Chapter 16

012

• 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐓𝐫𝐚𝐢𝐭𝐨𝐫 •

─────✧･ﾟ: *✧･

☄. *. ⋆ Stella pulled on one of Will’s shirts, and Max held out a hand for her, the girl taking it and hopping off the counter as Max opened the door. The two left the bathroom, keeping their hands joined until reaching where everyone else was. As they approached the rest of the group, they heard Dustin speaking. “Well, what do you wanna do, Mike? All right, the Chief’s right on this. We can’t stop those Demo-dogs on our own.”

“‘Demo-dogs’?” Max repeated, sitting down as Stella did too, taking a seat beside the girl. Dustin looked at the redhead, seeming slightly embarrassed. “Demogorgon dogs,” he elaborated, pausing in between each word. “Demo-dogs,” he told her, and as if that wasn’t enough, he continued. “It’s like a compound. It’s like‐ it’s like a play on words,” he pushed, and Max gave a stranger look. “Okay.”

Dustin looked down at his hands. “I mean, when it was just Dart, maybe…”

“But there’s an army now,” Lucas finished for the boy. The words seemed to give Mike a realization. “His army,” he said as if he had just discovered something revolutionary. “What?” Stella asked, Steve adding to the question. “What do you mean?” He wondered, and Mike just repeated his words. “His army.”

Stella rolled her eyes. “That doesn’t help, dumbass,” she cursed, and Mike explained his thoughts more. “Maybe if we stop him, we can stop his army, too,” he suggested and moved to pick up the drawing Will had made just days before. He handed the paper to Dustin. “The shadow monster,” the boy said, and Mike added on. “It got Will that day on the field.”

Stella thought back to that moment. Everyone standing around Will as the boy stood, seeming like he was in a trance. She remembered the feeling on her palm. On the bite. The way it throbbed, as if signifying the shadow monster’s activity. A knot formed in her stomach as Mike continued. “The doctor said it was like a virus. It infected him,” the boy informed everyone, Max speaking next. “And so this virus, it’s connecting him to the tunnels?”

“To the tunnels, to the monsters, to the Upside Down, everything.”

“Woah, slow down. Slow down,” Steve said as Stella swallowed the lump in her throat. Mike tried to explain the situation better. “Okay, so, the shadow monster’s inside everything. And if the vines feel something like pain, so does Will.”

“And so does Dart,” Lucas added.

“And so does everything connected to the Upside Down. The Demogorgons, the shadow monster, all of it,” Stella butted in.

“Yeah,” Mike continued. “It’s like what Mr. Clarke taught us. The hive mind.”

“‘Hive mind’?” Steve repeated, confused. Dustin looked at him. “A collective consciousness. It’s a super-organism.”

“And this is the thing that controls everything. It’s the brain,” Mike said, pointing to the drawing of the shadow monster. Dustin’s eyes widened. “Like the mind flayer.”

Lucas looked at the boy, realization dawning on his face as he snapped, pointing at his curly-haired friend.

“Holy shit,” Stella breathed, looking at Dustin.

“The… what?” Max asked, Steve just asking the last word at the same time, his eyebrows furrowed. Dustin hurried over to a bookshelf, pulling a Dungeons and Dragons manual from it. He opened it to his desired page before moving to the table and dropping it on the surface, leading everyone’s gaze to land on one of the monsters. The creature had the words “MIND FLAYER” beside it, with its information below its title. Dustin looked up at everyone, Nancy, Jonathan, and Hopper having joined the group when they noticed the commotion. “The mind flayer,” he pointed out, making Hopper furrow his eyebrows. “What the hell is that?” The man thought it was the stupidest thing he’d ever heard. Dustin explained regardless. “It’s a monster from an unknown dimension. It’s so ancient that it doesn’t even know it’s true home. Okay, it enslaves races of other dimensions by taking over their brains using its highly-developed psionic powers,” Dustin told all of them. Stella chimed in. “In this case, it enslaved Will. Took over his mind to make him a part of his army.” And maybe her. “It’s almost a direct parallel.”

“Oh, my God, none of this is real.” Hopper wasn’t having it. “This is a kid’s game,” he said, making Dustin rather defensive. “No, i- it’s a manual,” he said matter-of-factly. “And it’s not for kids. And unless you know something that we don’t, this is the best metaphor-“

“Analogy,” Lucas interrupted, making Dustin look at him in disbelief. “Analogy?” He repeated incredulously. “That’s what you’re worried about? Fine. An analogy for understanding whatever the hell this is,” Dustin corrected angrily. “Okay, so this mind flamer thing-” Nancy started, getting cut off by Dustin. “Flayer. Mind flayer,” he fixed, Nancy ignoring him as she resumed her question. “What does it want?”

“To take us over, essentially. It wants the entirety of our species to basically work for it, become part of its army,” Stella explained, Dustin adding on. “Yeah, it wants to conquer us, basically. It believes it’s the master race.”

“That’s practically what I just said, Henderson.”

Dustin didn’t have time to argue before Steve piped up. “Like the… like the Germans?” He asked, it sounding more like a confidently stated reference. Stella pursed her lips as Dustin tried to clarify. “Uh, the Nazis?” He looked to the Harrington boy, who seemed embarrassed. “Yeah, yeah, yeah, the Nazis.”

“Uh…” Dustin tried to let Steve have this one. “If the Nazis were from another dimension, to- totally. Um… it views other races, like us, as inferior to itself.”

“It wants to spread, and take over other dimensions,” Mike added.

“We’re talking about the destruction of our world as we know it,” Lucas stressed, and Steve spoke up next. “That’s great. That’s great. That’s really great. Jesus!” He said sarcastically. Nancy leaned forward, hovering over the book. “Okay, so if this thing is like a brain that’s controlling everything,” she started, picking the manual up. “Then if we kill it…”

“We kill everything it controls,” Mike finished. Stella’s heartbeat quickened. She didn’t know what to do. Would killing the mind flayer kill her? She felt like she had complete control over her mind and her actions, but she felt pain when the Demodogs did. She felt it in her hand when the shadow monster got Will. She was connected. The conversation continued as Stella was in thought, Dustin looking to Nancy. “We win,” he declared, Lucas following that with “theoretically.”

Hopper grabbed the manual from Nancy as he spoke. “All right, great. So how do you kill this thing? Shoot it with fireballs or something?” He asked, his tone of voice revealing how idiotic he thought this was. Dustin, as always, didn’t grasp the sarcasm. Most of the time, he didn’t. “No,” he chuckled. “No, no. No fireballs. Uh, you summon an undead army, uh, because…” he looked up, seeing Hoppers unamused expression. “Because zombies, you know, they don’t have brains, and the min- the mind flayer, it… it… it likes… brains. It’s just a game… it’s a game.”

“What the hell are we doing here?” Hopper slammed the book back down on the table. Considering Hopper was the one that decided they’d wait there for backup, Dustin found his question ridiculous. “I thought we were waiting for your military backup!” He retorted, making Hopper turn back to him. “We are!” He raised his voice, and Mike spoke up. “But even if they come, how are they gonna stop this?” The raven-haired boy asked. “You can’t just shoot this with guns!”

“You don’t know that! We don’t know anything!” Hopper decided.

“We know it’s already killed everybody in that lab,” Mike pointed out, Lucas following that. “And we know the monsters are gonna molt again.”

Then Dustin. “And we know that it’s only a matter of time before those tunnels reach this town.”

Then Stella. “And we know that killing the mind flayer will end everything. Once and for all,” she finalized, and Joyce spoke up for the first time since they got there, her voice wavering as she came down the hall. “They’re right,” she agreed. “We have to kill. I want to kill it.”

Hopper’s demeanor softened. “Me, too.”

“I-” Joyce stammered.

“Me, too, Joyce, okay?” Hopper continued. “But how do we do that? We don’t exactly know what we’re dealing with here.”

“No,” Mike sounded, walking towards Will, who lie unconscious on the couch. “But he does. If anyone knows how to destroy this thing, it’s Will. He’s connected to it. He’ll know its weakness.”

“I thought we couldn’t trust him anymore,” Max pointed out. “That he’s a spy for the mind flayer now.”

“Yeah, but…” Mike started, everyone now behind him, their eyes on either him or Will. “He can’t spy if he doesn’t know where he is.”

There was silence for a moment. Then it was broken by Stella, from the very back of the group. “What if…” she paused, and everyone turned to look at the girl. “What if something was… connected to the mind flayer… but they… they weren’t under his control? Like, their mind was still theirs, but they… they could feel pain if the mind flayer did, and they- they could feel when the mind flayer was… active,” she asked, and everyone’s face slowly turned concerned, some people glancing at each other as Stella just looked between everyone.

“Why?” Dustin asked, slightly fearing the answer. Stella opened her mouth, no sound coming out for a moment until she found a response, her gaze falling to the floor. “When‐ when we, um… when Dustin first showed Dart to us… and we were- we were passing him around… he bit me,” she revealed, glancing back up to see everyone’s reactions. Lucas and Mike’s eyebrows were furrowed, so were Hopper’s, Steve’s, and Joyce’s. Max looked down at her hands, starting to mess with her fingers, feeling guilty. Dustin seemed concerned, taking a glimpse at Lucas, who kept his puzzled face as he looked back. Stella’s eyes moved back to the floor as she resumed. “Uh, then… then when we found out he was from the Upside Down, I looked at the bite marks and there were… the veins around it were black,” she looked back up, most people’s faces concerned, some confused. She didn’t look back to the floor, instead keeping her eyes moving among each person as she added on. “And, um, when we found Will on the field, when the shadow monster was… taking over his head, the bite started to… act up.” The girl’s eyes watered, tears threatening to spill as the pure fear overtook her, her mind flooding with dread as she sat with the thought of the shadow monster being in her. Her lip started to shake, along with her voice. She switched her line of sight back to the ground. “It, like… it pulsed. Like it had a heartbeat. The veins weren’t black anymore, but when that happened, they were again.” She took a moment, swallowing thickly before continuing. “Then earlier, at the junkyard, when I shot the Demodog, it hurt me,” the girl’s voice broke a bit as a tear leaked from her eye. “I felt it. Where the bite was.”

“Did you…” Nancy started, making Stella look up from the floor, her cheek now stained with one wet line which she quickly wiped away, refusing to let herself cry. “Did you feel it… any other time?”

Everyone looked back to Stella, and she nodded as she bit her lip in an attempt to stop its quivering. “Um, it was… during school. I was just doing the work, and the bite started to itch… then sting… then burn, and… I started to feel it everywhere, so I went to the bathroom and it…” she paused. “It just stopped… after a while. Then it happened a couple more times at random points,” she said before adding on. “It- it wasn’t that bad, I mean, I’m… fine. But… I don’t wanna put you guys in danger.”

Everyone looked at her in silence for a moment before Nancy spoke again. “The lab,” she said, making Stella and everyone else furrow their eyebrows as they looked to her. “That time you felt it,” she added. “It must have been when they were burning those vines at the lab.”

Mike nodded, realizing something himself. “And… and then again when they burned the tunnels. When we rescued Hopper.”

Stella nodded. She wasn’t there, but it matched up. She felt pain when the Upside Down’s collective consciousness did. It confirmed her theory. She was connected.

“And there’s…” Stella started, everyone looking back at her. “There’s something else.”

Here we go.

“Ever since the bite… I’ve been able to, like… do things,” she informed everyone, the statement sounding more like a question. “Things I couldn’t do before. I could react really quickly to things… I could-“

Dustin’s face dropped. “You could push a Demodog off of you with one arm,” he realized, and Stella nodded, looking at the boy. “Holy shit, Stella, you have superpowers.”

Everyone’s face dawned with realization as they looked at the girl, who avoided eye contact with everyone, looking everywhere but at someone.

A small cube quickly came in her direction, the girl catching it with one hand as she flinched. She looked up, trying to find the source of the projectile, seeing that Dustin had thrown it. Her eyebrows furrowed. “What the hell?”

“Holy shit, that’s so cool,” the boy commented on the girl’s newly acquired ‘super-reflexes’. “You’re like Spider-man! Just, instead of being bit by a spider, it was an interdimensional monster! You have the spidey senses too!”

Stella rolled her eyes and tossed the blue brain teaser back to Dustin, who fumbled with it before finding a grasp on it.

Stella took a moment before taking a deep breath. “I realized at the junkyard. My point is, I can’t know for sure that the shadow monster didn’t take over my head, too. So… wherever it is you’re taking Will… wherever it is you’re going so he can’t spy… you should probably take me there, too.”

“Wait, but why would the Demodogs attack you?” Max asked. “If you were one of them?”

Dustin replied. “Because she was hurting them. She was against them on purpose, even though, in their eyes, she’s supposed to be on their side.”

Stella nodded. “I’m their traitor.”

“Wait, but then that would mean that it’s not in control of you,” Max tried. “You don’t need to do this, then.”

“Max,” Stella looked the girl in the eye, the redhead looking back. Max had a valid point, but they couldn’t risk it. “I don’t want to brush this off and then be the reason any of you get hurt.” She looked back at the group for a moment, then turned her head, seeing the bottle of the drug used to knock Will out. She made her way over to it, grabbing it and then bringing it over to Joyce, handing it to her. “Here.”

Joyce took the bottle, giving Stella a sympathetic look. The Harrington girl moved to sit on the couch, plopping down as if she weren’t about to be sedated due to a monster in her. She waited, watching as Joyce cleaned the needle that would inject her. The woman filled the needle with the sedative as she made her way over to Stella. Joyce put the bottle onto a small desk beside the couch, then looked back at Stella. “Sweetie… are you sure about this?”

For some reason, those words made Stella’s heart crumble. In that moment, she was filled with a sense of longing. Longing for a mother like Joyce. Someone who cared about her. Will was lucky. Joyce deserved the world in Stella’s eyes.

Her eyes glossing over, Stella smiled softly as she nodded. “Yeah,” she said, her voice coming out as a whisper. “Yeah, I’m sure.”

She lifted her sleeve, exposing her shoulder for the shot. The Harrington scanned the group, everyone watching her. “Good luck, guys.”

She closed her eyes, waiting to feel the sting of the needle, and grimaced once she felt the sedative enter her arm, an unnerving feeling, but the disturbance was soon replaced with fatigue, and sleep soon washed over her.

─────✧･ﾟ: *✧･

…surprise!

i already have plans for season 4.

anyway, so a good amount happened in this chapter. feel free to call me out or ask questions if there’s a plot hole so i can clear things up, because i went through a lot of planning to make sure this didn’t go against the show’s actual logic.

and guess what!! i remembered to update on friday 😸

thanks for reading 🙂