Chapter 14: Communication from Another World
After the eerie reunion by the pool, Andy, Will, and Barbara moved to a relatively safe indoor location.
They chose Will's "home" in the Upside Down. Although it was similarly covered in organic matter and filled with unknown dangers, it was at least the place Will was most familiar with, providing a certain psychological sense of security.
In the living room, Will and Barbara talked over each other, explaining their respective encounters to Andy.
"So, Will saw that dark shadow on his way home, fired his gun, and woke up in this world the moment he opened his eyes."
Andy summarized, his brow furrowed. "And you were grabbed by the monster while looking for Steve with Nancy."
The two nodded, their eyes focused on Andy as if he were the only lighthouse in this desperate situation.
He could feel that expectation, the assumption that "you must know something."
After all, someone who could drive off monsters in such an incredible way and "see" the situation outside from within the Void didn't seem like an ordinary trapped person no matter how you looked at it.
"Then how did you get here, Andy?" Will finally asked the question.
Will's eyes held pure curiosity and a faint glimmer of hope—hope that Andy had some kind of plan, some way to escape.
Andy sighed and leaned back against the couch. Fatigue surged up like a tide—not physical exhaustion, but a deeper, spiritual depletion.
Every time he used his abilities, every moment he maintained his existence in this world, he consumed something he couldn't quantify but knew was definitely decreasing.
"I was on my way to find Eleven."
He said, his voice sounding a bit hollow in the empty room. "But when I passed the spot where you disappeared, I got dragged in here."
"Eleven? Who's Eleven?"
Will blinked; this strange name was clearly outside his knowledge.
"Oh, Eleven is someone like me."
Andy explained, noticing the simultaneous expressions of confusion on Will's and Barbara's faces.
"We're both... test subjects from the Lab. She has superpowers, and so do I. She escaped from the Lab, but she should be with Mike right now."
"Mike?" Will's voice rose, a light of hope flashing in his eyes. "You mean Mike? Mike Wheeler?"
"Yeah." Andy nodded, a trace of something almost like pride appearing on his face.
"After I got here, I learned how to use my abilities the way Eleven does. I just saw them through my power. Mike, Lucas, Dustin, and Eleven. They're all in Mike's basement."
"Can you communicate with them?"
Barbara interjected, pushing up her glasses. "Like a telephone? Real-time conversation?"
Andy shook his head, that trace of pride dimming slightly. "Normally, it should be possible. But it seems really difficult to use the ability to connect with the outside world in this place. It's like... the signal is being jammed.
I can see them and vaguely feel their emotions, but the sound is really blurry, and they don't seem to sense my presence."
He paused and added, "Except for Eleven. She can feel me. Just like I can feel her. But we still can't communicate normally."
The living room fell into a brief silence.
The three of them each processed this information: a missing boy, a girl who fell in by accident, and a teenager with superpowers who was also trapped.
Then, Barbara asked the most critical question, the one that would determine their life or death:
"So do you know how to get out of this weird place?"
Will immediately looked up, staring at Andy with burning eyes. The expectation in that gaze was so intense it felt almost physical, pressing down on Andy.
Andy felt his throat tighten.
He didn't want to crush that expectation, didn't want to be the one to bring more disappointment, but the truth was the truth.
He slowly shook his head.
"If I could get out, I would've left already." His voice was soft, but exceptionally clear in the silence.
"I've been here... I don't know how long. I was attacked by those weird things everywhere I went, but for some reason, they've all quieted down recently."
The light in Will's eyes quickly dimmed.
Barbara lowered her head, her fingers interlaced, her knuckles turning white from the pressure.
"However, based on my guess, maybe we can go back through the gate those monsters opened."
He pointed out the window, toward the dark red haze, toward the depths of this world.
"Those monsters, they can travel freely between the two worlds. I saw the Demogorgon drag me in and then disappear. If they can do it, it means a 'gate' exists. And there might be more than one."
Barbara looked up, a bitter expression on her face.
"But when that monster sees us, it probably just wants to eat us, not kindly open a door for us."
She was telling the truth; Andy couldn't argue with that.
He thought of the Demogorgon's layers of teeth by the pool and how it had quickly retreated after sensing he was dangerous.
That wasn't a friendly creature; it was a predator.
Expecting it to help open a door was like expecting a wolf to show a lamb the way out of the wolf's den.
Will also looked dejected, his shoulders slumping.
But a few seconds later, he suddenly sat up straight, a certain light reigniting in his eyes.
"Wait... the phone." He said, his speech quickening with excitement. "Before, at home, I talked to my mom on the phone. It was really brief and the signal was terrible, but I definitely heard her voice, and she heard mine."
Andy immediately turned his head and stared at Will. "Are you sure? It wasn't a hallucination? Not a... trap of this world?"
"I'm sure." Will nodded vigorously.
"It was Mom's voice. She called me 'honey,' she asked 'Will, is that you,' she said 'tell me where you are.' And..."
He paused, seemingly recalling a detail. "The phone shorted out. Like... like something didn't want us to keep talking."
Andy's mind raced.
If a phone could connect the two worlds, it meant there was some kind of "weak point," some crack or hole in the fabric of reality.
And this connection wasn't one-way—Will could hear Mom, and Mom could hear Will. This implied the possibility of a two-way channel.
"Can you call the outside now?" Barbara asked, hope rekindling in her voice.
Will hesitated. "I don't know. That phone... broke later. I mean, after I hung up, the phone on the wall didn't respond at all. But maybe we can try other phones? Or other communication devices?"
"Let's do it." Andy stood up, his fatigue temporarily pushed down by the new possibility.
"We can't just sit around and wait to die. Trying something is better than just waiting here."
The three of them began searching through Will's "home."
Andy used his psychic power to carefully move objects; after all, these things looked disgusting, and he didn't want to touch them with his hands.
Like an invisible hand gently brushing away dust to reveal the objects beneath.
Will searched the kitchen, Barbara checked the living room, and Andy took the bedroom.
They hoped to find a communication device that still worked: a walkie-talkie, a radio, even an old CB radio—anything that could send or receive a signal.
Time passed in silence.
Only the sound of rummaging and an occasional cough filled the air.
Suddenly, Will stopped.
He stood before the kitchen cabinet, hand still on the handle, his body stiff, his ear tilted toward the wall.
"Did you... hear that?" he whispered, a tremor in his voice.
Andy and Barbara immediately stopped and held their breath.
At first, there was no sound. Only silence and the thump-thump of their own heartbeats.
Then—
"...Will... are you there?"
A woman's voice. Blurry, faint, as if coming from very far away, or through a thick wall. But that tone, that voice—Will recognized it immediately.
It was Mom.
"Mom?" Will blurted out, releasing the cabinet handle and turning toward the wall. "Mom, I'm here!"
There was no direct response. But the voice sounded again, clearer this time:
"...Will... if you can hear me... give me a sign..."
Andy and Barbara exchanged a glance and quickly moved to Will's side, the three of them standing in front of the cabinet.
"Can she really hear us?" Barbara asked in a low voice, both excited and nervous.
"I don't know." Will shook his head, his eyes fixed on the wall as if he could see through to the other side. "But she's talking. She's looking for me."
Andy didn't speak.
He closed his eyes, his psychic power slowly unfurling like invisible tentacles, reaching toward the wall, toward the source of the sound.
Then, he saw it.
Not with his eyes, but with his perception.
Inside that wall, in the layer between the real world and the Upside Down, something was glowing.
Not light in a physical sense, but some kind of... energy flow.
Like a faint electric current, like fireflies about to go out, flickering and flowing in the cracks between dimensions.
And these points of light seemed to be responding to something.
When Joyce spoke in the real world, and when Will approached the wall, those points of light would grow brighter, arranging themselves into certain patterns.
As she moved in the room, the points of light moved too, like fireflies guiding her way.
"It's the lights." Andy opened his eyes, a hint of surprise in his voice.
"The light from the real world, through the weak point in dimensions, has formed a... projection here. Or the other way around, the points of light here form visible light in the real world."
He pointed at the wall. "Do you see them? Those faint glowing points?"
Will and Barbara squinted, trying to make them out in the dim light.
At first they saw nothing, but slowly they noticed—there really were some extremely faint points of light on the wall, like tiny gems embedded in the gray-white substance, emitting an almost invisible, pearly glow.
And these points of light were changing. As Joyce moved in the real world, and as her voice rose and fell, the brightness, position, and arrangement of the light points were subtly adjusting.
"Will, blink once for yes, twice for no. Okay? Sweetie."
Joyce's voice came again, very clear this time, as if she were standing right on the other side of the wall, her lips pressed against it as she spoke.
Hearing this, Will almost instinctively blinked his eyes hard once.
"What are you doing?" Andy looked at Will, his expression confused.
"Didn't you hear?" Will asked back, his eyes full of confusion. "Mom asked me to blink."
Barbara couldn't help but let out a laugh, though she quickly covered it with her hand.
She pushed up her glasses and explained, "I think when Mrs. Byers said 'blink,' she meant for those lights to flash, not for you to actually blink your eyes."
Will froze for a few seconds, and then an embarrassed flush quickly rushed to his face.
In the dim light, that touch of red was still clearly visible.
"Oh! Right!" He scratched his head, a gesture that reminded Andy of the shy boy in the basement three years ago. "So how do I make the lights flash?"
Just then, Joyce's voice came again, carrying barely suppressed anxiety:
"...Are you alive?"
This time the question was simple and direct.
Andy looked at the points of light on the wall, his mind racing.
These points of light were the bridge between the two worlds, the projection of real-world light into this dimension.
If they could change in response to stimuli from the real world, then maybe... they could also respond to stimuli from this world?
"I think you just need to touch those glowing points."
He said, reaching out a finger and cautiously approaching a relatively bright point of light on the wall.
The moment his fingertip touched the point of light, Andy felt a strange sensation.
It wasn't the physical reality of contact, but something more subtle, like touching a droplet of water.
At the same time, that point of light flashed.
It wasn't just brightening or dimming; it was a "flash" in the truest sense.
The flash was so intense that it left a brief afterimage on his retina.
And in the real world, Joyce saw the string of lights she was holding suddenly flash once.
"Are you safe?"
Joyce's second question followed immediately, her voice carrying a trace of barely controlled excitement.
Hearing this, Will turned to look at Andy, his eyes clearly asking for help.
"Hmm? Why are you looking at me?" Andy raised an eyebrow. "Theoretically, with me here, we should be safe... probably?"
There was a hint of uncertainty in his tone. After all, although he could drive off monsters, he didn't fully understand all the dangers of this world.
Plus, his psychic power wasn't infinite, and his physical condition wasn't at its best.
But Will clearly took this "probably" as a certainty.
Following Andy's lead, he reached out and touched another point of light on the wall.
Another flicker.
In the real world, Joyce saw the second bulb flicker and almost jumped up.
Her son was still alive and safe—at least relatively safe.
Tears instantly welled up in her eyes, but she forced them back.
Now wasn't the time for crying; it was the time for action.
"I need to know how to find you, honey. Where are you?" she asked, her voice trembling slightly with excitement.
But after asking the question, she immediately realized the problem.
How was Will supposed to answer? He couldn't possibly describe a location he probably didn't even understand himself.
She needed more specific, actionable questions.
So she changed her approach, her voice filled with pleading and a mother's deepest anxiety:
"Can you tell me where you are? Can you... please, baby, I have to find you. Tell me what to do..."
On this side, in the living room of the Upside Down, Will, Barbara, and Andy looked at each other.
"Andy," Will turned to Andy, his eyes full of pure trust, "you connected to Eleven before. Can you contact Mom through this? Like... speaking directly in her head?"
Facing Will's question, Andy thought with a deep frown.
The suggestion sounded reasonable—since he could establish a connection with Eleven through the Void, maybe he could communicate with Joyce in a similar way?
But the problem was... "I can contact Eleven because Eleven herself has superpowers."
He explained, "Our consciousness... frequencies are similar and can resonate. That's why we can see each other in the Void."
He paused to organize his words: "If it were in the real world, I could definitely communicate inside someone's brain easily. Dr. Brenner once trained me in that ability."
"Like reading surface thoughts or sending simple messages. But that's face-to-face, or at a really close distance."
"What about now?" Barbara asked.
"Now, I don't even know how to connect to the outside world." Andy shook his head, a hint of frustration in his tone.
"This world is like a signal jammer. My abilities are distorted and messed with here. I can feel the 'existence' of the real world, like looking at things through frosted glass—blurry, distorted, and impossible to really touch."
He looked at the expectant gazes of Will and Barbara, which were so heavy he could hardly bear them. But he decided to give it a shot anyway.
"However... maybe through these points of light, these weak points in the dimension, some kind of connection can be established."
He said, more to himself, "Like a telephone line. The signal might suck, but at least the line is connected."
He closed his eyes and began to try.
His psychic power slowly unfolded, not spreading outward as usual, but extending like a thin thread toward the points of light on the wall.
He tried to grasp those points of light, to catch the energy flows connecting the two worlds, and follow them "upstream" to find an anchor point in the real world.
At first, there was only darkness.
Then, some blurred images began to emerge.
He saw a room—the Byers' house living room, but the real-world version.
He saw a woman—Joyce Byers. She stood in the center of the room, looking up at a string of Christmas lights hanging on the wall.
Those Christmas lights were flickering, glowing in a rhythmic pattern.
Her face was covered in tear stains, but her eyes were exceptionally bright, staring intently at the lights as if deciphering some code.
Andy could feel her emotions: intense anxiety, suppressed fear, but more than anything, an absolute determination.
That determination to "find her son no matter what" was like a burning flame beating in the woman's chest.
He wanted to send a message.
He wanted to "say" in her consciousness: "I'm Andy. I'm with Will. We're in an Upside Down world."
But his message was like a stone thrown into thick syrup—slow, heavy, and unable to spread.
He felt a resistance, a "viscosity" unique to this world, making all psychic activities extremely difficult.
After a few seconds, he gave up and opened his eyes.
"It's no use." He panted, fine beads of sweat breaking out on his forehead.
"I can see her and feel her emotions, but I can't establish a real connection. It's like... like being behind one-way glass; I can see her, but she can't see me."
The hope in Will's eyes dimmed a bit, but it didn't disappear completely.
He nodded, as if he'd expected this result.
"At least she knows I'm still alive," he said softly, but with a strange firmness. "At least she knows I'm trying to respond."
Just then, the points of light on the wall suddenly changed.
They began to move.
Not moving randomly, but in an organized, patterned way. Those faint glowing dots slid and reorganized on the wall, slowly forming a clear shape:
Letters.
Then, more letters appeared. They emerged from various parts of the wall, like bubbles rising from the deep sea to the surface, and then arranged themselves into neat rows:
A complete alphabet of 26 English letters, arranged in three rows. Each letter in the Upside Down seemed to be made up of several points of light, emitting a pearly glow on the dim wall.
"Whoa," Barbara whispered in amazement, pushing up her glasses, her eyes wide.
"Mrs. Byers is amazing. What did she do... in the real world? How did she do this?"
Andy was also surprised.
These letters didn't appear randomly; they were too neat and organized, clearly the result of human manipulation.
Joyce, in the real world, had "drawn" the alphabet on the wall of this dimension somehow.
Her intention was obvious: to establish a communication system. A system that would allow Will to spell out words and convey information.
"Okay, baby, tell me. Tell me where you are."
Joyce's voice came through again, clearer and more determined this time.
She'd recovered from her initial shock and excitement and entered "problem-solving" mode.
The Joyce Byers who'd raised two boys alone, worked late shifts at a retail store, and never bowed to life's many hardships, was now pouring all her energy and smarts into saving her son.
Will looked at the alphabet on the wall, his eyes scanning the glowing symbols. Then he turned to Andy, a look of clear confusion on his face:
"What should I say?"
In his eyes, Andy was the "expert" in this strange world, the one who knew how to deal with monsters, use superpowers, and understand the weird rules here.
Compared to Barbara, an ordinary person who'd accidentally fallen in just like him, Andy was clearly more familiar with the "freaky stuff" here.
Andy stared at the alphabet, his brain working fast. What kind of message should be sent? What information would be most helpful to Joyce? What information could guide her to find them?
"According to the Lab, this place is Dimension X, but I think it should be called the Upside Down," he said slowly, pronouncing each letter clearly.
Will acted immediately.
He extended his finger and touched the corresponding letters in the order Andy said: U, P, S, I, D, E, D, O, W, N.
Each letter he touched would flicker, emitting a brief, intense light.
In the dim living room, these continuous flickers were like some mysterious ritual, like a code written in light.
In the real world, Joyce watched the Christmas lights on the wall tensely.
Each bulb corresponded to a letter in the alphabet. When she saw a bulb flicker, she noted down the corresponding letter in her notebook.
U, P, S, I, D, E, D, O, W, N.
"Upside Down?" She read the spelled-out words, her brow furrowed. "The Upside Down? Where is that?"
This answer provided no actual geographic information.
It was more of a description, a metaphor, rather than an address she could go to.
Joyce felt a wave of frustration, but she didn't give up.
"What does this mean? I need you to tell me what to do. How do I find you?"
Her voice came through the weak point in the dimension, filled with obvious anxiety and urgency.
Just the description "Upside Down" wasn't enough. She needed to know how to enter this world or how to pull them out of it.
"I think we should find an open door," Andy said, not entirely sure himself.
Will acted again, touching D, O, O, R.
"Door? A door?" Joyce murmured to herself in the real world. "Where is the door? How do I find it?"
The question remained unanswered.
But at least the direction was clearer: they needed to find a "door," a door connecting the two worlds.
Andy continued to think. Where was the door? Based on his experience, the places where those monsters appeared and disappeared were likely the locations of the doors.
The place where he was dragged in in the forest, the place where Barbara fell from the pool, and... "Maybe we should have her find those monsters?"
Will looked at Andy in disbelief: "Are you serious?"
"Theoretically, there's another way, but I don't think your mom can get in."
Will immediately thought of Andy's background. "You mean, the Lab?"
"Yeah," Andy grunted softly.
"Laboratory?" Joyce's voice rose. "What kind of laboratory? The Department of Energy? I should..."
She didn't finish.
Because the points of light on the wall suddenly began to flicker wildly.
Not in a regular, responsive flicker, but a chaotic, frantic flicker, like a seizure.
All the letters lit up at once, reaching peak brightness, illuminating the entire living room in a deathly pale light, then went dark all at once, plunging the room into deeper darkness than before.
A few seconds later, the points of light came back on, but the arrangement was completely chaotic.
The alphabet was scattered, and the points of light drifted around like startled fireflies.
At the same time, a low, vibrating hum came from inside the walls. It wasn't a sound, but a physical vibration transmitted through the floor, walls, and air, directly into their bones and organs.
Will sensed it immediately. Something was approaching.
Will didn't hesitate. He quickly touched R, U, N.
In the real world, Joyce saw the last three bulbs flicker, spelling out "RUN."
Almost at the same instant, the wall in front of her suddenly began to bulge.
Not the entire wall, but a localized part.
The wallpaper slowly protruded as if being pushed from behind, growing larger and more obvious.
The Christmas lights on the surface were pulled taut, the wires making a faint crackling sound, and several bulbs burst, glass shards falling to the floor.
Joyce instinctively backed away, her eyes fixed on the bulge. She could feel the thing behind the wall—that cold, malicious presence, that sickeningly sweet smell of rot seeping through the cracks in the wallpaper.
Then, the wall ruptured.
It wasn't an explosion or an impact, but as if some massive force had torn the structure of reality from the inside. Layers of wallpaper, drywall, and wooden framing peeled and shattered, revealing that behind it wasn't another room, but—
Darkness.
Pure, thick darkness, like a living liquid, surged from the breach. In the center of that darkness, a silhouette was taking shape: tall, slender, with weirdly proportioned limbs and a faceless head, sickeningly smooth.
The Demogorgon.
It had arrived.
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