyed. "But even if they come how are they gonna stop this? You can't just shoot this with guns." Mike says, making a good point.
"We don't know that. We don't know anything!" Hopper yells at him. "We know that it's already killed everybody in that lab." Mike defends himself. "And we know the monsters are gonna molt again." Lucas adds in. "And we know that it's only a matter of time before the tunnels reach this town." Dustin finishes for both of them as we all share concerned looks.
We all turn to see Joyce come out of her room with a sorrowful look on her face. "We have to kill it." Joyce says, having listened to our conversation about the Mind Flayer.
Hopper walks up to her, ready to protest. "I want, to kill it." Joyce says, her voice quivering. "Me too. Me too, Joyce, okay. But how do we do that? We don't exactly know what we're dealing with here." Hopper says as he places his hands on the woman's shoulders.
"No, but he does. If anyone knows how to destroy this thing, it's Will. He's connected to it. He'll know its weaknesses." Mike says as he looks at Will and walks over to him.
"I thought we couldn't trust him anymore, that he's a spy for the Mind Flayer now. " Max says confused as she looks over at Will. "Yeah but, he can't spy if he doesn't know where he is." Mike says having an idea.
.•°☾︎𑁍☽︎°•.
Hopper clears out the Byers shed while Nancy, Steve, Joyce, Jonathan, and I all look for tarps and newspapers to cover the windows, walls, and floors of the shed.
After the shed is finally empty we take the tarps and newspapers inside and start stapling and taping them to the walls and windows of the shed.
"Hey, what you did um, helping the kids. That was, really cool." I hear Nancy say to Steve from behind me. Seeing that this was probably a private conversation I make my way to the door.
"I'm gonna go get some more tape." I say turning around to look at them. They both nod and I leave and close the door behind me.
I start going back to the house and before reaching the back door I hear Max and Mike talking inside. I hear Mike snap at Max and then say something about El.
I really wish I could tell him about her but it would just put her in danger. I hear Mike walk off and I take that as my cue to go inside.
"Hey, just ignore him. El is a really tough subject for him." I say with a sympathetic smile. "Yeah, well he shouldn't take his anger out on me. My brother already does that enough." Max says and I quirk my head to the side. "Billy?" I ask confused. He was always so nice and happy around me, but to be fair he likes me and I don't live with him.
"Yeah, my stepdad is a real dick and he can't take his anger out on my mom, so-" Max says and I notice her tearing up. I sit down beside her and wrap her in a hug. "My stepdad is really hard on him. If Billy ever does something wrong, let's just say it's not a good time for him." Max says as she buries her head into my shoulder. "He abuses him." I say, knowing what she means. Brenner did the exact same thing to me any time I didn't do what he told me, or my powers needed to recharge.
I feel Max nod into my shoulder and I sigh. I pull her head back and look into her teary eyes. "Hey, it's okay." I say as I wrap her back into a hug. "Do you want me to talk to him about it?" She hesitates a minute and then looks up at me. "Why would he listen to you?" She asks, her voice strained from the crying. "I can relate to what he's going through. Dr. Brenner did the same to me when I was in the lab." I say now tearing up as well. Max wraps me into another hug and we cry together for a few minutes before she finally lets go.
"I'm sorry." She says as she sniffles and wipes away her tears. "Hey, hey, you have nothing to apologize for." I say, using Billy's words from before at the Halloween party when I was panicking about being out past curfew. She smiles and goes back to taping a chair. I grab a new roll of tape and go back out to the shed.
