ৎ ָ࣪ 𓄹 ﹙𝟬𝟭𝟮﹚˖ ᨒ .ﾟ ꗃ 𓄸
❛ COMPASS GENIUS ❜ 𓂃 𓈒 𓏸 ₊˚

          IT WAS NOW THE DAY OF WILL'S FUNERAL, the atmosphere being strangely dark. Everyone was sad, besides his best friends and his mom, since they knew that Will was still alive. The other people that attended didn't even know Will personally, they were just neighbors, or people from school.

        "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. It's times like these that our faith is challenged." The man was talking about Will, his speech going into one ear and out the other for Grace. She stood next to her friends, trying not to close her eyes in boredom.

          Out the corner of her eye, she spotted Joyce rolling her eyes, not looking very interested.

        "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. . ." The man continued to speak solemnly, no one really listening or paying too much attention to his speech.

Dustin started laughing as he nudged his friends next to him, directing their gazes to a popular girl in their grade. "Just wait till we tell Will that Jennifer Hayes was crying at his funeral." The boy with curly hair smiled, being shushed right after by Mike's mom.

"Can you believe her?" Grace whispered to Mike, him shaking his head afterwards.

The ceremony was coming to an end, everyone making their way inside the funeral home where there were snacks and tables and chairs. All the people in the room were just saying their condolences to Will's parents, which Grace didn't like. Will could not stand his dad, so it annoyed her that he showed up acting all high and mighty like he had been there for Will.

"Mr. Clarke?" Mike called out, spotting their teacher. "Oh, hey, there. How are you kids holding up?" The man asked, Dustin not bothering to look up as he continued eating the snacks at the table.

"We're. . .in. . .mourning." Lucas spoke hesitantly, earning a sad nod from Grace and Mike.

"Man, these aren't real Nilla Wafers." Dustin scoffed in annoyance at the off brand food, sighing when he noticed the looks his friends sent him.

"We were wondering if you had time to talk?" Grace stared at the man in front of her hopefully, wanting to get this whole missing situation over with.

"We have some questions." Lucas nodded at the girl beside him. "A lot of questions." Mike added in, cheering silently when their teacher agreed to talk to them. He could never pass up an opportunity to teach his favorite students. The smartest in his class.

"So, you know how in Cosmos, Carl Sagan talks about other dimensions? Like, beyond our world?" Mike looked at the man, not wasting time in throwing a bunch of questions out at him.

"Yeah, sure, theoretically." The man answered with a small head nod. "Right, theoretically." Mike smiled when Grace answered for him.

"So, theoretically, how do we travel there?" Lucas asked Mr. Clarke. "You guys have been thinking about Hugh Everett's Many-Worlds Interpretation, haven't you? Well, basically, there are parallel universes. Just like our world, but just infinite variations of it. Which means there's a world out there where none of this tragic stuff ever happened." The man stated calmly, each of his students looking at him like he was insane.

"Yeah, that's not what we're talking about." Lucas quickly intervened. A small 'oh' left their teacher's mouth, confused at what they really meant.

"We were thinking of more an evil dimension, like the Vale of Shadows. You know the Vale of Shadows?" Dustin got right to the point, continuing to eat his snacks as he shared them with Grace. The two smiled warmly as they fed each other snacks they both liked.

"An echo of the Material Plane, where necrotic and shadow magic—" The man didn't get to finish when Mike interrupted him. "Yeah, exactly." The boy agreed, knowing they needed answers right away.

"If that did exist, a place like the Vale of Shadows, how would we travel there?" Grace questioned, with Lucas adding a 'theoretically' at the end.

"Picture an acrobat. . .standing on a tightrope. Now, the tightrope is our dimension, and our dimension has rules. You can move forward, or backwards. 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? The flea can also travel this way, along the side of the rope. He can even go underneath the rope." Mr. Clarke simply demonstrated.

"Upside down." All four kids mumbled in understanding, some excited.

"But we're not the flea, we're the acrobat." Grace told them. "In this metaphor, yes, we're the acrobat." The teacher agreed with the girl.

"So we can't go upside down?" Lucas wanted to know. "No," Mr. Clarke informed them.

"Well, is there any way for the acrobat to get to the Upside Down?" Dustin asked, eyes wide in interest.

"You'd have to create a massive amount of energy. More than humans are currently capable of creating, mind you, to open up some kid of tear in time and space, and then you create a doorway." The man stabbed a hole into the paper plate, showing them.

"Like a gate?" Dustin raised his eyebrows. "Sure. Like a gate." The teacher hummed at him.

"But what if this gate already existed?" Mike asked hesitantly, not wanting to give away their true reasons for questioning him as much as they are.

"If it did. . .I think we'd know. It would disrupt gravity, the magnetic field, our environment. Heck, it might swallow us up whole. Science is neat, but I'm afraid it's not very forgiving." He concluded, each of his students looking at each other nervously.

He had just confirmed all their thoughts. Will had been sucked into an alternate dimension, and they were the only ones that could save him now.

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆⠘ *‧☽ ‧* ⠘☆ﾟ‧ ───

           THE GROUP OF KIDS MADE THEIR WAY TO MIKE'S HOUSE, their usual hangout spot since Eleven was there. They told her everything Mr. Clarke told them, even using the whole flea and acrobat as a demonstration to help her understand better. Instead of getting answers from her, they received nervous and anxious looks from the girl. Since Grace was an empath, she knew exactly how El felt, and she also knew that the girl was hiding the full truth.

          As much as she wanted to invade her brain, in order to find out herself, she refrained from doing it. The sheer act of reading someone's mind gave her permanent access to that person's brain, which is why she rarely used that concept of her abilities. El didn't deserve that from her, in fact, no one did.

          "What we wanna know is, do you know where the gate is?" Lucas asked Eleven. The quiet girl once again shook her head, the blonde giving her a scrutinized stare in hopes that she would tell the truth.

         "Then how do you know about the Upside Down?" The boy with dark skin questioned, his patience slowly dying, meaning he could tell that El was lying too. But if it was one thing El was good, it was making herself seem completely clueless. Even if she wasn't.

          "Dustin, what are you doing?" Grace called out, noticing that her friend with curly hair was pacing around the room like he was onto something.

          "I need to see your compasses." The boy told them, pacing the room once more. "What?" Mike scrunched his face up in confusion. "Your compasses. All of your compasses, right now!" The boy shouted, moving to pick up every compass he found.

           "Aye aye, captain!" The blonde cheered sarcastically, taking her pink compass out of her back pocket and handing it to Dustin.

           "What's exciting about this?" Mike cleared his throat. "Well, they're all facing north, right?" Dustin asked them with a grin. "Yeah, so?" Lucas concluded, feeling like that wasn't important.

          "Well, that's not true north." Dustin exclaimed, his arms in the air. "What do you mean?" Mike raised his eyebrows at the boy in front of him.

          "I mean exactly what I just said. That's not true north. Are you all seriously this dense? The sun rises in the east, and it sets in the west. Right? Which means that's true north." Dustin pointed in the opposite direction that the compasses were going in.

          "So what you're saying is the compasses are broken." Grace bit her bottom lip, trying to piece together what exactly Dustin meant.

          "Do you even understand how a compass works? Do you see a battery pack on this?" Dustin put the object in her face, showing her. "Nope." The girl answered right after, admitting that she was clueless.

          "No, you don't. Because it doesn't need one. The needles naturally drawn to the Earth's magnetic North Pole. You can change the direction of a compass with a magnet. If there's the presence of a more powerful magnetic field, the needle deflects to that power. Then I remembered what Mr. Clarke said. The gate would have so much power—" Dustin started to inform.

         "It could disrupt the electromagnetic field." Mike finished for him instead, earning a big smile and nod from Dustin at the fact that he caught on.

          "Meaning if we follow the compasses' north. . ." Lucas trailed off, staring at the expression on the blonde's face, his heart beating fast at how cute she looked when she put on a thinking face. Which was rare for the girl, she hardly ever thought about anything.

          "They should lead us to the gate." Dustin nodded happily, knowing they were closer to finding Will than ever before. No one but Grace noticed the scared look on Eleven's face, her breathing growing heavier.

          The blonde stared at Eleven, the gears in her brain turning. She wanted to know what El was hiding from them, and she was going to find out.

          The kids then rounded up their compasses, leaving Mike's house to follow where it would lead them.  The blonde girl made sure to stay behind everyone the whole time, keeping her eyes on Eleven. Mike noticed her trailing behind, slowing his own pace down so that he could be the one to walk beside her.

          "Hey, you okay? You've been distant all day." Mike shyly put his arm over her shoulders. He's taller than the girl, so the action itself was simple.

         "I'm fine. Just worried. El's being weird." The girl explained softly, her heart speeding up at his closeness. She could feel the warmth of his breath tickling her face in the coldness, a blush covering her cheeks.

         "She's always being weird." Mike scoffed at how much he sounded like Lucas. "Weirder than normal, Michael. I know she's lying about the gate." Grace told the boy, her face inching closer to his so that the others wouldn't hear what she was telling him.

         "Why would she lie to us?" The boy asked, gulping nervously. He hoped Grace couldn't hear how his heart was nearly about to explode.

         "That's what I'm trying to find out." The blonde stared back at Mike, his eyes widening when she held the eye contact longer than he'd expected.

         "Um. . .I. . .uh," Mike began to turn red, stuttering out random phrases. He had lost his train of thought, lost in the sea of her bright blue eyes.

         "Calm down, Mike. I'm not going to kiss you. I bet you'd enjoy that, though." The blonde backed away from the boy in front of her. He spotted her signature smirk, embarrassed that he fell for her teasing.

          After their brief moment, the two continued to walk beside each other the rest of the way. Mike still felt a bit embarrassed, but got over it quick.

         "Oh, no." Dustin stopped ahead of them. It was now late in the afternoon. The sun was almost setting, meaning they'd been walking for over an hour.

         "What do you mean 'oh no'?" Lucas stopped next to Dustin, annoyed. "We're headed back home." Dustin told them in surprise. He was sure that the direction changed. It wasn't leading them that way before.

          "Are you sure?" Grace stepped forward, leaving Mike's side as she approached Dustin. "Yeah, I'm sure. Setting sun, right there. We looped right back around." The boy explained to her, exhausted.

          "And you're just realizing this now?" Lucas glared at the boy in front of him. He was mad that he took them on a potential wild goose chase.

          "Why is this all on me?" Dustin frowned, his voice raising at Lucas. "Because you're the compass genius!" Lucas argued back, his arms raised.

          "What does yours say?" Dustin asked his friends, all of them checking their compasses. "North." All three of the kids stated in unison.

          "Makes no damn sense." Dustin sighed, looking around him. "Maybe the gate moved." Mike came up with an idea. "No. I don't think it's the gate. I think it's something else screwing with the compasses." Grace explained to her friends, sharing a look with Eleven, giving the girl a chance to come clean.

          "Maybe it's something here." Mike noticed what Grace was hinting at. He didn't want to call El out, though, so he acted like he didn't.

         "No. It has to be like a super magnet." Dustin told his friends. "It's not a magnet. She's been acting weirder that normal. If she can slam doors with her mind, she can definitely screw up a compass." Lucas pointed at Eleven, not holding back his temper at the girl.

          "Why would she do that?" Mike asked the boy in disbelief, turning to Grace as if she would defend El as well, surprised when she didn't.

          "Because she's trying to sabotage our mission! She's a traitor!" Lucas made his way to Eleven. The others followed after him, staring at the girl. She could only stand there silently, not defending herself in any way, which meant some of his words were true.

          "You did it, didn't you? You don't want us to reach the gate. You don't want us to find Will. Admit it!" Lucas pulled Eleven's arm, showing his friends the fresh blood on her jacket. He thought he saw her wipe her nose on the tracks, but thought nothing of it at the time.

          "That's old blood. Right, El?" Mike tried to stop them from arguing. Grace rolled her eyes, she warned him that El was up to something back on the tracks, yet here he was trying to be a peace maker.

          Eleven started to cry, knowing that Lucas was right about her. She didn't answer Mike, only shaking her head and staring at the ground in shame.

         "It's not. .it's not safe." Eleven tried to explain to them. She was scared of what could happen to all of them if they found the gate and how it opened.

          "What did I tell you? She's been playing us from the beginning!" Lucas shouted at Mike.

         "I know we're all super pissed at her right now, but that's not true. She helped us find Will. We wouldn't have made it this far without her." Grace had enough of their bickering, stepping between the two.

        "Find Will? Where is he, then? I don't see him." The boy looked around sarcastically. Grace couldn't help but glare at the boy, her fists clenched.

        "You know what I mean, Lucas. Don't be a jerk." The blonde tried to refrain from calling him names, but a slight insult escaped her mouth anyways.

        "Just think about it. 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 in a haste, his head turning towards the girl.

         "All right, calm down!" Dustin yelled at each of his friends, being ignored by them.

        "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." The boy looked around, Eleven staring at him with an impassive expression.

        "That's not true." Mike whispered, shaking his head. He didn't think Eleven would use them like that, not after everything. Not after being reunion with Grace.

        "You're just blind! Blind because El is the reason Grace is spending more time with you! But wake up, man! Wake the hell up! El knows where Will is, and now she's letting him die in the Upside Down." Lucas let the words fly out of his mouth, not thinking.

        "Shut up!" Mike retaliated, his face turning red in embarrassment and anger.

         The two boys started to fight each other, Mike tackling Lucas on the ground. Lucas rolled them over, shoving Mike underneath him.

         Dustin and Grace shouted for them to stop fighting. El let out a sudden scream, Lucas flying away from Mike and landing on top of a pile of junk.

         "Oh, my God, El! Why would you do that?" Grace felt a few tears swell up, her best friend laying on the ground, obviously unconscious.

         They shook him a few times, Mike screaming at Eleven while the others freaked out.

         Lucas woke up after a few minutes of them shaking him, the anger visible on his face.

         He pushed Mike away, not caring about his concern, leaving the scene angrily, wiping away his tears before they could notice that he was crying.

         The blonde bit her trembling lip, a few tears falling down her cheeks at how this whole situation blew up in their faces.

         Mike shook his head sadly, noticing the absence of Eleven as well. How could they have good intentions, but only make things worse?

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        AUTHOR'S NOTE 📝  .    .     .
This chapter was much longer than I thought it'd be!
There's only going to be a few more before I start on season 2 ! Hope you're excited for that !