𝐢 𝐜𝐚𝐧'𝐭 𝐡𝐞𝐥𝐩 𝐦𝐲𝐬𝐞𝐥𝐟

xix. JUST THE FACTS

ELEVEN CONTINUES screaming, starting to sob even as she grabs Mike's hand. "What is that?" Erica asked. "There's something in there." Mike explains and Icarus sighed. "No!" El exclaimed. "Jesus Christ." Dustin said as he stared at her leg.

"Keep her talking. Keep her awake, okay?" Jonathan said before running off. Icarus looks at Eleven, she continued crying and screaming. "Hey, hey, hey," Icarus said when he saw Eleven close her eyes. "Stay awake, stay awake." Mike said and Icarus looks at him. "Let's get her on this side, on this side." Icarus said and they both start to move her, Steve helping them move her right away.

"Easy, easy, easy, easy," he said as he helps them. "It's, uh.. you know, it's actually not that bad. There was a.. the goalie on my soccer team, Beth Wildfire, this other girl slid into her leg, and the whole bone came out of her knee, six inches or something, it was insane." Robin rambled.

"Robin." Icarus says who she looks at right away. "Yeah?" She says right away. "Not helping." He says and she looks away. "I'm sorry.." She says as Jonathan came running back over to them, he had a knife, a wooden spoon and gloves.

"Okay. Alright, El? This is gonna hurt like hell, okay?" He says as Mike and Dustin held her up as Icarus moved to sit next to Jonathan. "Okay." She sobs. "Need you to stay real still." Jonathan said as he puts on the plastic gloves he got.

"Here, you're gonna want to bite down on this, okay?" He said and held out the wooden spoon which Mike takes, putting it into her mouth. "Jesus Christ." Dustin said and Icarus looks at Jonathan. He watched as Jonathan held the knife to her leg, he takes a deep breath in. "Holy shit, holy shit." Dustin says and Jonathan hesitated.

He looks up at them and saw all of the kids looking at him. "Do it." Mike says and Jonathan looks down. "Okay." He says before starting to cut Eleven with the knife as she screams. She continues to scream as Jonathan continued cutting her.

"Oh, shit." Dustin said as Jonathan then sets the knife down. El's screams turn into sobs again, Jonathan closes his eyes before reaching in and putting his fingers into the cut. Eleven is screeching at this point in pain and Icarus is shocked he was still watching. Jonathan almost got it but Eleven was screaming too loudly, they were all worried.

"Jonathan!" Nancy yells. "Stop talking!" He shouted right back as he continued to move his fingers around. "Goddamn it!" He yelled. "No! Stop it!" Eleven yelled at her as she takes the spoon out of her mouth. "She said stop!" Icarus says to Jonathan who takes his fingers out, looking at her.

She looked weak, she looked so hurt and she was crying. But she still sat up, "I can do it.." She says and Mike helps her sit up. "I can do it." She repeated and then looked down at her wound. She holds up her hand, she's still in pain and she's screaming as the thing inside her slowly moves to the open wound, she continues screaming.

Suddenly, the glass behind them breaks and they all move to cover themselves, Icarus watched in shock as Eleven got it out of her, she throws it and they all turn to where it was, it was a small creature and was crawling away, until it got stepped on. They all look up to see Joyce, Hopper and some middle aged dude, Icarus didn't recognize him.

"The Mind Flayer, it built this monster in Hakwins, to stop El, to kill her and pave a way into our world." Mike said as they all gathered together. "And it almost did. Thst was just one timy piece of it." Nancy said as Icarus sat down, next to Joyce.

"How big is this thing?" Hopper asked.

"It's big. Thirty feet at least." Jonathan said and Icarus looks at him with shock. "Yeah. It sorta destroyed your cabin." Lucas said and Icarus looks at him next. "Sorry." He says softly when he saw Hopper's reaction and Icarus smiles.

"Okay, so, just to be clear, this.. this big fleshy spider thing that hurt El," Steve said from the other side of Max who was standing next to Icarus where he was sitting. "It's some kind of gigantic.. weapon?" He said and Icarus looked down.

"Yes." Nancy says. "But instead of, like, screws and metal, the Mind Flayer made its weapon... with melted people." He says and Icarus looks up at him. "Yes, exactly." Nancy said.

"Yeah, okay. I.. Yeah, I'm just making sure." He says and Joyce looks up at him, who Icarus looks at next. "Are we sure this thing is still out there, still alive?" She asked and Icarus watched her glance between Steve and Nancy. "El beat the shit out of it, but yeah, it's still alive." Max says.

"But if we close the gate again.." Will said, looking at them. "We cut the brain off from the body." Max says, looking at Will. "And kill it." Lucas says. "Theoretically." He added.

"Yoo-hoo!" They all look over to see that same middle aged man who Icarus learned was named Murray. "Yoo-hoo!" He yelled as he waves papers around that he was holding in his hands.

"Okay, this is what Alexei called the hub." Murray pointed as he shows Hopper and Joyce. "Now, the hub takes us to the vault room." He says. "Okay, where's the gate?" Hopper asked. "Right here." Murray pointed to the map.

"I don't know the scale on this, but I think it's fairly close to the vault room, maybe 50 feet or so." He said as he swipes his finger from that room to the other. "More like 500." Erica said, stepping over and standing next to Icarus, where he was standing. "What, you're just gonna waltz in there like it's commie Disneyland or something?" She asked when Murray looked up at her.

"I'm sorry, who are you?" Murray asked. "Erica Sinclair. Who are you?" She asked in a sassy tone. "Murray.. Bauman." He says and she raised her hand. "Listen, Mr. Bunman," she says and Icarus smirks, looking down. "I'm not trying to tell you how to do things, but I've been down in that shithole for 24 hours. And with all due respect, you do what this man tells you, you're all gonna die." She said the last part to the whole group of them.

"I'm sorry, why is this four-year-old speaking to me?" Murray says and Icarus looks at him. "Um, I'm ten, you bald bastard!" Erica said and Icarus' jaw drops as he looks down at her. "Erica!" Lucas scolded her and she looks at her brother.

"Just the facts!"

"She's right. You're all gonna die, but you don't have to." Dustin said and walks over, "excuse me." He says as he walks through Icarus and Erica. "Sorry, may I?" He asked Murray. "Please." The man said with a sarcastic grin to the boy.

Dustin sits down, taking out a pen. "Okay, see this room here? This is a storage facility." He says as he circles the room. "There's a hatch in there that feeds into their underground ventilation system. That will lead you to the base of the weapon. It's a bit of a maze down there, but between me and Erica, we can show you the way." He explains.

"You can show us the way?" Hopper asked and Icarus looks at him. "Don't worry, you can do all the fighting and the dangerous hero shit, and we'll just be your... navigators." Dustin says to him as Erica nods along to everything that he was saying. "No." Hopper says and they both look up at them.

"Nope."

authors note the toddfather😎