"Seek" - Part Six

Part Six

            Hellboy had fallen into deep despair, having heard what had become of the only person able to pilot the Type-Z T.A.R.D.I.S. between dimensions.

            In his desperation, he paced all throughout the console room.

            The eyes of the Hawkins residents followed him, wondering how long he would go on. Even Dustin realized at one point, “Dude, you’ve paced back and forth over fifty times already.”

            “She doesn’t have her T.A.R.D.I.S. and she doesn’t have her sonic thingamajig,” Hellboy reflected. “How are we gonna save her?”

            He hardly noticed Eleven brisk past him, approaching the control console.

            She placed her hand on the alien machinery and the entire room marginally quaked around them. “We’re here,” she told the others.

            “Where?” Mike quizzically inquired.

            Hellboy should have remembered the inexplicable connection Eleven had to the T.A.R.D.I.S. She brought them to the dark dimension, which she referred as “The Upside Down,” with a simple touch.

            “Well, the hard part’s done,” Hellboy said. “The harder part is finding where Si and the kid are.” A shrewd grin manifested on the half-demon’s mug. “And I know just the thing.”

            “What’ve ya got?” Hopper asked him.

            “There’s this song Si sang all the time that annoyed the heck outta me,” Hellboy said. “Maybe we can use that.”

            Together with the Hawkins inhabitants, Hellboy rerouted the speakers within the console room to play the Spinners’ “I’ll Be Around” outside of the T.A.R.D.I.S. It broadcasted across the Upside Down, presumably alerting every possible living thing within a 100-mile radius to its location.

            “This is a really bad idea, man,” Lucas noted.

            “Yeah, it is,” Hellboy wholeheartedly agreed. “But it’s the only one I’ve got, so I’m goin’ with it.”

----------

            The spider entity was relentless.

            It repeatedly shook the foundation of the public library.

            Inside were Si and Will, both holding onto each other for dear life. Will would have considered it an esteemed pleasure to be hugging a girl as gorgeous as Si had his life not been in danger.

            Just when it seemed like the end for them, the entity stopped.

            “W-What’s going on?” Will questioned.

            Si wondered the same, right before they heard music – a familiar tune to Si’s ears.

            “The Spinners,” she acknowledged it. “That’s ‘I’ll Be Around’! That’s my song! My favorite song!”

            It was literally music to her ears, as it meant just what she imagined it to be:

            “They’ve found us! I don’t know how, but they did!”

            Will found it too good to be true. “How do you know for sure?”

            “Because there’s only one guy in the multiverse I know who hates that song.”

            “That thing’s still over us. How’re we supposed to get past it?”

            “It’s after me, Will, not you. I’ll buy you time by getting its attention.”

            “No! I can’t let you risk your life like that! Not for me!”

            “Yes, you will. Because yours matters way more than mine.”

            Will knew there was no changing this girl’s mind, so he went with her plan. While Si called to the entity’s attention, Will headed in the direction that the music blared from, which he figured to have been out in the woods. Sure enough, Si was right: the entity paid no mind to him as he ran away; instead, its focus was squarely on Si.

            “Alright, Daddy Long Legs,” Si addressed the entity. “It’s time for answers. How do you know so much about Time Lords? You’re looking at one of the only ones this side of the multiverse. So why the big interest, huh? I’m not the first you’ve encountered, am I?” She asked that last question in dreaded realization, hoping in both of her hearts that this gargantuan, smoky creature had not come across the likes of the Doctor or Aznavorian, her father.

            The entity did not speak (and Si had no reason to believe that it could).

            But it did communicate with her telepathically.

            A series of horrific images flashed in her mind.

            Terrified, she ran from the entity; surprisingly, it did not bother to pursue her.

----------

            Will knew he was heading in the right direction the louder the music got. Ahead of him, he saw something that looked like a giant VHS tape standing in the middle of the dark forest. His mother, brother, friends, and the chief of police stood around it, joined by a girl his age with a shaven head and a guy dressed like a demon bounty hunter.

            “Will,” Joyce joyously cheered, embracing her son along with Jonathan, Mike, Dustin, and Lucas.

            Hellboy didn’t see Si with him, which made the half-demon a little uneasy.

            “Hate to interrupt this happy reunion,” he said. “But where’s Si?”

            “She stayed behind, so that I could get away,” Will informed.

            What’re ya thinkin’, kid?!

            His Good Samaritan drawn, Hellboy rushed away to save Si; he hadn’t noticed how Eleven followed him close behind.

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            Si reached the forest when she heard a loud shriek.

            Her body froze, seeing the humanoid creature with the unusual flower-head of teeth advancing towards her fast. She tried to outrun it, but it unfortunately caught up with her, pinning her to the ground and intending on consuming her.

            “HEY, UGLY!!!”

            She was saved by Hellboy, who blasted the hideous monster with the Good Samaritan a few times to get its attention away from her.

            It worked all too well.

            The creature engaged in another round with the half-demon, who did everything in his power to defeat it. Once again, it exhibited itself as the mightier of the two, subduing Hellboy in seconds.

            “You’re really startin’ to tick me off,” he cursed his opponent.

            It appeared to have shared in the sentiment, roaring and spitting in Hellboy’s face.

            All of the sudden, it was flung off him and restrained by an invisible force.

            Recognizing this occurrence, Hellboy saw Eleven with her right arm outstretched towards the creature. Blood streamed out of her nose and eyes, clearly pushing her power beyond its limits.

            “Whaddya doin’, kid?!” Hellboy cried. “Stop before ya kill yourself!”

            Eleven did not stop. She pushed herself harder, screaming in agony as the creature dissolved into a thick mist in which she too vanished.

            Hellboy wasn’t sure what to make of what just happened.

            Eleven scarified herself to save him and Si.

            “Si!” he exclaimed, once he was reminded of the fallen Time Lady.

            She laid there on the ground, still and unconscious.

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            Moments later, she reawakened back in the console room of her T.A.R.D.I.S.

            “Will,” she gasped, her aquamarine eyes snapping open to see Hellboy hovering over her. “What happened? Is Will okay?”

            “The kid’s fine – a little shaken up but fine,” Hellboy told her. “He’s holdin’ up with his friends and family in the kitchen. We were just waitin’ for ya to wake up, so we can get outta this ‘Upside Down’ place.”

            “What about Eleven? I saw her with you before I zoned out.”

            Hellboy was reluctant to answer. “She, uh…She risked her life to stop that thing.”

            “Oh, no,” Si lamented. “Poor girl.”

            “Yeah. But at least we saved the day again. Eh, kid?”

            Si did not feel as victorious as her big, red companion. “There was another monster Will and I faced before you guys found us. It showed me a vision of countless worlds overtaken by the dark dimension. They’re seeking out each one, and Hawkins was the first on the list.”

            “Judgin’ by that unwaverin’ tone of yours, I’m guessin’ our business here isn’t as finished as I thought.”

            His Time Lady associate glared. “We’re only just getting started, H.B.”

THE END

"Seek" - Part Five

Part Five

            After what happened to Si, a frantic Joyce had no other choice but to call Jim Hopper over. This could have been a new lead on the case of her missing son. She tried to explain the situation to Hopper in full detail, no matter how insane any of it sounded.

            Hearing about the girl (Si) and how she was helping to find Will, Hopper came to the only feasible conclusion: “She was pranking you guys. Some dumb kids at school probably put her up to it.”

            “Hopp, do we know any kids stupid enough to pull such a cruel prank, using this?” She showed him the bizarre tool Si left behind in her living room.

            Hopper grimaced at the device. “What is that?”

            “I don’t know,” Joyce said. “But that girl used it to help us talk with Will, and the next thing we know, all the lights in our house go crazy.”

            “Joyce, she probably used this thing to do just that to scare you.”

            “Again I ask, Hopp, who would waste the time and intelligence to do that?!”

            Unable to convince her of the possible truth, Jim was ready to give up; but he needed to know more about this unusual girl who used unusual tools to conduct fraudulent investigations.

            For that, he had to address the person who spoke to her first: Jonathan.

            “Do you know anything else about this girl?” He asked him.

            Jonathan shrugged. “Other than the fact she looked cute, nothing much.”

            While Jonathan did his best to answer the chief’s questions, Joyce felt Si’s crazy device intensely pulsating in her hands when pointed at a specific direction. “Guys, look at this,” she directed Hopper and Jonathan’s attention to it. “I think it’s working like a metal detector now. It might lead us somewhere we’ll find Si and Will.”

            “This place is mental. It’s way cooler than the Millennium Falcon.”

            Dustin’s observation of the alien spaceship he, Mike, and Lucas discovered in the woods came shortly after the girl they found with it brought them into its dimensionally disproportionate interior.

            Mike, on the other hand, was more captivated by the girl, whose name they learned to be Eleven from the numbered tattoo on her left forearm.

            “Is this where you live, Elle?” He asked her.

            Eleven shook her head and again only said, “Alien.”

            “Well, the fact that it’s bigger on the inside gives that way,” Lucas noted.

            “Who does it belong to?” Mike questioned Eleven.

            She responded by placing her hand on the control console, influencing the ship to bring up an image of a beautiful teenaged blonde on the console monitor.

            Dustin was instantly enchanted. “Whoa! She’s even hotter than Nancy!”

            “Dude…Seriously?!” Mike remarked in disgust.

            “How does a normal-looking girl like her own an alien spaceship like this?” Lucas deliberated.

            “She’s Supergirl,” Dustin alluded. “Alien on the inside, human on the outside.”

            “Missing,” Eleven uttered.

            Mike drew his own hypothesis from her random remark. “You mean that girl on the screen is missing? Where could she be?”

            They suddenly heard a car driving up outside.

            Stepping out of the alien spaceship, they saw it to be Steve Harrington, Mike’s sister Nancy, and a guy wearing some type of Halloween costume of a devil bounty hunter. Mike, Lucas, and Dustin were impressed by it.

            “Sick costume, man,” Lucas told him.

            “I…I don’t think it’s a costume, fellas,” Steve apprehensively pointed out.

            “Hellboy,” Eleven identified the costumed stranger with a judgmental tone.

            “Look, kid,” Hellboy said. “I’m sorry that I—”

            Without warning, Hellboy was flung across the air by an unseen force, smacking against a tree.

            “I deserved that,” he groaned.

            The blood trickling out of Eleven’s left nostril was enough to convince Mike, Lucas, Dustin, Nancy, and Steve that she possessed some kind of telepathic abilities. To see it up close astounded them.

            “This girl gets cooler every second,” Dustin commented.

            Nancy’s attention moved away from the telepathic girl to the giant domino-shaped spacecraft near them, opened to reveal its dimensionally disproportionate interior. “What is this?!”

            “A spaceship that gets in and out of other dimensions,” Hellboy answered, gathering himself. “And that thing back there is from one of ‘em. It killed Barb.”

            “Barb’s dead?” Nancy gasped. Devastated, she cried into Steve’s shoulder.

            “What ‘thing’ are you talking about?” Mike asked.

            Before Hellboy could answer, a Hawkins Police Dept. truck pulled in right next to Steve’s car. Jim Hopper got out of it with Joyce and Jonathan Byers; when he saw the domino-shaped, dimensionally-disproportionate alien spaceship, his jaw dropped.

            “This might just be the weirdest night of my life,” he reflected.

            Hellboy noticed Joyce with a familiar device pulsating in her hands.

            “Where did you get that?!” He unforgivingly inquired. “That’s Si’s.”

            “You know her,” a surprised Joyce said.

            “Yeah, I know her,” Hellboy grumbled. “Where is she?”

            “The Upside Down,” said Eleven, whose response drew perplexed glances from the people around her.

            Si and Will ran for hours, doing what they could to stay out of sight from the gargantuan spider entity. The best place for them to hide was the Hawkins Public Library – or the dark dimension’s version of it.

            “What does it want from us?” Will asked.

            “It wants something mostly from me,” Si said.

            “What are you to it? Why are you so important?”

            “This may sound crazy – then again, we’re smack-dab in the middle of ‘crazy’ – but I’m an alien from another planet within another dimension known as Gallifrey.”

            It was a lot for Will to process, but he ultimately found the idea amusing.

            “So…you’re like E.T., only just…you know…prettier,” he observed.

            Si blushed from the compliment and even more so when Will noted afterward:

            “And if there’s anyone I’d want to be trapped in a parallel dimension with, I’m glad that it’s someone as brave as you are.”

            As flattered as she was to hear this, Si promised him, “I’ll get you back home, Will, by whatever means necessary.”

            Their moment of peace was disrupted by the quaking of the library’s foundation.

            It could only have meant the spider entity had found them.

"Seek" - Part Four

Part Four

            Si awoke with a raspy, wheezing cough.

            She was unable to rightly remember how she lost consciousness in the first place, but that was the least of her worries.

            As she regained focus, she discovered that she was back in the dark dimension.

            A twisted version of the Byers’ living room around her, complete with overgrown ropy, root-like tendrils and biological membranes covering every inch of it. Joyce’s wall of alphabetized lights was even there, partially obscured by the tendrils.

            And the worst part of it all was that Si did not have her sonic screwdriver.

            “Shoot,” she cursed her lousy luck.

            The screams of a frightened child lured her outside.

            She was amazed to see it to be Will Byers himself, running away from the dark version of his house.

            “Will,” Si called to him.

            He stopped, looking back at her in confusion. “Who are you?!”

            “I’m here to help,” Si caught up to him.

            “There’s nothing you can do to help me. You’re stuck here, too.”

            He was right. Si arrived there by total accident twice already; only this time it was not by her T.A.R.D.I.S. Without it, she was as trapped as Will was.

            But she could not let him know how scared and helpless she felt.

            He needed to have hope.

            “I’ve had many experiences with parallel dimensions – even the twisted, upside-down ones like this,” she told him. “I’m the Time Lord you messaged your mother about. Now I don’t know how you know that I am one, but I…”

            “I never sent my mother any messages about a…whatever it is you said.”

            Si winced with suspicion. “You didn’t? Then who did?”

            She saw Will’s face snap with horror, seeing something behind her.

            She turned and noticed the source of Will’s fright: a gargantuan, spider-like being far in the distance.

            It appeared to have spotted them, giving chase immediately.

            “RUN!” Si didn’t have to bother with that command, as Will’s feet were already moving before hers, fleeing from the horrifying creature.

            Steve Harrington’s Halloween bash kicked into high gear, thanks to the super popularity of one guest: the kid in the sick devil bounty hunter costume that he called “Hellboy.” The other kids cheered him on, chanting his name, as he successfully drank ten straight kegs of beer and was not the least bit wasted afterward.

            Nancy Wheeler, a guest at the party and Steve’s girlfriend, developed much curiosity about him. “Your costume’s very…lifelike,” she observed. “You must be incredibly rich to make something so extravagant.”

            “My mom’s just got some serious sowing skills, you know what I mean?” Hellboy fibbed, puffing on a cigarette.

            “Hey, what’s up with Barb?” Steve diverted the topic. “I saw her heading out back by the pool, all by herself.”

            Nancy sighed and griped, “She’s been a total buzzkill since we got here. She didn’t even bother wearing a costume. I’m gonna go out there and talk to her. Maybe try and get her to lighten up a little.”

            “I’ll take care of it, kid,” Hellboy offered. “You just keep havin’ fun.”

            Nancy was grateful for him stepping in like that; it gave her more time to spend with Steve, the only actual reason she came to this raucous party.

            Hellboy found Barb desolately sitting alone on the diving board, dangling her bare feet over the water. “You O.K., kid?” he asked her. “Quite the bash happenin’ in there. You ain’t interested in bein’ part of it?”

            Barb took one look at him and fell into instant disgust. “If you don’t mind me saying, your costume is hideous.”

            Hellboy chuckled. “Well, we all can’t be runway models.”

            “I just don’t belong with this type of crowd,” Barb stated. “A bunch of rowdy, alcoholic, sex-crazed jerks.”

            “Jeez, kid,” Hellboy uttered, impressed at her bluntness. “Am I in that category?”

            “That depends,” Barb said. “Is there anything better you could be doing with your life right now, instead of getting drunk?”

            This question she posed to him made Hellboy feel deep shame.

            There was something better he could be doing: watching over Eleven in Si’s T.A.R.D.I.S.

            He left her there alone, thinking only of himself.

            In his self-loathing, he failed to see something tall and ominous emerge from the shadows and loom over Barb. It was the creature he fought back in the dark dimension – the one with the flower-like head of teeth, which it used to consume Barb’s entire head, decapitating her.

            Her lifeless body fell into the pool, turning the water crimson as it bled out.

            “You ugly…!” Hellboy vengefully insulted the creature, firing bullets from the Good Samaritan into its body to no avail.

            Again, he clashed with the monster.

            Their tussle crashed into Steve’s house and the Halloween bash altogether.

            At first, the guests took the battle between the flower-headed creature and half-demon to have been a cool Halloween spectacle that Steve arranged for the party. They should have known from Steve’s unsettled demeanor that was not the case.

            Unfortunately, the partygoers found out the hard way.

            One guest – a boy dressed like Indiana Jones – was impaled at the chest by Hellboy’s monstrous opponent.

            Convinced this to have not been part of the entertainment, the panicked guests barreled out of the house. This included Steve and Nancy, both of whom Hellboy decided to flee with in Steve’s car. He continued firing on the pursuing creature, slowing it down to provide them with a flawless escape.

            Steve’s nerves were shot as he sat behind the wheel. “What was that thing?!” he frantically asked.

            “Something we thought we dealt with in another dimension,” Hellboy dejectedly answered. “Only now it’s reared its ugly head somewhere it doesn’t belong.” He then instructed to Steve, “Drive out into the woods. There’s someplace safe we can go to figure out how to deal with this thing.”

            “I don’t think we should be doing this, Mike.”

            “We got to, Lucas. It’s been a week and Will still hasn’t been found.”

            “Besides, with Halloween canceled, we gotta do more than just sit on our butts.”

            Mike Wheeler and his friends, Dustin Henderson and Lucas Sinclair, biked out late that night, taking it upon themselves to investigate the disappearance of their missing friend, Will Byers.

            They began their search for clues near the location of Will’s house.

            What they ultimately came across was something neither one of them could explain or comprehend.

            A tall, flat black rectangular solid standing out in the middle of the forest.

            “What is this thing?” Lucas inquired of it. “Where did it come from?”

            “I dunno,” Dustin said. “But it looks like a giant VHS tape.”

            “You guys think this thing could be what happened to Will?” Mike pondered.

            “Alien.”

            The boys jolted with surprise at the voice speaking behind them, not expecting anyone else to have been out in those woods.

            A girl. A shaven-headed girl stood there in front of them.