Chapter 12: Communication
Time lost its measurable dimension in the Upside Down.
Will sat on the edge of the roof, his legs dangling, the walkie-talkie held tight against his ear, his knuckles white from the strain.
He could no longer remember how many times he had repeated the call; he held his breath every time he pressed the talk button, his heart in his throat, hoping for even a shred of a human response.
But there was only static.
That constant, eternal "hissing" sound was like the world itself breathing, whispering, and mocking his futility.
The dark red light of the sky didn't change; there were no sunrises or sunsets, no stars moving—only an eternal, suffocating dark red haze shrouding this deathly silent Hawkins.
Finally, Will put down the walkie-talkie.
His arm was sore and stiff from staying in the same position for so long, and his throat was dry and painful from the repeated shouting.
Disappointment, like cold molten lead, poured in from the top of his head, heavily filling his chest and squeezing every breath.
He climbed down from the roof and returned to that "home."
Dust covered his clothes and hair, but he didn't care about that.
The living room was still empty, still silent, still shrouded in that unnatural semi-darkness.
Will slumped onto the sofa, the walkie-talkie tossed aside.
Wait.
How did Mom talk to him?
Suddenly, this question was like a stone thrown into a pool of stagnant water, creating ripples in his exhausted brain. Then, more questions surfaced.
Will suddenly sat bolt upright, his eyes widening.
He remembered the scene in the room last night when he first heard Mom's voice through the walkie-talkie.
The voice was very faint, mixed with a lot of static interference, but he was sure it was Mom; he couldn't have been mistaken.
But the problem was—Mom didn't have a walkie-talkie at all.
This thought was like a bolt of lightning cutting through the fog.
Then how did she communicate with him?
Will's gaze drifted around the room, scanning the dust-covered furniture, and then his eyes stopped.
Fixed on the wall.
An old-fashioned rotary dial phone hung there.
In the house in the real world, an identical phone hung in the same position.
Will stood up and walked to the wall. He tentatively picked up the receiver and held it to his ear.
Silence.
It wasn't the dial tone of a connected call, nor the busy signal of a disconnected line; it was pure, vacuum-like silence, like pressing an ear to a seashell but hearing no echo of the ocean.
Just as Will was about to put it down, suddenly—
"Crackle... crackle..."
Faint static noise.
Exactly the same as the walkie-talkie just now.
His fingers tightened, gripping the receiver.
His heart began to race, pounding against his chest with a heavy "thump-thump."
He waited, his breath held.
And then—
"...Will?"
A woman's voice, faint and distorted, as if coming from underwater or through a thick wall, but Will recognized it immediately.
It was Mom.
"Mom?" he blurted out, his voice trembling with excitement. "Mom, can you hear me?"
There was no direct answer.
But the breathing on the other end of the phone changed—it became rapid, accompanied by suppressed sobs.
"Is that you... Will? Please, say something..."
The real world, the Byers house.
Joyce Byers sat on the sofa, leaning forward, her hands tightly gripping a brand-new phone.
She had bought it this morning with an advance on her salary from Melvald's General Store, but she didn't care; she needed a phone.
Because last night, through that old phone at home, she had heard Will's voice for the first time.
Although there was only the sound of breathing and faint, distorted words, she was sure it was Will.
A mother could not mistake her child's voice, even across unknown dimensions, even when fragmented by static.
Although Joyce didn't know why this was happening, she trusted her gut and she trusted Will.
Now, she guarded this new phone like it was sacred.
The sky outside had darkened; another night was about to fall.
On the third night of Will's disappearance, her entire focus was on this phone.
Time ticked away, minute by minute.
The old wall clock in the living room made a steady "tick-tock" sound, each one striking her nerves.
She stayed by the phone until midnight, nearly falling asleep on the sofa.
And then—
"Ring, ring, ring—"
The piercing ring of the phone shattered the silence.
Joyce bolted upright, her heart instantly leaping into her throat.
She stared at the phone—the new one she had just bought—and with trembling hands, picked up the receiver.
"Hello?"
There was silence on the other end. But it was a different kind of silence—not the emptiness of an unanswered call, but the silence of someone breathing and waiting on the other side.
She could hear the faint static and feel that blurred presence across the void.
"Hello... who is this?"
Her voice was tight with tension.
Then, she heard it.
Breathing—rapid, suppressed breathing, like someone hiding in a small space, trying hard to control their fear.
Joyce recognized it instantly, just like last night.
"Will? It's me. Talk to me, please!"
Her voice trembled with emotion, and tears welled up uncontrollably, but she forced herself to stay composed so her crying wouldn't break the connection.
"I'm here! Tell me where you are, honey. I can hear your voice!"
The other end was silent for a few seconds. Then—
"Mom?"
That voice. Faint and distorted, as if coming from deep underwater, but it was definitely Will's voice. It was definitely her son.
"Oh!" Joyce let out a cry of mixed joy and pain, her fingers gripping the receiver so hard her nails nearly dug into the plastic casing.
"It's me! Will, tell me where you are! Where are you? Tell me where you are... Ah!"
Her words cut off abruptly.
Because the phone short-circuited again. A piercing crackle of electricity came from the receiver, and a small blue arc of electricity jumped from the connection between the receiver and the base, burning her finger.
Joyce instinctively let go, and the phone hit the floor with a "thud." The receiver rolled aside, still emitting a "sizzling" electrical sound.
"No! No!"
Joyce fell to her knees and reached out to pick up the phone, but no matter how she pressed the buttons, there was no response.
She looked at the phone—the phone that had just connected her to Will—now lying on the floor like a dead piece of electronics. A final, dying static noise came from the receiver before it went completely silent.
Hope, having just risen, sank again.
Like a stone thrown into a deep well, it made a brief "plop" and was then swallowed by the darkness, even the ripples vanishing quickly.
Joyce knelt there, staring at the phone and then at her finger—a small patch of the fingertip had been burned red and was starting to blister.
The pain was sharp, but compared to the agony in her heart, it was nothing.
Finally, her frustration erupted.
"Agh—!"
She grabbed the phone and threw it against the wall with all her might.
The plastic casing slammed into the wallpaper with a dull thud and shattered, parts scattering everywhere.
"Why! Why!" she screamed, her voice breaking with sobs. "Give me back my son! Give him back to me!"
Joyce collapsed to the floor, her fists pounding hard against the floorboards.
"Will... Will..." she whimpered, her forehead pressed against the floor, tears dripping down and forming dark spots in the dust.
Then, she felt something.
It wasn't a sound or a touch, but a change in the light.
She looked up, her vision blurred by tears, toward the ceiling.
The ceiling light in the living room was flickering.
It wasn't the unstable flickering of a bad circuit, but a rhythmic, slow pulsing of light and dark.
Joyce stopped crying and held her breath, watching the light.
The flickering started in the living room and then spread to the hallway.
The wall lamps in the hallway also began to pulse in sync with the living room lights, like some kind of signal.
Joyce slowly stood up and wiped the tears from her face.
She looked down the hallway, watching the pulsing lights like a glowing path leading deep into the house.
Toward Will's room.
She followed the lights, walking through the hallway step by step.
Her shoes creaked against the floorboards, making a faint sound that seemed exceptionally loud in the silence.
The lights brightened ahead of her and dimmed behind her, as if carving out a path for her, or perhaps driving her forward.
Finally, she stopped at the door to Will's room.
The door was closed.
But from beneath the door, she saw light.
The lights were flickering inside as well, and she heard music.
Faint, distorted rock music was coming from behind the door.
A strong drum beat, distorted guitar, and a man's raspy voice singing: "Should I stay or should I go now... If I go there will be trouble... And if I stay it will be double..."
It was "Should I Stay or Should I Go" by The Clash, the song Will loved best.
He used to play it in his room on that old boombox, the volume turned up all the way until Joyce would knock on the door and yell, "Will! Turn it down!"
But now, Will wasn't home.
Will had been missing for three days; Will was in a place she couldn't understand, talking to her through a phone.
And in his room, there was light and music.
Joyce placed her hand on the doorknob; the metal was bone-chillingly cold.
She should run away; any rational person would turn and flee, leave this house, call the police, find Hopper, find anyone.
But she was Joyce Byers; she was Will's mother.
She turned the doorknob and pushed open the door. The sight inside the room made Joyce catch her breath.
Everything looked normal—too normal.
The bed was made neatly, the books on the desk were arranged by size, and the posters on the wall were smooth without a single wrinkle.
Moreover, the room was brightly lit.
The desk lamp was on, emitting a warm yellow glow. And the boombox was playing that rock song, the volume neither too loud nor too soft, just right to fill the room.
But Will was not there.
Joyce walked into the room, her attention completely captured by the desk lamp in the center of the room.
It was Will's lamp. Joyce walked toward it as if hypnotized.
She reached out her fingers and touched the lampshade; the plastic surface was warm, as if it had been lit for a long time.
"Will?" she called out softly, her voice barely audible over the music. "Will, is that you? Are you here?"
The desk lamp suddenly grew brighter.
It wasn't a gradual brightening, but an instantaneous surge in intensity.
The yellow light became blinding, turning into a brilliant white that lit up the entire room like a photo studio.
At the same time, the volume of the boombox began to increase. The drum beats became heavier, the guitar sharper, and the singer's voice wilder: "So you got to let me know... Should I stay or should I go..."
"Will!" Joyce raised her voice, fear beginning to crawl up her spine. "Where are you? Answer me!"
The lamp continued to brighten.
It was now incredibly bright, to the point where Joyce could even see the dust motes dancing in the light.
Then, in the next instant—
Everything stopped.
The lamp went out, and the boombox stopped.
Absolute darkness and silence.
Joyce stood where she was; slowly, she began to see changes in the outlines of the room.
The wallpaper seemed to be pushed from behind, slowly bulging out. At first, it was just a small bump, then it grew larger and more distinct, like a giant blister growing on the wall.
Joyce's eyes widened, and she took a step back.
The wallpaper continued to swell, stretching and twisting until it was unrecognizable. And it was moving.
"Agh—!"
She let out a scream and bolted out the door.
Her hands were shaking violently as she pulled open the car door, sat inside, and slammed it shut—the sequence of actions was performed almost entirely on instinct.
She turned the key.
The engine gave a weak cough but didn't start.
Joyce slumped over the steering wheel, despair flooding over her like a cold tide. She looked up at the house.
Then, she saw the window of Will's room.
The lights were flickering in a rhythmic pattern. And from outside the window, she could faintly hear "Should I Stay or Should I Go" playing again.
Joyce stared at the window, at the flickering light, and at the interior of the room dimly visible behind the curtains.
She remembered Will's voice on the phone, faint but real: "Mom, I'm here."
She remembered when he was little, how he would climb into her bed after a nightmare, crawl into her arms, and whisper, "Mom, there's a monster in the closet."
She remembered the last night before he disappeared, when they were watching TV in the living room; he had leaned against her shoulder, almost asleep, mumbling, "Mom, can I go play at Mike's tomorrow? We promised to finish that campaign."
In that moment, maternal love triumphed over fear.
It didn't eliminate the fear; the fear was still there, coldly coiling around her heart, making her fingers continue to tremble.
But it was pushed to the background, suppressed by a more powerful, more primitive force: the instinct to protect her child.
Joyce took a deep breath and let out a long, shaky exhale.
She turned the car key back, pulled it out, and put it in her pocket.
Then, she opened the car door.
The night air was bone-chillingly cold, carrying the scent of grass and the distant forest.
She stood by the car, looking at the house, looking at that flickering window.
One step.
Two steps.
She began to walk back toward the house. Her steps were slow and cautious, but firm.
Every step on the grass made a faint "rustling" sound.
The moonlight shone on her, casting a long, wavering shadow.
Inside the house, the song was still playing, and the lights were still flickering.
Joyce's eyes were fixed on Will's window, as if she could see inside, see her son, waiting for rescue in some dimension she couldn't comprehend.
Waiting for Mom.
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