Chapter 53 – Rescue
While establishing contact with Hopper, Bob also arrived from the institute.
Emma, unable to stand the filth clinging to her, had chosen to head back alone to Joyce's house.
Once Gideon finished gathering his gear, Bob led him up to the fourth floor.
This was the surveillance room, where several large screens were stacked across a desk.
On them, the images shifted and flickered.
"We borrowed portable cameras from the doctor. This feed is Hopper's," Bob explained, pointing at one of the monitors.
Gideon nodded, dragged over a chair, and sat down.
As the commander of this operation, he wasn't about to charge blindly into the Upside Down World. Absolutely not out of fear—of course not.
But if the portal were to close completely, all he could do was pray for divine intervention. And with a demon lord lurking inside, constant vigilance was mandatory.
If Hopper's team became trapped, Gideon could still provide critical support from the outside. That was why he had chosen to remain here—to oversee the whole operation.
---
Meanwhile, in the first basement level.
Hopper, Joyce, Brenner, and three officers all wore protective suits.
The moment they descended, Hopper finally understood Brenner's fear.
The corridor was deathly silent. Ash drifted through the air. Fluid-like black shadows crept across every surface.
It was like stepping into another world.
The beams from their flashlights were swallowed by the shadows, visibility cut to no more than a meter.
And at any moment, a creature might appear.
The psychological weight on everyone was crushing.
"...Hhh."
Hopper forced himself to steady his breathing.
He noticed one officer faltering under the pressure and quickly moved to calm him.
"Sheriff, can you hear me?"
The comms light blinked green on Hopper's visor, and Gideon's voice came through the channel.
Relief swept through the group like a tide. Having a steady voice guiding them instantly lifted their spirits.
"Hey, Gideon, you got us? Where do we go next?" Hopper asked immediately.
"Hug the right-hand wall, walk ten meters, then turn right."
Gideon wasted no words, giving precise instructions.
Hopper nodded and made sure Joyce and the others heard. Then he took point.
Joyce and Eleven followed closely.
Brenner was kept in the middle, with two officers guarding his rear.
When Brenner first heard the voice over comms, his eyes had gone wide. He had checked and rechecked, certain it wasn't some hallucination.
Then his gaze fell on the small cross hanging from his chest, glowing faintly white.
The sheriff had insisted they carry these before descending.
And somehow, this simple item had broken through the comms interference.
For Brenner, the foundations of his faith in "science" began to crack.
And it wasn't just that—
He frowned deeply as Gideon's instructions played in his head.
Could he really see through the shadows' interference? Impossible…
But it was true.
In the surveillance room, Gideon analyzed every shape and movement on-screen.
Thanks to Ethereal Sight, he could clearly see what lay ahead.
Ten meters before Hopper's team, a human corpse sprawled across the floor, its organs spilled wide. If they hadn't changed course, they would have stepped directly on it.
When the squad passed it without incident, Brenner had no choice but to accept the impossible.
His curiosity toward this man they called "Gideon" grew overwhelming—he wanted nothing more than to run upstairs and confront him.
---
From then on, Gideon's voice cut in occasionally with crisp, concise orders.
Each time, the results were undeniable.
The squad moved with efficiency, reaching the third basement level without a single casualty.
For Brenner, this bordered on the miraculous. The last time he had ordered the underground cleared, he had lost nearly all his security force.
Does the Lord truly exist? he thought.
---
The team soon passed through the gateway, entering the Upside Down.
It mirrored Hawkins in eerie detail: a darkened sky, drifting ash, crimson glow seeping through heavy clouds.
The entire landscape was shrouded in a veil of mystery.
Through Eleven, Gideon quickly pinpointed Will's location—Hawkins Middle School.
When Joyce heard her son was alive, tears welled in her eyes.
They rushed toward the school.
Inside, following Eleven's lead, they found Will in an office.
The room was overgrown with vine-like tendrils. Bones littered the floor.
Will was pinned to the wall by the vines, a grotesque tendril lodged deep into his mouth.
Hopper grabbed the end of the tendril, his hand recoiling at the slick, rubbery texture. Gritting his teeth, he yanked it free and flung it to the ground.
It was at least thirty centimeters long—hard to imagine the suffering Will had endured.
Joyce's eyes overflowed with anguish as she rushed to free her son from the wall.
Nearby, officers discovered another missing person—Barbara. Barely alive, but breathing.
With their objectives secured, the group finally allowed themselves a breath of relief.
That was when Gideon's voice returned over comms.
"You're not safe yet. Don't let your guard down. And don't, don't start thinking about hot baths when you get back."
The officers exchanged puzzled glances. Another one of the sheriff's baffling safety rules.
"Let's move," Hopper urged, clapping a colleague on the shoulder.
"Second thing," Gideon continued, "pour gasoline along your way out."
The Upside Down was too vast to purify with holy water alone. Fire, however, was its creatures' weakness. Gideon had planned to scorch their path from the start.
The officers cracked open fuel canisters and doused the vines generously.
"I always fantasized about burning my school down," one muttered, a little too gleefully.
Soon they retraced their steps back to the underground lab.
Hopper struck a match, tossed it onto the trail of gasoline.
Flames roared to life, racing through the gateway into the Upside Down.
"Time those bastards tasted pain," Hopper growled.
---
Inside the Upside Down World, heat spread like wildfire.
The vines shrieked in twisted agony as fire consumed them.
And then—lightning split the sky.
A colossal black shape, hundreds of meters tall, emerged against the night horizon.
Its body was formed entirely of shifting shadows, crowned with an elongated, skull-like head.
When it sensed the source of the flames, it let out a command.
Moments later, dark figures emerged from the gloom—thin-limbed creatures with petal-shaped maws. The Demogorgons, the very monsters that had dragged Will away.
They charged toward the rift between the two worlds.
But Hopper had already followed Gideon's instructions, laying out sacred relics at the threshold. With Eleven's powers reinforcing the barrier, the creatures could not take even a single step into reality.
Meanwhile, Brenner shut down the particle accelerator.
The crack in space began to shrink, the opening drawing tighter and tighter. Just before it sealed shut completely, a piercing, gut-wrenching roar echoed from the other side.
Cut off from the Upside Down's influence, the creatures left in the real world quickly lost their strength, their shadowy forms dissolving into nothingness.
Only then did everyone finally exhale in relief.
---
A few days later.
At the edge of Hawkins, Hopper, Dustin, Joyce, and the others gathered to see Gideon and Emma off.
Hopper pressed a thick envelope into Gideon's hands—a token of gratitude from the townsfolk.
Joyce embraced him warmly, her eyes brimming with tears. On the night they had closed the gate, Gideon had performed a full exorcism on Will. After vomiting up several writhing parasites, the boy had been on a steady path to recovery.
Nancy also hugged him tightly—this priest had saved her dearest friend.
After her, the four boys crowded around. Gideon repeated his "Anti-Bullying Code" once more, making them promise never to forget it.
Only after bidding each of them farewell did he finally climb into the car with Emma.
As for Dr. Brenner, once the gate was shut, Hopper had him taken into custody. By now, he was probably sipping tea in some "nonexistent department." Dangerous men like him couldn't be left to wander freely.
The car rumbled down the road, carrying Gideon away from Hawkins.
---
That same night.
A hooded figure in a black cloak appeared at the Hawkins Laboratory.
The shadows of the hood concealed most of his face, but the stubble on his jaw betrayed him as a man.
He stopped at the site where Gideon had once purified the spider-creature.
"The traces have been wiped clean… such pure, radiant power," he muttered to himself.
Suddenly, something in his pocket vibrated. He pulled out a black phone and answered.
"Samail," came a voice on the other end, "did you secure the vessel for the Mind Flayer?"
Samail's tone was low, grim. "Cleansed. Completely. Judging from the residue, at least a twenty-year relic was used."
"What? Which old priest crawled out of the church this time?" The voice on the line was sharp with surprise, then hardened:
"That vessel was meant for the ritual. We need it. Abaddon's run into trouble—the Church is on to him. We may need more children."
Samail gave a cold snort. "He's as useless as ever."
"Regardless," the voice pressed on, "find another way. Even if you must enter the Upside Down itself, you have my authority to invoke Liberation. And… look into this exorcist. I want to know who he really is."
Samail's brow furrowed. "Understood."
He ended the call and sprinted toward the lab.
Though the building was nearly fifty meters away, he crossed the distance in the blink of an eye.
The next instant, his figure melted into the darkness.
---