Robin, working at the bakery, leaned on the counter while on duty, watching the TV hanging in the corner.
"So boring... I wish something fun would happen." Robin smacked her lips. It was almost nine o'clock, and there were basically no customers left; she would be off work right at nine.
Heaven always looks after bored people seeking excitement, and it tends to give you a double dose.
The bakery doors were burst open by two figures. Robin jumped up from her chair in an instant, taking a defensive stance, looking a bit dazed at the two uninvited guests who had barged into the shop.
"Robin! Take us to Eleven!" Steve and Nancy said in unison. The couple looked remarkably alike at this moment, their expressions identical and their faces covered in sweat.
"Uh, what happened?" Robin calmed down, her nimble tongue flicking to spit out the straw she had been playing with in her mouth.
Beep beep!
Before Nancy could catch her breath to answer, a car horn honked outside. The three of them craned their necks to look, only to see an old sedan parked behind Steve's sports car outside the bakery. The rolled-down windows revealed the faces of Joyce and Jonathan.
Fine, might as well talk all together!
The five gathered in Jonathan's car. Nancy recapped everything for everyone and then solemnly explained that they were going to find Eleven. If Mike hadn't gone to find Eleven, they would use Eleven's superpowers to find Mike and the others.
The situation was urgent. Right after Nancy finished, she told everyone to leave immediately, but Joyce stopped them and shared her thoughts. "Do you think it's possible that Hopper and the others have all headed to The Lab? After all, if something happened in The Upside Down, the gate is at The Lab. Going straight there would be the most efficient way to solve the problem."
Everyone was stunned for a moment because, upon reflection, it was indeed possible. However, Nancy hesitated, "While we can't rule that out, what if some of them didn't go to The Lab?"
"Then why don't we just split into two groups?" Joyce, being an adult, looked at the problem from a broader perspective. "Jonathan and I will go to The Lab, and you guys go to the cabin to find Eleven."
They looked at each other and felt it made sense. Everyone agreed readily and drove off to their respective destinations... Twenty minutes later, Richard rode his bike near The Lab. Although he was still two or three hundred meters away, he felt an unusual sense of strangeness from those buildings. As far as the eye could see, the buildings, lit only by a few flickering incandescent lights in the dark night, looked like structures drifting between illusion and reality. The air was thin with the scent of decay and dust. Just looking from afar made his heart pound and his hair stand on end.
This gnawing fear was like a gale blowing past a Slit-mouthed Woman's mask, or a distorted shadow under a flash of lightning; it was filled with unknown terror, yet it triggered a fatal curiosity deep within.
"Something might have happened in The Lab." Richard suppressed the urge to retreat and silently pulled a somewhat curved meat cleaver from his backpack. He had bought it from a pig farmer at a slaughterhouse outside of town. Only by holding this heavy, sharp, and powerful tool could he find some sense of security.
Parking his bicycle under a large tree by the roadside, Richard walked toward The Lab step by step.
The time was 8:15 PM. The town residents who had been protesting outside The Lab during the day had already left, but incredibly, even the guards at the gate had vanished.
Richard cracked his knuckles on the handle of the knife and walked boldly into The Lab, blade in hand.
Approaching the main entrance, Richard paused for a moment. The bloody scene before him was enough to satisfy a hardcore gore-horror fan for several meals. Corpses with eyes wide open lay inside the tempered glass doors of The Lab building. Their deaths were horrific and gruesome; the lower bodies of several people were draped over the reception desk, and the carefully tended potted plants were being watered with the blood from a severed limb.
In silence, Richard turned the doorknob and walked in, careful not to step on the flesh and blood on the floor.
Along the way, there were corpses of security personnel, people in white coats, men, women, old, young... they were everywhere. After walking for a while, Richard had miraculously become numb. He no longer felt nauseous, though he still didn't want to touch anything, not even letting a bit get on his shoes or clothes.
Humans primarily use their eyes to distinguish directions and observe things, but Richard, who possessed superhuman hearing and smell, also used his ears and nose to judge where he needed to go.
The sounds of canine creatures running on the tiled floors echoed through the deathly silent building, along with indescribable "cooing and gurgling" cries. All of this proved that a large wave of Demogorgons had just attacked The Lab.
There weren't many armed personnel among the fallen corpses in The Lab, so the firearms and ammunition Richard could scavenge along the way were limited.
This was also within Richard's expectations. After all, The Lab's large force of armed personnel should have gone to capture the high-risk Eleven. The gate to The Upside Down seemed to have been relatively stable lately without any trouble, so it wasn't hard to understand why The Lab staff, led by Dr. Brennan, had let their guard down.
Reaching the emergency exit on the first floor, the door was wedged open by a dead man's head. A heavier and more distinct sound of monster breathing came from the enclosed stairwell. Richard held his breath, gently pushed the door open, stepped over the corpse, and entered the emergency exit. He then carefully wedged the door back onto the dead man's head and quietly descended to the first basement level.
There was no need to check the floors above ground. Any place that had been open for the Hawkins Police Department to search wouldn't contain any non-classified areas. Chief Hopper had also mentioned that he hadn't seen any server rooms or similar places on the ground floors; they were all labs, equipment rooms, and non-classified experimental data archives.
Arriving at the B1 level, Richard looked at the lights flickering violently above his head. His breathing became even more cautious because he knew he was getting closer and closer to danger.
Finally, while passing a corridor, Richard caught sight of a Canine Demogorgon feasting on a plump researcher. The foot he had stepped out with was quickly pulled back behind the wall.
He hid his body, not daring to peek out randomly. Behind the cover, he looked left and right, planning his escape route, but soon noticed that the server room he had come to The Lab to find was only a few steps away—provided he could cross the corridor unnoticed to the other side.
Richard thought calmly, analyzing his situation.
The Lab was almost completely wiped out, with no survivors found yet. Around thirty people had lost their lives to the monsters. Obviously, the number of monsters that had raided The Lab and were now wandering inside wouldn't be much less than thirty.
The monsters of The Upside Down possessed a hive mind, meaning that once one monster saw him, the other monsters in The Lab would also take notice, and he would end up with the same fate as The Lab staff here.
Monsters weren't that easy to kill. The fire-based items he carried had to be saved for use in The Upside Down. If he used them now, it would be hard to ensure his safety in The Upside Down later.
Looking at the shiny meat cleaver in his hand, Richard secretly cheered himself up. He bolstered his courage and crept past the monster, which had its back to him while enjoying its feast, quietly reaching the other side of the corridor.
He let out a sigh of relief with a smile, then felt for the doorknob of the server room and turned it.
Click! Click!
Richard: "...Dammit, they actually have advanced door locks at a time like this!?"
Coo-coo-gurgle-gurgle... After several failed attempts to turn the doorknob, the noise Richard made finally attracted the curious little creature.
A Canine Demogorgon faced him with its bud-like head, which suddenly split into several petals, and it began to bark wildly, saliva spraying out with the sound.
Richard turned his head stiffly, feeling his teeth ache. He muttered, "The little thing looks quite unique," then turned and bolted.
SCREECH!!!!