044 Confronting Henry
The flickering flashlight wavered for a few seconds before returning to normal. When Richard moved a step, the flashlight began flickering again.
As one might imagine, in the space where Richard stood, there was an object moving in the corresponding location within The Upside Down.
"Based on human psychology, when people choose a place to live, they always gravitate toward familiar places. So, if Henry Creel really is in The Upside Down, it wouldn't be surprising if he treated his home there as his base of operations," Richard thought to himself.
He hadn't been entirely sure if the Henry Creel he had in mind was the same person as the eldest son of the family reported in the newspapers last night, but now, it seemed basically certain.
Henry Creel was the evil bastard who had murdered his own family back then, the big bad pulling strings from within The Upside Down. He was also Number One, the one who had once gone berserk and massacred The Lab staff, fought a massive battle against a fully-powered young Eleven but was unfortunately defeated, and finally vanished mysteriously.
After returning home from the party last night, Richard had specifically read through all the files from The Lab before going to sleep. From them, he learned a lot of classified information that many people didn't know, including current members of The Lab.
Of course, it was normal for them not to know. After all, after One massacred The Lab staff in 1979, Dr. Brenner gave The Lab a complete overhaul. In other words, laboratory members who joined after '79 certainly wouldn't know about this incident at all.
It was also because of that massive outburst of power that the young Eleven lost her memory and most of her language functions, only slowly recovering and relearning the basic abilities of a normal person after escaping from The Lab this year.
Richard watched the flickering light of the flashlight. After hesitating for a brief moment, he chose to follow the footsteps of Henry moving in The Upside Down; he wanted to see exactly where the other guy was going.
Passing through the hallway and going up the stairs, he finally arrived at the domed attic. The flashlight's beam stabilized into a steady flicker in the very center of the attic room.
"What is he doing, stopping here?" Richard was quite suspicious, then guessed with alarm, "Could he be doing some kind of psychic ritual?"
He had seen Henry's files. The other guy possessed powers similar to Eleven's, which was one of the reasons why Dr. Brenner valued Eleven so much—because Henry served as the template.
The reason Dr. Brenner ultimately chose Eleven instead of choosing to cultivate Henry, a ready-made and powerful natural psychic, was according to the reports because even Dr. Brenner couldn't suppress Henry's dangerous dark side. Dr. Brenner wasn't a complete madman; he knew that if he really threw caution to the wind and cultivated Henry, he wouldn't be able to clean up the mess for all of humanity. A more powerful One would only become more unhinged in releasing his dark side.
However, Dr. Brenner had his own twisted kind of "mercy." Henry's powerful talent meant that even when he found Eleven, a very suitable replacement, he didn't choose to eliminate Henry. Instead, he just kept using a control chip to suppress Henry's psychic powers, while also using it to suppress the other guy's dark side.
Unfortunately, in the end, the young Eleven was manipulated and released the monster Henry, leading to the tragedy at Hawkins National Laboratory in '79.
Since Henry had abilities similar to Eleven's, that meant he should also be able to perform remote viewing like Eleven. Only that state of ability would cause the body to remain motionless.
"So... like Eleven, is he spying on the world on the other side?" Richard shuddered. His current spatial position was extremely close to the other guy, which meant that if the other guy really wanted to sense the real world, the first person he would definitely sense would be Richard himself, who was in a state of dimensional overlap with him.
Just as the thought arose, Richard whipped his head around. His keen senses indeed allowed him to perceive the feeling of being watched. He saw only empty space behind him, but for a split second, Richard saw the afterimage of a skin-deformed being covered in green vines. The owner of that afterimage was staring straight at him.
"You really are watching," Richard said loudly. He knew his voice could reach The Upside Down. With a cold sneer on his face, he asked, "Should I call you Henry Creel, or should I call you One?"
Buzz—
Richard felt a surge of noise flooding his brain. His brain throbbed for a moment, and his vision blurred slightly. Immediately afterward, a humanoid creature appeared before him. It was entirely green, with plant-like organs growing on its body. A pair of cold eyes opened on a face that seemed to be tightly bound by countless small, writhing green vines.
"Powerful." Henry sized Richard up, as if examining a piece of meat with unusual quality. "Your mind is even harder to invade than I imagined."
Richard scanned the other guy with the same gaze: "Is there a possibility that it's just because your current power is too weak?"
Henry narrowed his eyes slightly. "I feel tension from your mind, but you don't seem to be afraid."
"I don't know if you've ever read DC Comics, but I feel like your look is very similar to a character in there named Swamp Thing. I seriously suspect you've ripped off someone else's design." With every breath Richard took, his heartbeat became steadier and more rhythmic. He said calmly, "Perhaps it's precisely because your appearance feels so familiar that I don't feel much fear toward you."
"You should feel fear," Henry said coldly, lightly raising a hand.
An invisible force slammed into him like an eighteen-wheeler. Richard felt his body lose control and was instantly sent flying. As his body flew backward, the surrounding scene also rapidly distorted. Houses shattered, blood covered the sky, red clouds drifted, and deep crimson lightning struck continuously on the muddy ground filled with jagged rocks.
BOOM!
Richard was pushed against a stone pillar. The dark green vines of The Upside Down tightly entwined his limbs and neck, pinning his body closely against the stone wall.
The tree-like Henry walked slowly toward Richard, saying unhurriedly, "You are the strangest person I have ever encountered. I cannot read your thoughts, and you possess remarkable growth potential. I need you to give up your mental resistance now, let me invade your consciousness, and then serve me..."
He stood before Richard, his claw-like fingers hovering over the contours of Richard's face. That large hand, which almost covered his entire face, was only about an inch away from Richard. He said in a low voice, "Otherwise, you will die a painful death."
"I don't think so." Richard gritted his teeth with effort. A powerful force exploded from his body, and he actually tore the incredibly flexible vines apart directly. In the moment Henry was stunned with surprise, Richard had already landed a punch on Henry's face.
Henry was instantly sent flying. Suddenly, the space shattered, and Richard also broke free from the mental space and returned to reality. He found himself still in the domed attic of the haunted house, and the flashlight's beam was still flickering constantly.
Without any hesitation, Richard turned and went downstairs, then broke through a window in a room on the second floor and jumped out of the building.
He didn't know if the punch he had given the other guy in the mental realm just now had hurt him, thus making the other guy hesitant to chase him closely.
He currently had four A-rank skills. Although they provided a lot of physical stat bonuses, they also gave a significant boost to his mental aspects. In particular, the A-rank Programming skill had taught him a more logical way of thinking and simultaneously brought more powerful mental fortitude. This was also the reason he was able to break free from Henry's restraints in the mental space and launch a counterattack.
Richard brushed the dust off his clothes. Seeing the red marks on his wrists and feeling the burning sensation on his ankles and neck, his expression shifted slightly. Then, he left the haunted house area without looking back.
Although this experience was dangerous, Richard had also obtained some intel about Henry.
Henry had indeed been blasted into The Upside Down by the rampaging Eleven back then. Perhaps he had some twisted transformation in The Upside Down that turned him into the neither-human-nor-monster form he was now. He was able to attack through mental space, and the damage inflicted on a spiritual body could be synchronized to the physical body in reality.
"But with such a powerful ability, he still has to send his minions one at a time... sending creatures from The Upside Down to attack the real world. It seems the range of this ability is limited, and the area he can move in is also restricted. If not, then he must be a complete idiot," Richard thought. He naturally leaned more toward the idea that the other guy had some unavoidable reason for being bound to a certain location, so his power couldn't spread out.
Halfway there, Richard seemed to have suddenly figured something out. He looked back at the haunted house, his mouth curling into a bright, confident smile: "Oh, so you can't just move around as you please. Well, then I have plenty of ways to mess with you."
...That same day, Richard went to the hardware store and bought a large quantity of light bulbs, and borrowed more than a dozen speakers from Eddie and his bandmates.
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