Chapter 15: Sudden Incident
Andy sensed the monster immediately. He looked at Will and Barbara; both clearly felt something was wrong too.
That sense of oppression, the bone-chilling drop in temperature, and the sudden intensification of a rotten, sickeningly sweet scent in the air.
"The monster is coming," Barbara whispered, her voice tight with fear.
Will nodded, his eyes fixed on the entrance to the living room.
He could hear footsteps coming from deep within the hallway, getting closer and closer.
"I'll go deal with it."
Just as Andy was about to act, Will suddenly thought of something and grabbed Andy's wrist.
"Wait," Will said. "We were all brought here by that monster. You were in the forest, Barbara was by the pool, and I was..."
He paused before continuing, "Maybe that Demogorgon has a way to open a gate. If we just hide and wait for it to leave, we might never find the exit. But if we... observe it. See how it comes and goes. We might discover the secret of the gate."
"You mean... intentionally let it find us? Or at least, not run away, but observe from hiding?"
"Right," Will nodded. "We can't keep being passive. We need to actively look for a way out. And that monster might be the key to getting home."
Barbara swallowed nervously and pushed up her glasses. "But if we're discovered..."
"Then we fight," Andy interrupted her. "If I could drive it off once, I can do it again. But this time, I want to see clearly how it opens the gate."
The three quickly reached a consensus and moved to find hiding spots—not total concealment, but hidden positions with a clear line of sight.
Will hid behind the couch; from the gaps in the cushions, he could observe most of the living room.
Barbara hid behind the curtains. The heavy fabric provided excellent cover, and she could see the window and part of the wall from the side.
Andy chose a shadow by the fireplace. A pile of discarded junk served as cover, and it offered the best view of the entire living room—especially the wall where the lights had flickered earlier.
They'd just hidden themselves when the monster entered the living room.
Andy peered through a gap in the junk pile, observing the creature Will called the "Demogorgon" up close for the first time.
It stopped in the center of the living room, its faceless head turning slowly as if "sniffing" for information in the air.
Andy held his breath, pulling his psychic energy inward to the extreme, as if wrapping himself in an invisible layer of insulation.
He didn't want the monster to sense his presence—at least not yet.
Then, he saw it raise its hands and press its palms against the wall.
At first, nothing happened.
Then, the wall began to change.
It wasn't physical destruction, but a more fundamental, dimensional distortion.
The wall was like a reflection on water broken by a stone, beginning to ripple.
Those ripples spread from the monster's palms, expanding in circles. Wherever they touched, the wall's "solidity" weakened, becoming transparent and blurred.
Andy's eyes widened. He could feel that distortion through his psychic perception.
It was a folding of space, a tearing of the fabric of reality, a brief overlap of two dimensions.
The monster's palms began to push forward.
It wasn't pushing a physical wall, but pushing open a dimensional barrier.
A hole appeared in the wall—a torn-open hole!
Like a wound opening on skin, the edges were irregular but had an organic, biological texture. The inside of the hole wasn't the other side of the wall, but... darkness.
Pure darkness, but different from the darkness of this Upside Down.
It was another kind of darkness—deeper, more absolute. And Andy could feel a... familiar presence within that darkness.
The presence of the real world.
The hole expanded. From the initial size of a palm, it quickly grew to the size of a plate, and then to about three feet in diameter.
The edges writhed like a living wound, struggling between slowly healing and expanding.
The monster stopped; the hole was now large enough for it to pass through.
It bent down, preparing to step through the opening, but at that exact moment, the pain in Andy's head reached its peak.
It felt as if countless red-hot needles were piercing his brain simultaneously, churning, burning, and stabbing through the folds of his consciousness.
The pain transcended the physical realm, acting directly upon his very existence, as if this world were screaming, protesting, and trying to expel him as a "foreign object."
"Ah—!"
He couldn't hold it back.
A short, suppressed cry of pain escaped from his hiding spot.
The sound wasn't loud, but in the absolute silence of the living room, it was exceptionally clear.
The monster instantly turned its head.
Though it had no eyes, Andy could feel its "gaze."
It was a cold, slimy sensation, like a snake's tongue licking his skin from the top of his head to the soles of his feet.
At the same time, Will and Barbara also heard Andy's voice.
Will peeked out from behind the couch and saw that the monster had already turned toward Andy's hiding spot and was beginning to move that way.
"Andy!" Will blurted out, his voice filled with fear and concern.
He didn't know what was happening to Andy, but he knew Andy might be unable to defend himself right now.
The Andy who was always calm, always had a plan, and could always use incredible power to drive off the monster, had just made a sound of agony.
The monster paused.
It seemed to be deciding which target was a higher priority: the potential threat that made the sound, or the obvious target that had actively exposed itself.
Will made a decision.
He couldn't just stand by and watch Andy get caught by the monster.
Plus, Andy was currently the only person who might be able to get them out of here.
He stood up, fully exposing himself to the monster's line of sight.
Then, he did something even he couldn't believe.
He grabbed the nearest thing at hand—a heavy hardcover book with a rotted cover—and threw it at the monster with all his might.
The book spun through the air, its pages fluttering like a wounded bird, before hitting the monster's chest with a thud.
Of course, it caused no damage. The book bounced off the monster and fell to the floor, kicking up a cloud of dust.
But the goal was achieved.
The monster's attention shifted completely to Will.
"Come and get me! You jerk!"
Will shouted, his voice trembling with fear but sounding surprisingly loud. He turned and ran toward the exit.
He didn't know what he was doing; it was pure instinct. He wasn't even sure if it was the right thing to do. He might just be running to his death.
But he did it anyway.
The monster let out a low sound, like metal grinding, and began to move.
It chased after Will, disappearing into the darkness of the hallway.
In the living room, only Andy and Barbara remained.
Along with that slowly shrinking hole in the wall.
Andy knelt by the junk pile, clutching his head tightly with both hands. Pain crashed against his consciousness like waves, each one stronger than the last.
He could feel warm liquid flowing from his nose, taste the metallic tang of blood on his lips, and hear the frantic pounding of his heart, like a caged animal slamming against his ribcage.
But he forced his eyes open, forcing himself to look at the hole in the wall.
The hole the monster had opened, connecting the two worlds.
It was shrinking.
Like a wound healing, or ripples on water subsiding, the edges of the hole were slowly but steadily closing inward.
Andy knew that if he let this hole close completely, they might never find another exit.
The way the monster opened gates seemed random, or at least, not something they could predict or replicate.
He had to do something.
"Andy! Andy! Are you okay?"
Barbara rushed out from behind the curtains, ran to Andy's side, and knelt down to check on him.
She saw the blood on his face, his expression twisted in pain, and the light in his eyes that looked as if it were about to go out.
"Will... he lured the monster away," Barbara said urgently, her voice a mix of fear and worry for Will. "But we have to do something. That hole... it's closing."
Andy nodded, his movements stiff from the pain.
He pushed away Barbara's hand as she tried to support him, struggling to stand up on his own.
His legs were shaking, and his vision was blurred with pain, but he forced himself to focus, forced himself to look at the shrinking hole.
"Help me over there," he said to Barbara, his voice as rough as sandpaper.
Barbara didn't hesitate; she took one of Andy's arms, supporting his weight as they both staggered toward the wall, toward the hole.
He could feel his psychic energy depleting rapidly, like a leaking bucket with very little water left.
Finally, they reached the hole.
Up close, the hole was even more disturbing. The edges weren't clean cuts but were like biological tissue, slowly writhing, growing, and trying to close. Inside the hole was pure darkness, but Andy could feel that deep within that darkness, there was something.
The presence of the real world.
And... Joyce's presence. Anxiety, fear, but mostly determination. She was nearby, just on the other side of the hole.
Andy reached out—not with his physical hand, but with an extension of his psychic power. Like invisible tentacles, it reached for the edges of the hole, for those writhing tissues.
He felt it.
He felt the "membrane" between the two worlds. He felt the "tension" of the reality structure. He felt the "force" that maintained the dimensional separation.
For some reason, Andy now had a faint feeling that he could open the gate just like the Demogorgon.
His psychic power began to concentrate, to condense, and to form a specific "frequency." Andy didn't know what that frequency was, but he could feel it was similar to the monster's frequency, resonating with the frequency generated by this hole.
He tried to "push open."
Like pushing open a heavy door, but not with muscle—with will.
At first, nothing happened.
The hole continued to shrink, now reduced to about twenty inches in diameter.
Andy clenched his teeth, nearly shattering them. He squeezed the last of his psychic energy from the depths of his consciousness, like wringing the last drop of water from a sponge. He could feel himself overextending, consuming something non-renewable, but he didn't care.
For Will, for Barbara, for himself, and to leave this godforsaken place—
"Open!"
He let out a low growl, not with his voice, but with his entire being.
Then, the hole stopped shrinking.
The tissue at the edges stopped writhing. The hole's size stabilized at around twenty inches.
Next, the hole began... to expand in reverse.
It wasn't the slow, organic growth seen when the monster opened it, but a more violent, unstable expansion. Like an invisible force tearing it from within, cracks began to appear at the edges, and the darkness started to fluctuate like boiling water.
The hole expanded to two feet. Two and a half feet. Three feet.
Andy could feel himself "grabbing" the rift between the two worlds and prying it open with force. It was like grabbing a tear in a piece of paper and pulling it apart from both sides.
But the cost was immense.
His nose, ears, and eyes all began to bleed.
The warm liquid flowed down his cheeks and dripped onto his clothes.
The hole expanded to three and a half feet. Four feet. Five feet.
Enough for a person to pass through.
"Andy!" Barbara cried out. She saw Andy's condition, the terrifying sight of him bleeding from every orifice. "Enough! Stop! You'll kill yourself!"
Andy heard her, but he ignored it; he knew he couldn't stop.
Once he stopped, the hole might snap shut instantly, and he might never have the strength to open it a second time.
"Go, quickly," he squeezed the words out through his teeth, his voice barely audible. "You go back first. This gate... can't stay open for long."
He could feel that this forcibly opened passage was very unstable.
It was vibrating and fluctuating, the edges constantly trying to close.
"No, we're going through together," Barbara said firmly, though her voice trembled with fear.
"We can open the gate again and call more people to help. Joyce, the police, someone will be able to help us."
Andy shook his head, his movements slow and heavy. "You go first. I don't know if I can still open the gate in reality. And..."
He turned his head. Though his vision was blurred, he could sense the direction in which Will had left.
Deep in the corridor, there was only darkness and silence. Will might still be running, might have been caught by the monster, or... "There's still Will," Andy said, his voice carrying a complex emotion that Barbara couldn't quite understand. "I'm staying here to find Will."
Three years ago, Will and his friends had saved Andy.
They'd hidden him, given him food, and helped him evade the hunt from the Lab.
Although Andy eventually chose to leave and search for Eleven on his own, he'd never forgotten that kindness.
Now, Will had lured the monster away to save him.
Andy couldn't possibly abandon him and leave alone.
Barbara looked at Andy—this boy whose face was covered in blood, who could barely stand, but whose eyes were exceptionally determined.
She took a deep breath and made a decision.
"In that case," she said, her voice suddenly becoming calm and decisive, "I can't leave both of you here."
She helped Andy to the side of the couch and let him sit down.
Andy's body went almost completely limp as he leaned against the back of the couch. His breathing was rapid and shallow, his eyes half-closed, with only a faint light still flickering deep in his pupils.
Barbara acted quickly.
First, she found a pen and a relatively intact piece of paper in Will's room.
She quickly wrote down the situation here on the paper, then crumpled it into a ball so it would be easier to carry and throw.
Then, she searched the room for anything useful.
Her gaze fell on a backpack in the corner, and she stuffed the ball of paper inside.
Next, she needed to find a way to make this backpack "reach" the real world.
The hole in the wall was still there, but its edges had begun to fluctuate unstably, like a flame flickering in the wind.
Barbara estimated that this hole could last for a few minutes at most, maybe even less.
She searched the room quickly and finally found a rusty steel pipe in the utility closet—probably left over from previous home repairs.
The steel pipe was about five feet long with a hook at one end.
A perfect tool.
Barbara returned to the living room and went to the hole. She hung the backpack's strap on the pipe's hook and then carefully extended the pipe toward the opening.
The moment the steel pipe passed through the opening, she felt a resistance, a "thickness" as if the entire dimension were resisting, like sticking a rod into thick honey.
But she pushed hard, and the pipe slowly advanced, passing through the hole and disappearing into the darkness on the other side.
She could feel the pipe hit something in the real world—maybe a wall, maybe the floor.
She adjusted the angle, wedging the pipe against the edge of the hole so that even if she let go, it wouldn't fall completely in or out.
The backpack hung from the other end of the pipe, dangling in the real world.
There were several benefits to doing this: first, the backpack and the information inside would appear in the real world in a very obvious location; second, the pipe wedged in the hole might slow down its closing; third, if someone in the real world saw this weird sight, they'd definitely investigate and find the hole and the information inside.
"Doing this not only tests if I can jam the gate open with something," Barbara whispered to herself, more to bolster her own courage, "but also makes it really obvious in the Byers' house."
Having finished all this, she returned to Andy's side. The edges of the hole had already begun to slowly shrink again; the insertion of the pipe seemed to have helped a bit, but its effect was limited.
The diameter of the hole was now about four feet and was decreasing at a rate visible to the naked eye.
"Andy, I wrote a note and sent it to the real world with a steel pipe."
She said to Andy, unsure if he could still hear her. "I hope someone sees it and understands what's happened."
Andy gave a slight nod, the movement almost imperceptible.
Barbara looked at Andy's weakened state, then toward Will's room.
Will had been gone for several minutes, and no sound had come back.
He might still be running, or he might have... she didn't dare think further.
"You don't look good," she said to Andy, her voice gentle but firm.
"Leave finding Will to me. You wait here for us to come back. If you hear the monster or feel the gate is about to close, run immediately. Don't worry about us."
She paused and added, "In this situation, I can't leave both of you here."
Andy opened his eyes. Though his vision was blurred, he could see Barbara's silhouette and feel the sudden burst of courage from her.
This girl, who just minutes ago had been trembling with fear because of the monster, had now decided to enter the darkness alone to find another boy who might already be in danger.
He wanted to say something, but he truly had no strength left.
Barbara didn't wait for a response; she looked around the room for anything that could serve as a weapon.
Finally, she found a baseball bat, a box cutter, and some tools that might be useful.
Armed, she returned to the living room and gave Andy one last look.
"I'll find him," she said, more as a promise to herself. "I'll bring him back, and then we'll leave together. Whatever it takes."
Then, she turned and walked toward the depths of the corridor where Will and the monster had disappeared.
Her steps were firm, without hesitation.
Andy leaned against the couch, his gaze following Barbara's back until she vanished into the darkness of the corridor.
He could hear her footsteps, gradually moving away, gradually growing faint, until they were finally swallowed by the silence of this world.
Then, he turned his head and looked at the hole in the wall.
The hole was still there, but its diameter had shrunk to less than three feet. The steel pipe was still wedged at the edge, but it was visibly bent, as if squeezed by a massive force.
Andy could feel his control over the hole rapidly weakening.
His psychic energy was almost exhausted, like a candle burned to its end, with only a tiny, flickering flame remaining.
He wanted to keep the hole open, to wait for Barbara and Will to return, but he couldn't do it.
His consciousness began to blur.
The pain gradually lessened—not because it was gone, but because his body was shutting down its perception of pain as a form of self-protection.
The bloody hue in his vision grew thicker, finally turning into a deep crimson, then into darkness.
Before completely losing consciousness, Andy's last thought was not about himself, nor about how to escape.
It was about Will.
The shy boy who, three years ago in the basement, had sat quietly in the corner and only occasionally spoken up while the other boys were all talking at once.
The brave boy who, just now, had actively exposed himself to lure the monster away to save him.
"Will..."
He silently uttered the name, and then his consciousness sank into a bottomless darkness.
The hole in the wall continued to shrink.
The steel pipe let out a screeching sound as the metal twisted and deformed under the pressure of the dimensions.
Finally, when the hole shrank to only about twelve inches in diameter, the steel pipe could no longer hold. It slipped from the edge and fell onto the floor of the real world with a loud clang.
The backpack fell with it, rolling into a corner.
The opening continued to shrink—eight inches, four inches, two inches... finally, it closed completely.
The wall returned to its original state, with only a faint, nearly invisible ripple in the grayish-white substance on the surface, like ripples on water, slowly spreading and then disappearing.
In the living room, only Andy remained, leaning against the couch, unconscious.
Outside the window, the dark red sky remained eternally unchanged.
In the distance, from deep within the forest, came a low sound, like something massive moving, like the world itself breathing.
In some dark corner of the forest, Barbara gripped the baseball bat tightly and walked step by step toward the unknown danger.
Ahead of her might be Will, the monster, an exit, or death.
But she did not look back.
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