Chapter Seventy-One: Recuperating

(The Mind Flayer, Pt. 3)

***

The Byers house is numb.

Maybe that's because that's how Rowan feels—she just feels so numb, with grief, with guilt. She didn't know Bob—she had talked to him last Christmas to buy Alistair's Super-Comm and he'd taught her and Aunt Aco how to set it up, so gentle and kind and patient, when Alistair told her about him and when Rowan occasionally saw him and Joyce together and how happy they both looked—but his death had rattled her because she couldn't save him. She had her lightning, her teleportation, he was right there, all she had to do was throw that Demogorgon off and jump him to safety, and yet she still couldn't save him, and the guilt was eating at her, flashing her images of his brutal, painful death on a constant loop, her mind chorusing Another person you couldn't save another person you couldn't save another person you couldn't save and it left her so numb to everything else.

Ironic, that the girl who felt so much, who felt anger and joy so viciously and vibrantly, was a storm of emotion as much as she was a storm of lightning, has become so numbed.

Around her, the Party isn't faring better. The kids have grouped together in the kitchen, broken, thousand-yard-stares on their faces; Joyce had retreated to her room, wrapped in a blanket and lost in her own grief; Jonathan and Nancy were next to Will, Jonathan murmuring tearful apologies to his brother, Alistair next to them and barely keeping himself from crying, the guilt of not being there with his friend, at stopping what has possessed him, eating him away just as much as Bob's death was eating away at Rowan from where she sat in the hallway, staring into the distance; Steve stood there in the hallway before wandering aimlessly into the kitchen, giving a defeated, broken-sounding sigh; and Aunt Aco was with Hopper, leaning against the wall as Hopper was on the phone, talking to the person who was on the other end, her face torn between grief and concern for Rowan and Alistair.

The carnage at Hawkins Lab, the horrific, tragic death of Bob Newby, hitting them all harder than anything has had in the past, and it shows.

"Dr. Sam Owens," Hopper said into the phone, his voice edged with irritation, seconds from snapping. "I don't know how many people are there! I don't know how many people are left alive! I am the police, Chief Jim Hopper! Yes, the number that I gave you, yes. 6767... I will be here."

With that, he hung up as Dustin asked, "They didn't believe you, did they?"

"We'll see," Hopper said gruffly.

"We'll see?" Mike repeated incredulously. "We can't just sit here while those things are loose!"

"We stay, and we wait for help," Hopper said sternly before he walked away, heading to Joyce and leaving them alone. 

Rowan watched him go with detached apathy, watching Aunt Aco leave to head to Alistair who finally left Will to join his friends, his face splotchy and eyes red, Hugin on his shoulder and trying to comfort Alistair as best he could. Aunt Aco looked over to Rowan and she quickly looked away, unable to bear her aunt's concern, her pity, not when she didn't deserve it, not when she felt like the most horrible person on the planet, standing up herself and retreating to Will's empty room to avoid the pity and brokenness coating everyone and everywhere, to avoid looking at Joyce's room.

Joyce must hate me.

A knock came and Rowan glanced up from where she leaned against Will's bed to see Steve there, looking at her with the concern and pity Rowan did not need or deserved.

"You okay?" he murmured and Rowan felt a laugh scrape out of her because how could he be asking her that?

"Are you serious, Harrington?" Rowan asked, a look on her face that could only be described as torn between disbelieving stare and bitter smile. "I'm fucking great. Will's possessed by the evil Xenomorph-smoke thing that I saw five nights ago, my brother is a mess, there are fricking Demogorgons on the loose, Bob's dead because I couldn't save him with my stupid powers, that I couldn't save another person again with them, and Mrs. Byers is wrecked and probably hates me now because I couldn't save Bob. I'm fucking fantastic!"

Steve stared at her, then scoffed. "Yeah, I'm not buying that."

"Well, you better," Rowan spat, acidic venom in her voice as she turned away, pulling her knees to her chest, not bearing to see if any of that pity was still on his face.

"Just leave me alone, Harrington," she whispered, hating the way her voice broke.

"I'm not leaving, Graveswood," Steve said quietly as Rowan saw out of the corner of her eye Steve sitting down next to her, reaching out a hand for her shoulder. "Yell at me all you want, hell even electrocute me, but I'm not going anywhere. Not leaving you for a second."

"I can just teleport away."

"I'll follow you right after."

Rowan shot him a glare and muttered, "You're really something, Harrington."

Steve had a rueful smile, brown eyes beseeching her, wanting her to talk but despite what he said, he would back down if she didn't want to. "Talk to me, Graveswood. I'll listen."

"I thought I'd be the one listening to everyone's problems," Rowan remarked pointedly.

"Yeah, everyone's except for yours," Steve pointed out, before he said so quietly Rowan barely heard it, "We have that in common."

Something in Rowan cracked at that vulnerability, at how he saw through her and exposed a part of himself, piercing the numbness swallowing her whole. Tears burned as she whispered, "I just... if I hadn't electrified the bus, maybe I could have saved him. Maybe if I hadn't wasted my powers trying to find everyone in the lab I could have teleported him away. He was right there, and I couldn't save him, like I... I couldn't save Barb and El. It's my fault, it's all my fault and Mrs. Byers must hate me so much, I let him die, it's all my fucking fault!"

A sob clawed at her throat and Rowan stifled it, palming away her tears. She couldn't break down, not anymore than she already had. She had to be strong, she had to suppress the guilt and grief, she couldn't afford to be vulnerable, because it was nothing compared to the grief swallowing Joyce, nothing compared to how wrecked Alistair was, nothing compared to what Will was going through—and he didn't deserve to go through this, and the familiar burn of anger ripped through Rowan, scouring away the numbness, because Will was just a kid who didn't deserve to be put through so much pain and trauma again, she wanted to fucking kill the thing using him like a puppet, tear it out and incinerate it until nothing was left.

But as she made to stand and leave—to finally seek out Alistair and be the strong, comforting, supportive big sister he needed instead of this wreck—she felt arms wrap around her, strong and steady. A faint smell of hairspray and cologne came and Rowan realised it was Steve hugging her, holding her like he had in the gym, and isn't that the way it always was? Steve was the one to hold her, to hear her breakdown—not Nancy, not Jonathan, not Robin, not even Chrissy or Eddie. Not even her aunt. It was always Steve.

And like always, Rowan crumbled in Steve's hold as he kept hugging her, letting the tears fall as the guilt and grief over a man she did not know but still wanted to save and yet couldn't, another person to add to the list of people she could not save, another one of her guilt-ridden ghosts. Another person that she would always say I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm so so sorry and tear herself down for not being faster, stronger, more powerful.

And as she broke down and tallied another ghost of the people she couldn't save, that she'd always feel weighed down by the guilt and What if what if what if, Rowan wondered with the Upside Down... how many more people would be lost to it and its horrific monsters, that she could not save and be blaming herself for? How much more guilt and what ifs and loss could she weather before she did more than just broke down in a room with Steve Harrington's arms around her, and simply detonated?

And would that next casualty, that next ghost, be Will?

***

When Rowan pulled herself together—through breaking away from Steve's hug and wiping away her tears and saying "I should get to Al," and muttering, "Thanks", that had Steve bob his head and mutter back, "It's fine, Graveswood,"—she headed back to the kids, the numbness of earlier leaving. Guilt and grief still buffeted her, but Rowan could feel the anger kindling inside her, the anger at the monsters that took away a good man and devoured him—she could have saved him she could have saved him instead of just standing there—and at the creature that possessed Will, could feel the urge to comfort her brother as he, too, was wracked with guilt, to be there for him.

Aunt Aco was the first to notice her, standing at the doorframe. She didn't say anything, only gave Rowan a look full of pity and comfort that Rowan could only give a watery smile back before she stood beside Alistair. Steve had followed her into the kitchen, standing near the bench, looking at her in concern that Rowan tried to ignore as she looked at her brother.

Alistair's face was less splotchy, but his eyes were still red, and guilt lined every corner of his face, his eyes always flicking to where Will laid on the couch in the living room.

"Hey squirt," Rowan murmured, squeezing his shoulder comfortingly, to let him know she was here. Alistair jumped and looked at her, eyes wide. "Are you okay?"

Immediately her brother's face crumpled and he hugged her, holding her tightly as she hugged him back.

"It's my fault," he croaked out. "If I hadn't left him, i-if I had only listened to the ghosts, I could have saved him. And now Will is... he's..."

A sob ripped out of Alistair's throat and Rowan's heart splintered at the sound as she hugged him tighter, painfully reminded of her breakdown, her guilt—it's my fault it's all my fault if I could only save Bob save Barb save El if I did something more—but she refused to let it show, holding Alistair until his sobs quieted and he pulled away, sniffling and rubbing away his tears as Hugin rubbed his face to comfort Alistair. Cami, the closest to Alistair, rested her hand on his arm in comfort, while Lucas and Dustin got out of their chairs to give Alistair a hug. Max, who didn't seem the type to give a comforting hug, gave Alistair as much of a comforting look as she could. Alistair accepted it all with a small smile that faded the minute his eyes tracked back to the living room, past Mike who was standing in the entrance, and holding something in his hands.

"Did you know Bob was the original founder of Hawkins AV?" the raven-haired boy said, so unexpectedly it gave Rowan whiplash and had her blink repeatedly to comprehend it—to comprehend the tone in Mike's voice, of now remembering someone who literally hours ago was once so full of life you didn't think it could be banked out only for it to be, and in the most brutal of ways.

"Really?" Lucas questioned and Mike turned, holding what looked to be puzzles and games—for Will, Rowan realised as her heart clenched, as she saw Alistair's expression crack.

"He petitioned the school to start it and everything. Then he had a fundraiser for equipment. Mr. Clarke learned everything from him," Mike went on and Rowan felt something in her splinter at hearing about Bob, at now knowing he was the reason Alistair, Mike, Lucas, Dustin and Will could go to a club where their love of science and technology could be celebrated instead of mocked, where the nerds and geeks could find camaraderie with other nerds and geeks in AV club at Hawkins Middle, all because of Bob Newby. "Pretty awesome, right?"

"Yeah," Dustin, Lucas and Alistair said in unison.

Mike's mouth thinned in a determined line, eyes glinting as he set the puzzles on the table and said, steel in his voice, "We can't let him die in vain."

"What do you want to do, Mike?" Dustin questioned, tiredness and the weight of all that had happened clear in his voice. "The Chief's right on this. We can't stop those Demodogs on our own."

"Demodogs?" Max questioned incredulously, face a picture of confusion. Beside Alistair, Cami looked at her brother and whispered, "Do you get what he's talking about?"

Alistair shook his head as Dustin explained to the confused people around him, "Demogorgons, dogs... Demodogs. It's like a compound. It's like a play on words."

"Okay," Max whispered, getting it.

"That literally made zero sense and yet a lot of sense at once, Henderson," Rowan said, the usually biting sarcasm dulled by her guilt.

Dustin gave her a look before he said, "I mean, when it was just Dart, maybe."

"But there's an army now," Lucas went on, finishing off what Dustin had implied.

"And if Al and I hadn't depleted our powers earlier, we could have maybe stood a chance," Rowan reminded, Alistair nodding. While Rowan could feel her electricity slowly flickering back to life, it's not as strong as she would like to fare against the newly-named Demodogs, and she knew her brother was in no state to start raising the dead—especially when he refused to leave Will alone for long now.

"Precisely," Dustin mumbled, agreeing with Lucas and Rowan.

"His army," Mike muttered, so quiet Rowan had to strain to hear.

"What do you mean?" Steve inquired, making Rowan look at him—she'd forgotten he'd been in the room.

"His army," Mike repeated, louder, as he suddenly walked out of the kitchen and right to Will's room. Alistair, Lucas, Cami, Max and Dustin followed and Rowan gave a perplexed look to Steve before they also followed behind the kids. When they all came to Will's room, Mike had picked up a sheet of paper and showing what was on it, saying, "Maybe if we stop him, we can stop his army, too."

Rowan's spine shivered as she saw what was on the paper—a drawing of the Xenomorph creature she'd seen when she dream-walked into Will's episode on Tuesday, the creature that was apparently possessing him.

"The Shadow Monster," Dustin said.

"It got Will that day on the field," Mike began, and Rowan saw Alistair flinch, face twisted at the reminder. "The doctor said it was like a virus, it infected him."

"And so this virus, it's connecting him to the tunnels?" Max questioned.

Mike nodded. "To the tunnels, monsters, the Upside Down, everything."

"Whoa, slow down, slow down," Steve said and Rowan found herself nodding; Mike was going too fast and explaining so much it was making her head spin.

"Yeah, please be kinder to those who can't keep up with your motor-head brain, Wheeler," Rowan sniped, finding comfort in her biting sarcasm.

Mike rolled his eyes but, thankfully, explained at a slower and easier to understand pace.

"Okay, so, the Shadow Monster's inside everything. And if the vines feel something like pain, then so does Will," Mike elaborated.

"And so does Dart," Lucas realised as Cami queried, "And so would all those other Demo... dogs at the junkyard and lab?"

"Yeah. Like what Mr. Clarke taught us. The hive mind," Mike confirmed.

Rowan's eyes widened as an image flashed in her head, so suddenly it was like whiplash—Nancy, stepping on a vine when they were lost in the Upside Down, the sound barely audible above the Demogorgon eating the deer, and yet it still whirled around like it knew they were there. Like the minute Nancy stepped on that vine... it would feel like to the Demogorgon that she was stepping on it.

"Holy fucking shit," Rowan whispered right as Steve asked, "Hive mind?"

"A collective consciousness. It's a super-organism," Dustin explained.

"And this is the thing that controls everything. It's the brain," Mike finished, pointing to the picture that had somehow found itself in Dustin's hands.

"Or a puppet master," Rowan mumbled, still feeling queasy over how thanks to the hive mind, the vine was the reason the Demogorgon knew she and Nancy were there. If they missed the vine, if it kept eating... would they have escaped its notice? Would Will have managed to get their notice and he could have escaped with them? And if stepping on the vine had alerted the Demogorgon to her and Nancy... did it also alert the Shadow Monster? How much did that thing know about the world and creatures it was connected to and those clueless enough to encounter them? How much control did it have?

How much control did it have over Will?

Beside Rowan, Alistair must be sharing the same thought, remembering whatever warnings the ghost had told him about Will, face growing pale as Dustin's eyes widened before he said, "Like the Mind Flayer."

That garnered a reaction, as Lucas snapped his fingers and Alistair's eyes widened comically as he whispered, "Holy shit."

However, Rowan wasn't so clued in to whatever D&D monster Dustin had said, a reaction shared between her, Steve, Max and Cami.

"The what?" they said in unison.

That lead to them all once again grouping back at the kitchen, instead this time Hopper was in the kitchen talking with Aunt Aco along with Nancy and Jonathan. Dustin had lugged in Will's manual with him and he now slammed it on the table, flipping pages until he arrived at the creature they apparently were once again using as a placeholder for the nightmarish new monster from the Upside Down.

"The Mind Flayer," Dustin said, repeating the monster's name now that he had the picture and information for it, and Rowan squinted at the illustration of the creature that looked like some sort of Cthulu creature in a monk robe. Definitely not the giant, shadowy Xenomorph-spider-thing she'd seen, but the monsters from the Upside Down didn't totally correlate with the ones they were named after from this game—the picture of D&D's Demogorgon proved it when Rowan asked Eddie what it looked like a week after the mess of the Upside Down and the memory of gasoline and scorched, acrid flesh and a nail-bat and brass knuckles and Christmas lights was still vivid.

"What the hell is that?" Hopper muttered, looking at the picture with the same scrutiny Rowan had as Aunt Aco tilted her head and murmured, "Jesus, who the hell designed this thing?"

"It's a monster from an unknown dimension. It's so ancient that it doesn't know its true home," Dustin began, and Rowan's skin crawled at the implications of that. But when  Dustin saw that his explanation was lost on everyone—and, if Rowan ignored the terrifying implications of this newly-named Mind Flayer being from a potentially worse dimension than the Upside Down, it was lost on her too—he could barely hold in a frustrated sigh as he elaborated, "Okay, it enslaves races of other dimensions by taking over their brains using its highly-developed psionic powers."

"Oh my God, none of this is real," Hopper groused. "This is a kids' game."

"I don't know, Jim, this kids' game has come to life before," Aunt Aco mumbled, arms crossed and staring at the manual, mouth twisted. Hopper didn't deign to argue on that.

But Dustin wasn't about to let that go, as he quickly defended, "No, it's a manual. And it's not for kids."

When Hopper didn't argue, Dustin continued in that same passionately irritated tone, "And unless you know something that we don't, this is the best metaphor—"

"Analogy," Lucas corrected.

Dustin whirled on Lucas, face a masterpiece of irritated incredulity. "Analogy? That's what you're worried about?"

Lucas shrugged and Dustin huffed irritatedly as he grumbled, "Fine. An analogy for understanding whatever the hell this is."

"It seems pretty accurate," Rowan murmured, looking at the drawing of the newly-named Mind Flayer as Nancy leaned forward and asked, "Okay, so this Mind Flamer thing—"

"Flayer. Mind Flayer," Dustin corrected.

Nancy ground her teeth, silently fuming at the correction and looking like she wanted to throttle Dustin, as she went on, "What does it want?"

"To conquer us, basically. It believes it's the master race," Dustin revealed and Rowan scoffed at that.

"A monster with a superiority complex and a god complex. Great," Rowan snarked.

Beside her, Steve leaned forward and remarked with the casual confidence Rowan knew from his King Steve days, "Like the Germans."

All eyes turned to Steve with varying expressions of shock.

"Seriously?" Rowan hissed as Dustin corrected incredulously, "Uh, the Nazis?"

Steve frowned, brain seeming to reload before he nodded, a sheepish look on his face. "Yeah, yeah, yeah the Nazis."

Bumping his shoulder, Rowan muttered, "Points for effort and a decent comparison, Harrington. Even if you got it kinda wrong."

Steve glared at her while Dustin spoke again.

"Uh... yeah, if the Nazis were from another dimension, totally," Dustin concurred, before he launched back into explaining what the Mind Flayer's motivations in Dungeons and Dragons—and potentially the Upside Down one's motivations—were. "It views other races like us as inferior to itself." 

"It wants to spread, take over other dimensions," Mike added on.

"We are talking about the destruction of our world as we know it," Lucas tacked on.

"The literal doomsday," Alistair finished.

Rowan's widened and she hissed, "Jesus fucking Christ," as she gripped her hair and turned, blowing out a harsh breath then inhaling. "Fuck."

Beside her, Steve wasn't reacting any better, voice high with hysteria as he paced around and also gripped his hair and shrilled, "That's great. That's really great. Jesus!"

Cami's own eyes were wide, and she whirled at Alistair to say, "This is insane. How are you not freaking out over this?!"

Her brother shrugged. "I am. I'm just pushing it away to freak out later."

Rowan frowned, biting her lip to say something about that being unhealthy—as if she could talk—as Cami stared at Alistair, eyes wide as saucers, before looking away as if she was questioning being here and knowing the truth.

"Okay, so if this thing is like a brain that's controlling everything," Nancy questioned, brows scrunched together in the way it did when she made plans, not giving into the despair throttling Rowan and Steve and what felt like literally every other person in the room with the reveal of the Mind Flayer's intentions, "then if we kill it—"

"We kill everything it controls," Mike finished. 

"We win."

"Theoretically," Lucas added.

"Great, so how do we kill this thing?" Hopper demanded as he snatched the manual up, staring at it like it would divulge the answers if he glared hard enough at it. "Shoot it with Fireballs or something?"

"I personally vote electrocuting the son of a bitch," Rowan suggested darkly, sparks dancing in her eyes. 

"What about just setting it on fire?" Cami offered. "Fire always kills monsters, right?"

Dustin let out a chuckle, as if he found their answers amusing. "No. No, no Fire... no Fireballs or electrocution or normal fire."

Rowan stared at the cap-wearing boy, before she glared at him. "Then how do you kill the motherfucker, Dustin?"

"Uh, you summon an undead army, because..." Dustin began, but his confidence faltered under the hard, glaring gaze of both Rowan and Hopper. "Because zombies, you know, they don't have brains, and the Mind Flayer, it—it... it likes brains."

Dustin fully trailed off, wilting under the looks from everyone in the room, leaving an awkward silence that felt so thick and heavy Rowan could feel it weighing down her shoulders. Her mind was pin-balling from the overwhelming terror of what had once been monsters from an alternate nightmare dimension that was now something wholly different and terrifying that wants to take over the world to increasing incredulity and exasperation at Dustin.

"It's just a game. It's a game," Dustin finished weakly, before his eyes widened and he turned to Alistair. "Hey, wait a minute. Al, you can summon an undead army in real life! Do you think you could make one big enough to fight the Mind Flayer?"

Alistair shook his head. "Not enough that won't be torn apart by Demodogs first. Besides, my battery's still low and I... I don't know if I could, with the lab..."

Alistair's face shuttered and Dustin's expression immediately twisted into a guilty one as he mumbled, "Shit, man. I'm sorry."

"It's cool," Alistair mumbled as Rowan gave him a comforting squeeze and Hugin cawed and pecked at Alistair's ear and Aunt Aco gave Alistair a comforting smile from where she stood next to Hopper, who's patience was nearing zero with the kids, as he walked away and grumbled, "What the hell are we doing here?"

"I thought we were waiting for your military backup," Dustin reminded, making the police chief turn and snap, "We are!"

"Even if they are, how are they gonna stop this? You can't shoot this with guns!" Mike yelled.

"You don't know that! We don't know anything!" Hopper shouted, patience now clearly run out and on life support. Rowan felt the same but she agreed with Mike—this wasn't a problem the military could solve. And in her past few times fighting monsters, Rowan knew that guns were hardly effective.

"We know it's already killed everybody in that lab," Mike pointed out.

"And we know the monsters are gonna moult again," Lucas interjected and Rowan shuddered, knowing that once they did, the Demo-dogs would become adult Demogorgons.

"And we know that it's only a matter of time before those tunnels reach this town," Dustin added, tone grave.

"And we know it's a matter of time before the rest of the Mind Flayer somehow gets out from the Upside Down and possesses more people just like it possessed Will and takes over the world," Alistair finished, Hugin cawing as if in agreement.

Rowan bit her lip. They were all right, and as she looked at Alistair, saw the way his brows were pinched and his face drawn, he shared the same thought as her—if the Mind Flayer got all the way out and possessed either her or Alistair... then there was no telling what could happen. Rowan shivered at the thought of the malicious force she'd seen taking over her body and mind, seeping into her skin and bones and using her powers against her friends, of possessing Alistair and using his powers against his friends, of being prisoners trapped in their minds and helpless to do anything to stop it—if they were still alive and the tunnels that had apparently being growing underneath the farms of Hawkins didn't spread further and infect the rest of Hawkins and bring the rot and horror of the Upside Down into the town.

They had to do something before that could happen, before the chance the Mind Flayer got out and she and Alistair were used as the living weapons they had spent so long trying not to be could ever come true.

"They're right."

Shock radiated in the room as everyone turned to see Joyce Byers standing in the hall. A broken look was still on her face, grief still ravaging her, but something sharp and deadly glinted in her eyes—the look to hurt, to kill. The look of anger and vengeance and to tear apart the thing that took the man she might have married away, that was taking away her son after she fought so hard to get him back and endured countless accusations of insanity for believing Will to be alive, and was not willing to lose him to the Upside Down again.

"We have to kill it," Joyce said, voice trembling with quiet, murderous rage. "I want to kill it."

"Me too," Hopper said as he walked up to the vengeful woman, voice quieter, softer. "Me too, Joyce, okay? But how do we do that? We don't exactly know what we're dealing with here."

"No," Mike said, so sudden that Rowan gave the raven-haired boy a look of surprise. "But he does."

Rowan didn't need to ask who "he" was as Mike walked up to the entrance of the living room, the rest of the Party right behind him as they stared at Will's unconscious body, dressed once more in a hospital gown and face pale, a sheen of sweat on his forehead. In this state, Rowan couldn't believe he was possessed and a spy for a creature that wanted to take over the world, but she guessed that was why the Mind Flayer possessed Will—after all, who would believe that Will could be a spy, and that they could fight one of their own? Especially if one of their own was a kid?

The cold strategy made Rowan feel sick.

"If anyone knows how to destroy this thing," Mike went on, jerking Rowan out of her thoughts, "it's Will. He's connected to it. He'll know its weakness."

Beside Mike, Alistair nodded, looking at Will as a muscle ticked in his jaw. "He could be the key to us defeating it."

"I thought we couldn't trust him anymore," Max questioned, frowning. "That he's a spy for the Mind Flayer now."

"Yeah, but... he can't spy if he doesn't know where he is."

***

AHHH THIS CHAPTER WAS A LOT!!!

Yeah, the beginning was really sombre. I truly do think Bob's death was the one that nearly broke the Party with how they reacted and had them realise just how truly dangerous the Upside Down was for them and the loved ones who end up dragged in... and definitely the death, from a writing standpoint, that had the Duffers think they could get away with killing a beloved character who means a lot to the Party *sobs in Eddie* And yeah, it hit Rowan hard because while she didn't know Bob, he was still someone she tried to save and yet ended up being unable to (just like Barb) and thinking it's her fault and that Joyce probably hates her for being unable to save Bob :(  (at least she has Steve...)

And yeah, the rest of the chapter was a bit more funner to write since this was the part with naming the Mind Flayer and it's motivations (and I have to admit, I find that scene so chaotically funny) Also, let's give props to Steve for that comparison, even if he may have gotten it a little bit wrong

Also, we're an episode away from finishing s2!!! I'm literally so excited for these next few chapters!!! (especially some certain ones... *grins*) 

Next chapter will be soon!

Please read, comment and vote!

GhostWriterGirl out!