Sarah shot backwards upon hearing the word, "man", escape from the monster's jagged petals. The cuts that dotted her arms and legs burned in response, but she was too shocked to notice. The creature didn't even startle at her reaction. It was clear that he expected worse.

Above them, large clouds slowly sauntered across the sky. Below them, white-capped waves crashed against sharp cliffs. And between them, long, green grass rolled to the rhythm of their heartbeats.

"B-but how?" Sarah stammered, her eyes studying every inch of the creature for any indication of the man he once was before. "Who did this to you?"

The beast didn't get a chance to answer, because just then, a rift opened behind Sarah and a set of hands latched onto her shoulders. Before she could even register what was happening, she was yanked backwards, her body sliding from soft grass onto a hard floor. Laying on her back, she looked up to see four familiar faces hovering over her; Hopper, Adam, Nancy, and Jonathan. She was back at the cabin.

Sarah shot upwards just in time to catch the rift blinking out of existence, along with the creature. She punched the floor in frustration, cussing under her breath.

"Are you okay?" Hopper asked, kneeling down to investigate the cuts and scratches on her limbs. Streams of blood ran down her arms and legs until they collected in one red river that flowed to the ground.

"Fine," Sarah answered. She tried to push herself to her feet but Hopper and Adam kept her on the ground.

"You need to stay still until we can assess these injuries," Adam informed her. Jonathan grabbed the first-aid kit from the kitchen cabinet and handed it to Adam.

"You need to let me back in!" Sarah replied. "I need to talk to him!"

"'Him'?" Hopper asked in confusion. "Who are you talking about?"

"The creature!" Sarah shook her head in exasperation. The pain was starting to catch up with her and it was making her brain foggy. "It--he--is human. He might know who did this to him!"

Hopper, Adam, Nancy, and Jonathan all exchanged looks of surprise and disgust.

"He's safe in the pocket dimension for now," Adam reassured her. He began rummaging through the first-aid kit for antiseptics and bandages. "After you've healed, I'll let you back in."

"We don't have time!" Sarah argued. She grimaced as Adam applied antiseptic to the cuts on her leg and wrapped the limb in gauze.

"But your mother--"

"I don't care about what my mother thinks!" Sarah snapped. She could feel her cheeks burning. "Let me back in, now, Adam, or I'll find my own way back in!"

Adam paused his work on Sarah's injuries to exchange a glance with Hopper, who shrugged in response.

"What can I say? She gets it from me," Hopper said.

"That she does," Adam muttered under his breath. "Fine. I'll let you back in, but you're not going alone."

Sarah wasn't pleased with this, but she decided to keep her mouth shut. This was as much leeway as she was going to get out of Adam and every minute she spent arguing was another minute she went without answers, and another minute that the creature remained trapped in his terrifying form.

"Fine," Sarah agreed through pursed lips.

Adam studied Sarah for a few minutes before sighing and turning to open a rift on the far wall. "Your mother is going to kill me."

Sarah trembled as she pushed herself to her feet. Hopper offered a hand to help but Sarah refused it when she noticed Adam giving her a questioning look.

"I'm fine," Sarah reassured them, even though this wasn't entirely true. She took unsteady steps towards the rift, Hopper following after with his gun pressed firmly into his grip. Sarah paused when she noticed it. "Dad, you have to leave that here."

"What? Absolutely not!" Hopper argued, his grasp on his gun growing tighter.

Sarah rested a shaky hand on Hopper's gun. "You have to trust me. He won't hurt us as long as we don't hurt him. He's just scared."

"Tell him to join the club," Hopper scoffed.

Sarah tilted her head and gave Hopper a knowing look. After a few minutes of trying to resist it, Hopper sighed and handed his gun over to Nancy.

"Take good care of this," Hopper said to her. Nancy nodded her head in agreement.

Together, Sarah, Hopper, and Adam stepped through the rift in single file. A small gasp escaped Hopper when he reached the other side, as he had not been prepared for the beauty of the place. Sarah scanned the skies for the creature but he was nowhere in sight. For a split second, Sarah worried that he had escaped, but a low growl from behind her informed her otherwise.

"Back," the creature grunted. Sarah couldn't be sure, but his voice almost sounded surprised.

The creature shifted uncomfortably when he spotted Hopper. Sarah, noticing this, immediately placed herself between the two.

"He won't hurt you," Sarah informed the creature. "The gun is gone."

Sarah glanced over her shoulder to give Hopper a glare, indicating for him to confirm that he was unarmed. Hopper rolled his eyes and held his hands up in the air, revealing the empty holster at his hip. The creature grunted in approval but he still looked uneasy.

"We want to help turn you back, but we need some answers from you first," Sarah informed the creature.

"How?" the creature demanded.

Sarah bit her lip. She didn't have an answer for that. "I...don't know, but we'll figure it out. I promise."

"Fine," the creature replied, kicking the dirt at his feet.

"To start with, what's your name? My name is Sarah. This is my father, Jim, and my friend, Adam," Sarah introduced herself and the others, pointing to them in turn.

"Mark," he answered, the name coming out in a gurgle. It was becoming clear to Sarah that it was very difficult for him to talk in his current form.

"Okay, Mark, do you know who did this to you?"

Mark opened and closed his petals several times, trying to form words, but they all came out as unintelligible sounds. Sarah felt her gut drop. She was quickly losing hope that she would ever get the answers she needed.

"Maybe if he was human, you could understand him." James' voice entered Sarah's head, and for once, she didn't ignore him.

"But I don't know how to change him back," Sarah thought back in response.

"Sure you do, you just need to use a very particular set of skills..."

"What the hell are you talking about?"

Impatient, James appeared next to Mark, although, only Sarah could see him, of course. He pointed at the creature and then pointed at his head but it didn't make things any clearer for Sarah.

"You're still making no sense," she thought.

James groaned and wiped his face with his hand. "You're killing me," he replied.

"If only."

James gave Sarah a sharp glare before explaining what he meant. "Do you recall what abilities I had after I tapped into the power of the Upside Down?"

"Mind control..." Sarah answered slowly.

"But it wasn't just mind control, remember?" James pointed out. "I had mastered control over other things as well. Reality, inanimate objects, emotions, thoughts, and....?"

"Atoms," Sarah finished, her eyes widening as the thought struck her.

"Earth to Sarah," Hopper said, his voice breaking Sarah out of her mental conversation with James and back into the situation at hand. "You all right? You've just been standing and staring silently off into the distance..."

"I need to try something," Sarah responded quickly, taking a step closer to Mark. Mark stared at her uncomfortably with his beady red eyes, but he didn't move. She looked up to him and said, "Sorry, this may hurt. A lot."

When Mark remained in place, she took this as her cue to begin.

Sarah squeezed her eyes shut and tried to focus, although she wasn't entirely sure what she was supposed to focus on. She had avoided using James' abilities whenever she could, so she didn't have much practice with them. She didn't even know if it would work, and if it did, she'd have to explain to Hopper and Adam her hidden abilities. But she was running out of options.

"Think back to when you controlled Dr. Brenner," James instructed her. "The process is very similar. This time, you just dig deeper."

"What if I mess this up and make the situation even worse?" Sarah asked, a bead of sweat forming on her brow.

"You won't," James replied confidently. He accompanied his words with a small smile that brought Sarah back to the days when they used to be friends, so very, very long ago, and in that moment, she knew that he was right.

Sarah opened her eyes and locked them onto the creature's bulbous head. With Brenner, she had stared into his eyes, but with the creature, she almost looked right through them. She felt her mind burrow through the thick, scaly skin to the layers underneath. She allowed herself to travel deeper and deeper until she accessed something she didn't even have the vocabulary to describe.

In a strange way, it almost felt similar to the feeling she got whenever she opened a portal. She felt like she was moving through a different world. Is that what living beings are made of? Time and space? Were they all just walking universes?

Sarah's focus faltered in light of this revelation, but James brought her back.

"Keeping going," he encouraged her.

So she did.

Now that she had found what she was looking for, she focused on what she wanted to happen next. The change. She didn't know what Mark looked like prior to being changed, but there was a magnetism that pulled his atoms along, pushing them into the proper place. All she had to do was guide them.

Sarah was so focused that she nearly blocked out the deep, guttural roars of pain that emanated from the creature as she worked on changing him back. They shook the sea, the sky, and the sod. As he shifted into an in-between state, half-man/half-monster, his screams subsided into gurgles. It wasn't until she could hear crying that she knew she was getting closer.

"You can't stop now," James reminded her, sensing her fear and anxiety.

Hopper and Adam watched the process in both terror and amazement. The way the monster's extra limbs bent and broke until they melted into the rest of his flesh. The way he dropped from 10 feet to 6 feet, the gaunt parts of him stretching into fat and muscles. The way his eyes burrowed into his head and his petals of jagged teeth molded together. The way his skin smoothed from its rough exterior into soft flesh, like the ocean calming after a storm.

There came a time when Sarah knew to stop, knew that the change was over. But she was still afraid to open her eyes for fear of what she may see standing before her.

"It's okay," James whispered. "You did it."

One at a time, Sarah forced her eyelids open and was surprised to find a perfectly ordinary man right in front of her. He looked to be in his mid- to late-twenties, with tan skin, almond eyes, and curly, dark hair that hung past his ears. His eyelids opened and shut in unison with his lips as he came to terms with the transformation.

He was almost more surprised than Sarah was.

"I-I'm back?" Mark stammered, his voice fluctuating as it ricocheted through his throat. He pressed his hands against his cheeks, feeling the soft, smooth flesh, before holding them out before his eyes.

Sarah opened her mouth to answer, but before she could, Mark had thrown his arms around her and was sobbing into her shoulder.

"Thank you," he choked out between cries.

Sarah hesitantly wrapped her arms around Mark, which led to another startling realization. Mark was completely naked.

"Here," Adam said, clearing his throat as he handed his jacket to Mark.

"Oh, shit, sorry," Mark apologized, his cheeks turning bright red as he wrapped the jacket around his lower half.

"Okay, now that it's over, how in the hell did you do that?" Hopper demanded angrily once Mark was covered. "I thought you said you were going to tell us everything, and yet I don't recall you being able to do that kind of shit before!"

"I'll tell you later, I promise, but right now there's more pressing questions that need to be asked," Sarah replied defensively as she turned to face Hopper with her hands on her hips.

"Those questions may need to wait..." Adam interrupted them.

Sarah's face flushed as she spun back around to find Mark laying on the ground, unconscious. She hadn't even heard him drop. The long grass that was now covering him like a blanket had absorbed the sound.

"Is he...alive?" Hopper asked, nudging Mark's leg with his foot.

Sarah knelt down and pressed her fingers against Mark's neck. She felt a pulse, but it was weak. "He's going to need bed rest. The transformation took everything out of him."

"Let's get him back to the cabin," Adam suggested.

Together, they each took hold of Mark, careful to keep the jacket in place. Hopper and Adam both grabbed an arm and Sarah took his legs. They carefully maneuvered him through the rift that Adam opened and onto the couch, which he immediately sunk into.

"Let me know as soon as he wakes up," Sarah informed Hopper and Adam as she headed for the door.

"Where the hell are you going?" Hopper asked in bewilderment. "You still owe us some answers!"

"There could be more like him out there, I need to find them!" Sarah replied, throwing her hands up in exasperation. A small part of her was still trying to get out of explaining the truth, but mostly she was just desperate for answers.

"I don't think it's a good idea to leave," Jonathan replied, adding his input from the kitchen table where himself and Nancy were sitting, with Barb between them. Their knees were bouncing anxiously, making the whole table tremble. Atop of which, sat Hopper's gun.

"Why not?" Sarah demanded, but her question was answered almost as quickly as it left her mouth when her eyes caught a glimpse outside the only window that didn't have the curtains drawn.

The sky had turned a dark gray and a thick fog pressed up against the walls of the cabin, threatening to collapse the building in on itself. Ash rained down from above, collecting in piles on the windowsill, and a chill had settled in the air that cut through to their bones.

"Is that--" Adam began to ask, but he couldn't finish the question.

"Yup," Sarah answered breathlessly, the words nearly catching in her throat. "The Upside Down."

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