°🌟5🌟°

🌟CHAPTER 5🌟~°THE FLEA AND THE ACROBAT°~

*🌟Third Person's POV🌟*

Hailey was sitting on the worn couch in the Wheeler basement once again, the familiar musty scent a bizarre comfort in the midst of the surreal nightmare. Eleven's head rested heavily on her legs, the girl's breathing finally even and deep. In sleep, the terrifying power and the profound fear were gone, leaving behind just a child. The younger girl seemed to find a deep sense of safety and comfort in the older teen's steady presence, a quiet anchor in her chaotic world. The boys were huddled on the floor nearby, their voices low and intense as they tried to decipher the fragments of Will's desperate, staticky message.

"What was Will saying? 'Like home... like home but dark'?" Mike asked, pacing back and forth like a caged animal, his sneakers scuffing softly on the carpet. "'And empty,'" Lucas added from his spot on the floor, staring blankly at the D&D board.

"'Empty and cold. Wait, did he say cold?" Dustin asked, squeezing his eyes shut as if trying to replay the audio in his mind. "I don't know. The stupid radio kept going in and out," Lucas said, frustration and helplessness evident in his voice as he threw his hands up.

"It feels like riddles in the dark," Hailey murmured softly, more to herself than anyone, watching the boys puzzle it out with a painful mixture of pride and heartache. They were so young for this. Mike stopped his pacing abruptly.

"'Like home.' Like his house?" he ventured, latching onto the first concrete thought.

"Or maybe like Hawkins," Lucas suggested, thinking bigger. From the couch, Eleven stirred slightly, her voice a thready whisper barely audible over the hum of the basement. "Upside down."

The words landed in the room with the weight of a prophecy. "What'd she say?" Lucas asked, leaning closer, his scepticism momentarily suspended.

"Upside down," Hailey repeated, her own voice hushed as the words clicked into place with a sudden, chilling, world-altering clarity. It wasn't just a phrase; it was an answer.

"What?"

"Upside down," Mike said, his eyes widening with dawning, terrifying realization. He looked at Eleven with something like awe. "When El showed us where Will was, she flipped the Dungeons & Dragons board over, remember?" He scrambled for the game board, holding it up. "Upside down. Dark. Empty." He looked at the blank underside of the board as if seeing it for the first time.

"Do you guys understand what he's talking about?" Lucas asked, still struggling to make the leap from fantasy to a reality that was suddenly far stranger than any game. "No," was Dustin's honest, bewildered reply.

Hailey gently shifted Eleven's head onto a cushion, the girl murmuring softly in her sleep. She stood up and moved to join the huddle on the floor, her presence a calming force.

"Guys, come on, think about it," Mike said, his voice urgent with excitement and fear. "When El took us to find Will, she took us to his house, right?"

"Yeah, and he wasn't there," Lucas reminded him, his tone flat, clinging to the last vestiges of the world as he knew it.

"Wait, Mikey might have a point," Hailey interjected, her mind racing. She looked at each of them, her expression deadly serious. "What if Will was there, we just weren't able to see him? What if he was right there, but on the other side? Like... a reflection."

Mike's face lit up. He grabbed the D&D board again. He held up the illustrated side, with its painted forests and mountains. "What if this is Hawkins?" He then slowly, deliberately, flipped it over to reveal the plain, unfinished wooden underside. "And this... this is where Will is? The Upside Down." A profound silence fell over the group. The theory was insane. It was impossible. And yet, it was the only thing that made a horrifying kind of sense.

"Like the Vale of Shadows," Dustin said, his face lighting up as the pieces of lore and reality finally, terrifyingly fused together. He scrambled on his hands and knees to get the Dungeons & Dragons manual, flipping through the pages with frantic urgency until he found the passage. His voice trembled slightly as he read aloud:

"'The Vale of Shadows is a dimension that is a dark reflection or echo of our world. It is a place of decay and death. A plane out of phase. A place of monsters.'" He looked up; his eyes wide behind his glasses. "'It is right next to you, and you don't even see it.'"

The words hung in the air, heavy and suffocating. The basement felt smaller, the shadows at the edges of the room suddenly deeper, more menacing. "An alternative dimension," Mike said, the concept settling over them not like a theory, but like a verdict. This was their reality now.

The initial shock gave way to a more pressing, practical terror. "How are we supposed to get there?" Hailey asked, the question looming large and seemingly impossible. How do you walk into a reflection?

"You cast Shadow Walk," Dustin told her automatically, still fully immersed in the game's logic.

"In real life, dummy," Lucas snapped, the fear making him sharp.

"We can't Shadow Walk, but maybe she can," Dustin said, looking pointedly at the sleeping form of Eleven. The rest of them followed his gaze, a new, fragile hope kindling in their chests.

Mike moved to the couch, kneeling beside her. "El?" he said gently. "El, wake up." Her eyes fluttered open, hazy with sleep and exhaustion. "Do you know how we get there? To the Upside Down?" Mike asked, his voice soft but brimming with desperate need.

Eleven looked at his hopeful face, then at the expectant, frightened faces of the others. Slowly, sadly, she shook her head. The knowledge wasn't there. The path was closed.

The fragile hope shattered. "Oh my god," Hailey whispered, the words a soft exhale of defeat. She sank down onto the floor beside the couch, her shoulders slumping. She desperately hoped they could figure out how to reach Will before the cold and the dark and the emptiness of that other place claimed him forever. The answer was in the room with them, but it was out of reach, leaving them stranded in the right-side up with no way to help their friend.

*~*🌟*~*

The idea of attending a funeral for a boy who might not even be dead was a special kind of torture that didn't sit right with Hailey. Every minute spent at this sombre ceremony felt like a minute stolen from the desperate, urgent search for Will. A heavy, cold weight of responsibility sat in her gut; the memory of him refusing a ride home replaying on a loop. She should have insisted. Now, she had to stand in the crisp autumn air and play her part in this painful, likely pointless, charade.

"Come on, kids. It's time to go," Mrs. Henderson called softly from the hallway, her own voice thick with a grief that felt misplaced to Hailey.

At the cemetery, Hailey stood close to the boys, a solid, silent presence among them as the priest's voice droned on, words meant to comfort feeling like ashes in her mouth.

"Fear not, for I am with you. Be not dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you. Yes, I will help you. I will uphold you with my righteous right hand." The priest's voice was calm, practiced. "It's times like these that our faith is challenged. How, if He is truly benevolent, could God take from us someone so young, so innocent? It would be easy to turn away from God, but we must remember that nothing, not even tragedy, can separate us from His love. We are here today to find comfort in the truth of scripture and to surround Will and his family."

Hailey's eyes scanned the crowd, not in prayer, but in restless assessment. The boys were doing a commendable job of looking sombre, but their carefully constructed act cracked when Dustin noticed a popular girl named Jennifer Hayes crying quietly into a tissue. He subtly elbowed the others, a grin breaking through his faux-sadness.

"Just wait till we tell Will that Jennifer Hayes was crying at his funeral," Dustin whispered, a spark of mischievous, life-affirming glee in his eyes. The other boys fought back smiles, a tiny moment of normalcy in the surreal horror. Mrs. Wheeler shot them a sharp "Shhh!" from behind them, and they quickly schooled their features back into masks of appropriate grief.

After the service, at the Byers' house, Hailey balanced a plate full of casseroles and funeral sandwiches she had no intention of eating. She followed the boys on their search for Mr. Clarke, their real mission here.

"Mr. Clarke?" Mike called out, spotting their teacher near the punch bowl, looking uncomfortable in a suit.

He turned around, his expression softening into genuine concern when he saw them. "Oh, hey there. How are you boys holding up?"

"We're in...mourning," Lucas said, putting on a convincingly sad face, though his eyes were alight with purpose.

"Man, these aren't real Nilla Wafers," Dustin complained around a mouthful of a subpar cookie. Hailey pinched his arm.

"We were wondering if you had time to talk?" Mike asked, getting straight to the point, unable to waste a second on pleasantries.

"We have some questions."

"A lot of questions."

They found an empty table and sat down, Mr. Clarke joining them, intrigued. Mike didn't waste a second. "So, you know how in Cosmos, Carl Sagan talks about other dimensions? Like, beyond our world?"

"Yeah, sure. Theoretically."

"Right, theoretically."

"So, theoretically, how do we travel there?" Lucas asked, leaning forward.

"You guys have been thinking about Hugh Everett's Many-Worlds Interpretation, haven't you?" Mr. Clarke asked, a warm, slightly sad smile touching his lips, mistaking their intensity for a grief-stricken dive into intellectual escapism. Hailey felt utterly lost; her strengths lay in protecting her boys, not in theoretical physics.

"Well, basically, there are parallel universes, just like our world, but with infinite variations. Which means there's a world out there where none of this tragic stuff ever happened," Mr. Clarke explained gently, trying to offer comfort.

"I don't think that's quite what the boys were talking about," Hailey said softly, steering him back from philosophy to practical, terrifying mechanics.

"Oh."

"We were thinking of more of an... evil dimension," Dustin clarified, his voice dropping.

"Like the Vale of Shadows. You know the Vale of Shadows?"

"An echo of the material plane, where necrotic and shadow magic-" Mr. Clarke began, easily following their gaming reference.

"Yeah, exactly. If a place like the Vale of Shadows did exist, how would we travel there?" Mike cut in; his voice tight. "Theoretically," Lucas added quickly, a belated attempt to sound casual.

"Well..." Mr. Clarke, ever the enthusiastic educator, picked up a paper plate and a pen. "Picture an acrobat standing on a tightrope. Now, the tightrope is our dimension. Our dimension has rules. You can move forwards or backwards." He drew a line. "But what if, right next to our acrobat, there is a flea? Now, the flea can also travel back and forth, just like the acrobat, right?"

"Right," Mike said, all of them leaning in so intently they were almost hovering over the table. "Here's where things get really interesting. The flea can also travel this way..." He drew a line perpendicular to the tightrope. "Along the side of the rope. It can even go underneath the rope." He flipped the plate over. "Upside down," they said in unison, a chill running down Hailey's spine.

"Exactly."

"But we're not the flea. We're the acrobat," Mike said, the metaphor becoming clear and disheartening.

"In this metaphor, yes, we're the acrobat," Mr. Clarke confirmed.

"So, we can't go upside down?" Lucas asked, his shoulders slumping in defeat.

"No."

"Well, is there any way for the acrobat to get to the Upside Down?" Dustin asked, a last, thin thread of hope in his voice.

"Well... you'd have to create a massive amount of energy. More than humans are currently capable of creating, mind you, to open up some kind of tear in time and space." He folded the paper plate in half and stabbed the pen through the centre with a definitive thunk. "And then... you create a doorway."

"Wait, you mean like a gate?" Hailey asked, finally grasping the terrifyingly concrete concept.

"Sure. Like a gate. But again, this is all..."

"Theoretical," Lucas finished for him, his hope visibly fading.

"But...but what if this gate already existed?" Mike pressed; his voice tight with a need for a real, tangible answer.

"Well, if it did, I... I think we'd know. It would disrupt gravity, the magnetic field, our environment. Heck, it might even swallow us up whole." Mr. Clarke's tone was light, but his words were ominous. "Science is neat, but I'm afraid it's not very forgiving."

The theoretical talk gave Hailey a headache. Her world was built on action and protection, not equations and hypotheses. The only science she understood was the kind the boys patiently explained to her during their campaigns. As Mr. Clarke walked away to offer condolences to Joyce, they were left with more questions than answers, the terrifying, looming possibility of a real, existing gate hanging over them.

After the funeral, Hailey and the boys ended up back in Mike's basement, the weight of their formal clothes exchanged for the heavy burden of their next steps. Mike was explaining everything Mr. Clarke had told them to Eleven, who listened with wide, serious eyes.

"It would take a lot of energy to build a gate like this, but that's got to be what happened. Otherwise, how'd Will get there, right?" Mike reasoned, trying to fit the pieces together.

"Right," Eleven agreed softly. "What we want to know is, do you know where the gate is?" Lucas asked, his gaze fixed on her, a hint of accusation returning to his tone. Eleven shook her head, her eyes downcast.

"Then how'd you know about the Upside Down?" Lucas's tone was turning snappy again, his patience worn thin.

Hailey watched her brother pacing back and forth like a mad scientist, muttering to himself. "Dusty, what are you doing?" she asked, but he was too deep in thought, his brain whirring audibly. "Dustin? Dustin!" He finally stopped and turned toward them, a wild look in his eyes.

"I... I need to see your compasses," Dustin announced.

"What?" Mike asked, confused.

"Your compasses. All of your compasses, right now!" Dustin demanded, his voice rising with excitement. The boys, used to his eccentric bursts of genius, hurried to their backpacks and game boxes to retrieve them, placing the small instruments on the floor in front of him.

Hailey laid back on the couch and closed her eyes, though she kept her ears open to their conversation, a steadying presence.

"What's so exciting about this?" Mike asked, puzzled.

"Well, they're all facing north, right?" Dustin said, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

"Yeah, so?"

"Well, that's not true north," Dustin pointed out, tapping the glass of one compass.

"What do you mean?" Mike pressed, leaning down.

"I mean exactly what I just said. That's not true north." Mike and Lucas just stared, utterly clueless. "Are you both seriously this dense? The sun rises in the east and sets in the west, right? Which means that is true north," Dustin explained, pointing emphatically toward a wall of the basement.

"So, what you're saying is the compasses are broke," Mike concluded.

"Do you even understand how a compass works? Do you see a battery pack on this?" Dustin asked, holding one up impatiently.

"No."

"No, you don't, because it doesn't need one. The needle's naturally drawn to the Earth's magnetic North Pole," Dustin told them, his voice lecturing.

"So, what's wrong with them?" Lucas asked, still not connecting the dots.

Hailey sat up, the realization hitting her like a lightning bolt. "Wait, Dustin, are you saying we can use the compasses to find the gate?" she asked, her voice sharp with understanding.

"Thank you! Someone gets it! I wasn't able to figure it out, but then I remembered. You can change the direction of a compass with a magnet. If there's a presence of a more powerful magnetic field, the needle deflects to that power. And then I remembered what Mr. Clarke said. The gate would have so much power..." Dustin said, words tumbling out in a rush.

"It could disrupt the electromagnetic field." Mike finished, his eyes widening.

"Exactly."

"Meaning if we follow the compasses north..."

"They should lead us to the gate."

Hailey stepped outside to her car to change into more comfortable shoes; there was no way she was trekking through the woods in her funeral heels. As she was lacing up her sneakers, she saw a familiar car coming up the Wheelers' driveway. Steve Harrington got out, running a hand through his perfectly styled hair. He noticed her by her car and decided to approach, looking relieved to see a vaguely familiar face. At least she wasn't holding a baseball bat this time.

"Henderson, what are you doing here?" Steve asked, curiosity and a touch of awkwardness in his voice.

"I'm waiting for my soldiers," she said, offering him a small, tired smile.

"Your soldiers?"

"Yes. Mike, Lucas, and Dustin." Now that Steve thought about it, he'd never actually seen Hailey hang out with anyone their own age at school. She was always with them, or with Barb, or alone.

"You here to see the princess?" Hailey asked him, her eyes glinting with playful curiosity, though there was no malice in it now.

"Yeah, but she's kind of acting weird," Steve admitted, shoving his hands in his pockets. "Like, weirder than usual." Hailey shook her head.

"Sorry, I can't tell you if that's true, because I find Nancy acts weirdly all the time," she told him with a soft chuckle.

"Hailey! Come on! We have to go!" Dustin yelled from the backyard. Steve saw the four younger kids waiting for her by the tree line, looking like they were on a serious mission.

"If you'll excuse me, I have a road trip to go on," Hailey said, slinging her backpack over her shoulder. She paused, looking back at him. "But if you ever need someone to talk to who isn't obsessed with social politics, I'm all ears, Harrington." She gave him a quick wave before turning and running to join the boys.

Steve watched her go, the confusing, intriguing girl who defended her friends with a ferocity he admired and saw through his bravado with an ease that unnerved him. He found himself staring long after she'd disappeared into the woods, more intrigued than ever.

*~*🌟*~*

Hailey was immensely glad she'd changed her shoes; the walk through the dense, unforgiving woods felt like an eternity. The compass needles quivered stubbornly, leading them on a frustrating, meandering path.

"How much further?" Lucas asked, his voice heavy with exhaustion and impatience.

"I don't know. These only tell direction, not distance. You really need to learn more about compasses," Dustin snapped, not looking up from the device clutched in his hand, his own frustration mounting.

"I'm just saying, how do we know when we get to the gate?" Lucas pressed, kicking a rock out of his path.

"Uh, I think a portal to another dimension is gonna be pretty obvious," Dustin pointed out with a hefty dose of sarcasm.

Lucas glanced at Hailey, who was walking between him and Dustin, her gaze fixed ahead, a worried crease between her brows. "Hailey, what did Harrington want back there?" he asked, seeking a distraction. She looked down at the two boys staring up at her with unabashed curiosity.

"He was just complaining about Nancy," she said, shrugging it off.

"Do you like him?" Dustin asked his sister, a sceptical eyebrow raised. Hailey burst out laughing as if he'd told the joke of the year. "Yeah... no. He's good-looking and all, but he's not that likable," she denied, though a faint warmth touched her cheeks that she hoped they'd blame on the cold. She looked back at Mike and Eleven just in time to see the girl subtly wipe her nose with the back of her hand. Lucas saw it, too.

"Do you think she's acting weird?" Lucas asked, nodding toward Eleven, his voice dropping. Dustin glanced back.

"You're asking if the weirdo is acting weird?" he asked, genuinely confused. Hailey had to admit, the girl was behaving more strangely than usual, her movements tense, her eyes darting around as if expecting an attack.

"I mean, weirder than normal?"

"I don't know. Who cares?" Dustin said, turning his attention back to the compass.

But Hailey decided to keep a closer eye on her. Something was off.

Eventually, the trees thinned, and they found themselves staring at a chain-link fence topped with barbed wire. Beyond it lay the town junkyard, a graveyard of rusted cars and forgotten things. Hailey frowned, a sinking feeling in her stomach.

"Dustin, is this right?" she asked, her voice laced with doubt. Dustin stared at his compass, then at the setting sun, his face falling. "Oh, no," he muttered, the confidence draining from his voice.

"'Oh no'? What's 'oh no'?" Lucas demanded, his patience evaporating.

"We're headed back home," Dustin said, defeat in his tone.

"What?"

"Are you sure?"

"Yeah, I'm sure. Setting sun, right there. We looped right back around," Dustin explained, throwing his hands up in frustration.

"And you're just realizing this now?" Lucas asked, his disbelief quickly curdling into anger.

"Come on, you guys, this can't all be on Dustin," Hailey interjected, trying to keep the peace.

"But he's the compass genius!" Lucas snapped, rounding on her.

"What do yours say?" Dustin asked Mike and Lucas, trying to deflect.

"North."

"Makes no damn sense."

"Maybe the gate moved," Mike suggested weakly, looking to Eleven for confirmation, but she stayed silent.

"No. I don't think it's the gate. I think it's something else screwing with the compasses," Dustin said, his eyes scanning the junkyard.

"Maybe it's something here," Mike offered, ever the optimist. "No, it has to be like a super magnet."

Lucas and Hailey were both staring at Eleven, who seemed to shrink under their combined gaze, growing increasingly nervous.

"It's not a magnet," Lucas said, his voice low and accusing. "She's been acting weirder than normal. If she can slam doors with her mind, she can definitely screw up a compass." Hailey had to admit the logic was sound; it was the only explanation that fit the bizarre loop they'd just walked.

"Why would she do that?" Mike asked, immediately defensive of her.

"Because she's trying to sabotage our mission! Because she's a traitor!" Lucas snapped, stepping closer to Eleven, invading her space. "Lucas, what are you doing?" Mike demanded, moving to stand between them.

"You did it, didn't you? You don't want us to reach the gate. You don't want us to find Will," Lucas said, his face inches from hers, his voice trembling with betrayal.

"Lucas, come on, seriously, just leave her alone," Mike pleaded, shoving at his friend's shoulder.

"Admit it!"

"No."

"Admit it!" Lucas grabbed her arm, pushing up the sleeve of Nancy's jacket to reveal fresh, vivid blood trickling from a nostril and down her arm.

"Fresh blood. I knew it."

"Lucas, come on."

"Hailey and I saw her wiping her nose on the tracks. She was using her powers," Lucas told Mike, his evidence laid bare.

"Bull! That's old blood. Right, El?" Mike asked, but she remained silent, her eyes wide with fear. "Right, El?"

"It's...not... It's not safe," Eleven finally whispered, her voice barely audible.

"What did I tell you? She's been playing us from the beginning!" Lucas's voice was thick with fury and hurt.

"That's not true! She helped us find Will!" Mike argued, his own voice rising. Dustin and Hailey stood by, a silent audience to the fracture of their party, unsure of whom to believe. "Find Will? Where is he then, huh? I don't see him," Lucas said, gesturing wildly around the desolate junkyard.

"Guys, calm down, please," Hailey spoke up, finally finding her voice, but her words were lost in the heat of the argument.

"Yeah, you know what I mean?" Mike shot back at Lucas, ignoring her.

"No, I actually don't. Just think about it, Mike. She could've just told us where the Upside Down was right away, but she didn't. She just made us run around like headless chickens," Lucas said, his frustration boiling over.

"All right, calm down!" Dustin tried to get between them, but Lucas shoved him away roughly.

"No! She used us, all of us! She helped just enough so she could get what she wants: food and a bed. She's like a stray dog!" Lucas yelled, now fully worked up, saying the cruellest thing he could think of.

"Screw you, Lucas!" Mike roared.

"No! Screw you, Mike! You're blind... blind because you like that a girls not grossed out by you. But wake up, man! Wake the hell up! She knows where Will is, and now she's just letting him die in the Upside Down!" Lucas shouted, his words echoing off the piles of scrap metal. Hailey felt frozen, a spectator to a car crash in slow motion, unsure how to de-escalate the nuclear situation.

"Shut up!" Mike yelled, his face purple with rage. "For all we know, it's her fault," Lucas said, pointing a trembling finger at a terrified Eleven.

"Shut up!"

"We're looking for some stupid monster... but did you ever stop to think that maybe she's the monster?" Lucas asked, his voice dropping to a venomous, hateful whisper.

"I said shut up!" Mike roared, launching himself at Lucas and tackling him to the hard, gravelly ground. Hailey knew she had to step in now. "Stop! Knock it off, you idiots! Mike, get off him!" She rushed forward, grabbing Mike's shoulders to pull him off. In the chaotic, furious scuffle, the two boys shoved backwards with all their might. Hailey, trying to shield Lucas, took the brunt of the impact. Her head connected with the sharp, rusted edge of a car fender with a sickening, wet thud.

The world exploded into white-hot pain, then into nothing but a ringing silence. Her body went limp, slumping over Lucas's, a dead weight.

"Jesus!"

"Hailey! Are you all, right?" Dustin cried, his voice cracking with panic as he dropped to his knees beside his sister.

"Come on, Hailey, wake up!" Lucas begged, his anger instantly replaced by sheer terror as he shook her shoulder gently, her head lolling. "Hailey! Come on, Hailey!" Her face was pale, a stark contrast to the dark, alarming blood matting her hairline.

"Why would you do that?" Mike asked Eleven, his voice shaking with a mixture of anger and horror. She had hurt the one person who had always been there for them, who had always protected them without question. "What's wrong with you? What's wrong with you?" he kept asking the girl, his faith in her shattering.

A low groan escaped Hailey's lips. Her eyes fluttered open, squinting against the fading light. The world swam nauseatingly. She touched her temple, her fingers coming away wet and sticky with blood. "Hailey, you okay?" Mike asked, his face pale with worry, his fight with Lucas completely forgotten. "Hailey...How many fingers am I holding up? Hai, how many fingers?" Dustin asked, holding up a shaky three fingers. "Boys, calm down. I'm okay," she reassured them, her voice slurred though her head throbbed with a vicious, pounding rhythm. She tried to sit up, waves of dizziness washing over her.

Once he was sure Hailey was lucid, Lucas turned and started walking away, his shoulders slumped in a mixture of anger, guilt, and utter defeat.

"Lucas, where are you going?" Mike called out; his voice tired.

"Let him go. Man, let him go," Dustin told Mike, watching his friend leave.

"Mikey, just give him some time to cool down," Hailey advised, wincing as she used Dustin's shoulder to steady herself. The taste of copper was strong in her mouth.

"You sure you're okay?" Dustin asked, still staring at the bloody gash on her head. "I'm peachy," she said, forcing a weak, pained smile. She looked around; her vision still blurry at the edges. "Where's El?" she asked, noticing the absence. Mike looked around, his eyes widening in fresh alarm. The space where Eleven had been standing was empty. She was gone.

"El?" Hailey pushed herself to her feet, ignoring the dizziness and the pounding in her skull.

"El! Eleven!" Mike yelled, his voice desperate and echoing through the cavernous junkyard.

"El! Eleven!"

"El!"

But there was no answer. Only the sound of the wind whistling through the skeletons of dead cars. They had lost one of their own. Again.

*~🌟~*