✓ | 1. subject thirteen [STRANGER THINGS]

twelve.

CHAPTER TWELVE:
THE DEMOGORGON

[ THE UPSIDE DOWN PART II ]

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          The three of them pressed into a tight group in the centre of the room, spinning in a slow, waiting circle while Steve stood, shouting frantically in panic, off to the side. Nancy held the gun up close to her chest with both hands, gripping so tightly that her knuckles were white, and Jonathan had the bat swung up, ready to strike, vicious nails protruding like teeth from all sides. THIRTEEN held his hands down at his sides, fingers spread out, tendons of icy blue beginning to flick and dance around his knuckles, curling like snakes toward and up his wrists.

          "What the fuck? What the fuck is that?" Steve screamed in high-pitched shriek after high-pitched shriek, gesturing to his hands. "Whoa! How are you — what are you — "

         "Where is it?" Nancy cried out.

          "I don't know! I don't see it!"

          "Where is what?" Steve shouted. No answer from the other three. "Hello! Will someone please explain to me what is going on?"

          With a colossal crunch and the shattering of the plaster, the ceiling in the corner of the roof caved in and broke, chunks of it raining down. An ugly head reared downward, plunging through the paint on the roof and coming from inside the ceiling itself. Almost human arms slammed through, clawing at the roof and dragging the rest of the body after the emaciated limbs.

          With sharp, echoing BANG!s so loud that THIRTEEN winced each time, Nancy swung up her arms and fired shot after shot toward the creature, each bullet doing nothing to weaken the monster.

          THIRTEEN backed toward the hallway, where Steve stood against the wall, both of them watching the whole thing in a sudden moment of terrified silence. Jonathan cried out to run but fear rooted him to the spot. He watched the creature's whole upper body come free, its open, mutating mouth shrieking and screaming, its body writhing.

          Jonathan wrapped his arm around Nancy's stomach, yanked her backward, and then flung her to the left, pushing her down the hallway, and with a shout he took off after her.

The movement shocking him back into awareness, THIRTEEN swung back an arm and grabbed Steve's hand in his bandaged palm and yanked the boy after them as they sprinted down the hall. "Jump!" he screamed, hurdling the bear trap he had set up on the centre of the carpet with Jonathan, and with a yell of, "Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God, oh my God!" he heard Steve do the same.

          They dashed into Will's abandoned bedroom after Jonathan and THIRTEEN flung Steve around, pushing him backward and out of the way. He span and swung up his arm, slamming the door shut with a quick flash of blue light so bright it hurt Steve's eyes. It crashed into place with such violence that the whole house shook.