"Merry Christmas, Jonathan, what are you doing?"

"Merry Christmas, Barbara." Jonathan listened to the greeting on the phone, the corners of his mouth curled slightly, and the depression in his chest was slightly relieved, "Of course Christmas is at home. ”

"Mrs. Joyce and Will too?"

Jonathan looked back at the empty and deserted living room, and the lights of the Christmas tree shone a little depressed on his face, "No, they went to the city to find Lonnie to reunite." ”

"Why didn't I bring you?"

Jonathan was silent, recalling his time with Barbara, who was undoubtedly a good friend to make, and he couldn't help but confide, "It's me who doesn't want to go." I didn't like the man, he used to beat me up before my divorce from Joyce, and I didn't want to see this bastard unless I had to. ”

"I'm sorry to bring up your sadness." Barbara hesitated on the phone, "But it's too lonely to be alone for Christmas, if you don't hate to come to my house for dinner, my mother is roasting turkey and pudding." ”

Jonathan's heart moved when he heard this, but he shook his head, "I've eaten it." ”

"How can you count a full Christmas without a turkey?"

"But this is the day of family reunion, will I be an outsider and affect you?"

"It's okay, we've dealt with that horrible group of future killers together, and we're already the hardcore allies. I told my parents about how you helped me, and they appreciated you. Barbara urged, "Come on, or you can bring your camera and take a family photo for us." ”

"Alright then, wait a minute." Jonathan looked out the window at the pitch black, "The car was driven away by Joyce, and I had to go by bike, so it would take some time." ”

"How can you ride a bike when it's snowing outside, or I'll pick you up by car?"

"No, I'll just wear a hat."

"Then stay safe."

"Hmm."

Jonathan rushed to the bedroom mirror, combed his messy bangs, put on a knitted hat and scarf, and smiled stiffly and shyly.

The camera and red wine were all taken, and the cart left the yard and turned a third of a kilometer along the path between snow-colored bushes and pedaled onto a road.

The headlights illuminated the unusually empty road and the dark forest on both sides, and it was Christmas night tonight, but Jonathan's house was in the middle of nowhere, and there was not a single passing car in sight, and even the moon had taken a leave of absence, and there was no other light except the headlights.

The darkness seemed to weave an abyssal mouth in the far distance, devouring the black snowflakes falling in the night sky and the hurried passerby.

The cold breath was like a steel needle hitting his cheeks, Jonathan shivered with cold, and the breath exhaled from his mouth and nose turned into a long white strip, but when he thought of his friend's invitation, his heart warmed, and his feet became more and more energetic.

Jonathan's chubby face appeared in front of his eyes, and quickly coincided with another delicate face.

If only Barbara and Nancy had swapped roles, Nancy would have been so attentive to herself.

Of course, this can only be an unattainable dream.

The last time Steve's house had a party, Jonathan had already noticed that Nancy and the rich second generation were holding hands, and the two of them were getting closer and closer.

Jonathan's face was gloomy with joy, he hung his head in distraction, the headlights went out abruptly, and his pupils shrank into a slit when he looked up.

In the middle of the empty road ahead, there was a tall and thin figure, too dim to see clearly, but his limbs were slender and disproportionately long, and with an oval head, he exuded a sense of grotesqueness and horror of a scarecrow in the woods.

"Who?!"

Jonathan turned the handlebar and slammed the direction, and the figure flicked a slender arm and hit the bicycle, like a swift whip that threw the bicycle out of control, carrying Jonathan into the woods by the side of the road.

Poof!

Jonathan fell hard in the snow, but his body modified by the badge was not so easily injured, he hurriedly got up, and his eyes swept away, and the entire basket was twisted into a ball by the huge force.

Not far away there was a rapid, heavy crushing sound of snow crushing, and he followed the sound to see a figure rushing down the road, on all fours like a beast, with the whirring sound of breaking through the air.

Christmas night.

In the dark forest.

Jonathan lifted his bicycle to his chest, like a warrior with a shield held high, trembling, terrified, and excited to meet the attacker.

……

"Jonathan, guess why Lonnie invited us for Christmas? He won the lottery for two thousand dollars, so his conscience found it once. Joyce pushed open the door of the house, threw a bunch of large bags of things on the ground, and raised the corners of her mouth, "Come and get the Christmas present!" ”

Dressed like a little snowman, Will rushed out from behind his mother and into his brother's bedroom, "Lonnie bought your favorite David Bowie tape, let's listen to it!" Hey, no one! ”

"Where are you going early in the morning?" Joyce walked into the living room and took a look, there were half-eaten stews and Italian sausage pizzas piled up on the table, she couldn't help but sigh with her hands on her hips, "The plates are not washed, and the food is wasted, this is an early rebellious period?" ”

Joyce wearily turned on the TV, put on an apron and plastic gloves, and entered the kitchen with a pile of cutlery, ready to wash up and clean up.

And there was a morning news on the TV -

"We received reports of power surges in several places across the county last night, hundreds of homes north of Hawkins were affected, and were plunged into darkness overnight, and the cause of the power outage is still unclear, and we contacted the Ron County Department of Water and Power, and the spokesperson said that it will only take a few more hours for the power to return to normal."

Jingle bells... Jingle bells...

The phone rang in the living room, and Joyce put down the rag and walked over to pick it up,

"Mrs. Joyce?"

"It's me."

"I'm Barbara, Jonathan's classmate." A struggling female voice came from the phone, she seemed to hesitate for a long time before making the call, "That's right, I invited Jonathan to my house for Christmas last night, and he agreed, but he didn't come. ”

Joyce smiled, there was actually a girl who invited her son to celebrate the holiday together, when did this withdrawn kid become so popular?

The inhalation was evident on the phone, "Can you get Jonathan to answer the phone." ”

"The kid wasn't home."

"Huh? When did he get out? ”

"I don't know, but Jonathan doesn't usually break his promises, and if he says to something, he will do his best."

"Mom, I've checked..."At this time, Will took the tape tape to the telephone, raised his white and delicate little face like a girl, and showed a hint of nervousness, "Jonathan took the camera, rode the bicycle, and got a bottle of red wine, he could only go to visit a friend." ”

"Wait!" Barbara's tone instantly became nervous when she heard the words, "You mean he went out last night?" ”

Joyce recalled the food on the plate, which didn't look like breakfast at all.

"yes, the morning news said we had a power outage in the north last night, maybe Jonathan went out because of that?" Joyce comforted himself like this, but his temples kept jumping, and he took off his apron and threw it on the couch, "Forget it, I'll drive to where he works and ask his colleagues." ”

"Okay, I'll ask my classmates too," Barbara added,

"Any news contact."

"Okay."

Joyce hung up the phone, her haggard face bloodless.

Will took her hand, "What's wrong, where did Jonathan go?" ”

"It's okay, he should spend the night at a friend's house." Joyce smiled reluctantly, Jonathan's attack had just come to an end, and if he didn't encounter new dangers so soon, God wouldn't always torture him, "Will, can you stay at home obediently, I'll go and go back." ”

"Hmm!"

Will watched his mother close the door, and immediately walked over and dialed the phone.

"Dustin, what are you doing?"

"Sleep at home, I need a long rest to recover the spell bit, and in the afternoon I can use all my strength to deal with Dimogogen!"

"Don't rush to recover the spell bit, I have an emergency," Will clenched the microphone and his fingers whitened, "Jonathan is gone!" ”

"What do you mean? Are you sure it's missing, not going out on a date with your girlfriend? ”

"There was a girl who asked him out, but he didn't show up, and this is not Jonathan, whom I know."

"In my experience, sullen men dare to release pigeons, and the severity of the problem is unimaginable, so we meet outside the school at nine o'clock, and one of us may be able to get busy."

……

On the other side, Barbara hung up Joyce's phone and immediately called Nancy, "Honey, what are you doing?" ”

"After reviewing, I have fallen behind in my chemistry class, and I have to make up for it during the holidays."

"That's enough, you've got a GPA of 3.9999, which is far ahead of the entire grade... Once in a while, it's time to let yourself relax. ”

"Speaking of relaxation, Steve invited me to take a ride in the car this afternoon," Nancy said, "can you come with me?" ”

"You've decided to date him?"

"Not yet, but I think he's nice, cute, humorous... It's just that he wants to be as fast as a rocket, and I'm not the kind of girl who gets to be carried into the sky by a rocket. ”

"It's good that you haven't been carried away by love yet, don't let him get his way," Barbara breathed a sigh of relief and changed her tone, "but you'll have to save it for next time." ”

"What do you mean?"

"Jonathan is missing, my gut tells me he's in danger, we have to contact Dean right away, by the way, you call Steve, Goran, Hara!"

……

Catherine's house.

"Okay, I'll be there shortly." Dean put down the milk and touched the corner of the woman's mouth next to her, "Something happened, I have to go out." ”

"I'm with you?" Catherine's face tightened, the silhouette of her close-fitting sweater undulating very eye-catching, and she had become more and more clingy since she was approved by Lena and Paqui yesterday.

"No, you continue to rest, I'll contact you if you have something."

Dean hurriedly said goodbye to Catherine and drove to the vacant lot next to Hawkins Middle School.

At half-past eight, when he arrived at the place, Barbara was already waiting there with Steve and Nancy.

"Hala and Golan have gone to spend Christmas with their relatives in other places, and they can't come back for the time being." Steve explained rather disappointed, "So it's just the three of us. ”

"Enough people, let's talk about it, what's going on?" Dean turned her gaze to Barbara, the fat girl was worried like a tight wooden stump, the dark circles under her eyes were obvious, she obviously didn't sleep well last night, "Good Christmas, why did Jonathan disappear?" ”

Barbara recounted Jonathan's departure from home and his state at the time of his disappearance, "Dean, I don't have any doubts about you, but was the matter of the badge really resolved satisfactorily last time?" Could it be that another killer attacked Jonathan on his way to my house on his bike? ”

"How can you let him ride a bike on a snowy day?" Steve complained, "You don't have the attitude of inviting people to dinner at all." ”

"My fault," Barbara, her eyes flushed with guilt, "I should have insisted on picking him up." ”

"It's come to this, there's no point in regretting."

Dean sank into the shallows in his chest pocket, and the latter's sixteen eyes showed innocent expressions, and the four-petaled mouth opened and closed to defend himself, "But I can assure you 100% that what happened to Jonathan had nothing to do with the badge, maybe there was some other danger." ”

The three of them looked at each other and breathed a sigh of relief, and Steve shook the head of the plane again, muttering,

"So what's going on now? Hawkins has been quiet for less than half a month, and another accident has happened, and it has befallen us again, are we cursed by witches? ”

"No matter what, we have to get Jonathan back!"

As the three of them discussed, a hint flashed in Dean's eyes - you triggered the event: the missing Jonathan Beyers.

On Christmas night, Jonathan left home and stayed up all night.

Relatives and friends are worried, and now they are trying to find Jonathan and find out the real reason for his disappearance.

Event difficulty: Unknown

Progress: (10/100)

Duration: two days

Reward: At least 80 XP

…

Dean patted the three of them on the shoulder,

"Take action! Steve, drive me around the road from Jonathan's house to Barbara's house, and we'll look along the way. ”

"OK, it's not far from my house."

In the back seat of the red convertible, Dean took out a photo of Jonathan from his arms, looked at every detail of his face, recalled his mother Joyce, his younger brother Will, and the bastard's father Lonnie, relaxed and launched a "search" from God's perspective.

Moment.

Dean's eyes darkened, and his mind fell into the dark realm of his mind.

The darkness is like oil paint flowing around the space, faintly reflecting the changing outline, the oily luster, and a wisp of white smoke scurrying forward in the darkness.

Dean chased after him... Soon, a white scene in the distance brightened up.

Jonathan sat on the ground, his camera missing and his down jacket crawling with holes, nervous and frightened with his hands around his chest, looking around, as if he was hiding something terrible.

But his environment was covered with a thick layer of fog, empty, and cold, so hard to see, as if there was some kind of bitter malice hidden in the depths.

Brush –

Dean detached himself from the dark realm of his mind, his face turned pale, although he saw Jonathan's state, he couldn't feel the specific direction, he just felt that it was close and far.

"It's good to be alive... What hit Jonathan? He had to hide? ”

……

"Did you notice last night?" Steve, who was driving, said, "Many homes north of Hawkins have lost power, even my villa has been without power for a while. ”

The two girls looked at each other and shook their heads,

"I had a feeling on Maple Street," Dean said, "that the light bulbs were flickering on and off, and the current was so unstable that it was disturbed by some kind of magnetic field!" ”

"Guys, here we are, this is it." Steve drove the car down a remote and desolate narrow road in two forests,

Dean got out of the car and glanced around, "This kind of place is the most prone to accidents, I'll go to the right, you three go to the left to look for it, don't go too far, there is any danger yelling." ”

"Don't worry, I brought a gun for self-defense this time!"

Steve pulls a revolver from the car locker and pins it to his waist and takes Nancy and Barbara to the left side of the forest, while Dean burrows into knee-deep snow on the right.

Because of the heavy snow last night, many traces were destroyed and buried, so he summoned Shadow to fly to the top of the pine tree, patrolling everything within a two-kilometer radius of himself at a speed of one hundred and eighty meters per second, and then took out the shallows in his arms and threw them into the air.

"Summoning all the critters in the forest and asking them to help find clues to Jonathan."

"Yes, master..."

The shallows took a deep breath and let out a series of strange calls—

"Quack!"

"Hiss..."

"Squeak..."

Puff puff... Shrubs and branches swayed, snow fell, hibernating forests suddenly came to life, and squirrels, crows, and even hibernating snakes approached from heaven and earth.

Yellow, black, and green, hundreds of small creatures spread a colorful carpet for the white snow and tree trunks.

Shoal took Dean's picture of Jonathan, swept it over each critter, and succinctly described the bike he had ridden last night in the language of various birds and beasts, giving orders like an instructor.

In less than half a minute, hundreds of little ones shaking their heads scattered like a tide.

……

Dean nodded towards the shallows, "If they can find a clue to Jonathan, you'll do a great job, and I'll allow you to go out and soak up emotions tonight." ”

The shallows swooped down on Dean's instep like lightning, "Merciful master, allow me to pay you the highest respect!" ”

……

Although Dean had expected to find the clues, he didn't expect it to be so fast, and just five minutes later, a squirrel squeaked back and led him three miles north, where he found a broken bicycle under a tall pine tree and a thick pile of snowdrifts.

It was subjected to a large number of violent external impacts, the upper and lower tubes were twisted into a ball, the tires were flat and shriveled, the basket was crushed into a lump, and the seat cushion was pulled off... Almost dismantled shelves.

After confirming that it was Jonathan's bicycle, Dean took out dozens of pounds of beef, eggs, and nuts from the space and threw them aside to reward the group of anticipating small animals, and then reached out and rubbed the claw marks on the frame, four fingers, very sharp, different from the bear claws, cat claws, wolf claws, and so on he knew.

He felt like some kind of monster.

"Some kind of clawed monster attacked Jonathan? Jonathan defended himself with a vehicle..."

Event progress jumped to ten percent.

Dean scanned the area of two hundred meters nearby, the snow was so deep that it covered all the signs and footprints of the fight that might exist on the ground, but there were a lot of peels, claw marks, and scraped clothes scraped off by the branches on the pine trunks around him.

Dean followed the trails and soon found a lump of dark red ice that had frozen after the broken wine bottle, and he followed the ice to the middle of a dense wood.

Look around.

In the white expanse, except for shrubs and pine trees, there was not a single thread in the sky, even two hundred meters underground, and the monster and Jonathan seemed to have disappeared from thin air.

Dean suddenly glanced at the watch on his wrist, and the hands were affected by a mysterious magnetic field, and began to rotate uncontrollably clockwise and counterclockwise.

He stared at the dial and circled through the woods until he found the pine tree where the hands were turning craziest, and then stopped and checked again, still without a clue.

He crouched under the tree and pondered, and several doubts flashed through his mind:

1. In the dark area of his mind, Jonathan has no obvious injuries on his body and moves freely, but he does not return to the police station to call the police or come to him for help, obviously trapped somewhere.

2. I can't find Jonathan's exact location in the dark area of my mind, I only feel that he is close and far away, so the location of this place is very special.

3. Jonathan and all the traces of the monsters that attacked him disappeared into the snow in front of him, without a trace, and here there was also a mysterious power that interfered with the hands of the watch.

There are many doubts intertwined.

A bold idea came to Dean's mind - Jonathan disappeared right in front of his eyes, or beneath this empty appearance!

He activated his "technique", and a large area of dense spatial nodes suddenly appeared in the middle of the snow.

Ninety-nine percent remained steady and constant in brightness, but right in front of Dean, at the base of the nearest pine tree, an extremely unstable node shimmered like gold.

Dean crouched down and held the node with both hands and pulled it gently, which was more fragile and easier to open than he expected, so it didn't consume one-sixth of his usual energy, only one-tenth.

The node quickly parted in both directions, revealing a tree hole that was neither large nor too small for humans to crawl through on the ground.

Inside the cave was not the usual black void between worlds, but a tunnel of gooey white woolen webs, dripping with disgusting slime, exuding the smell of rotten flesh and blood, and escaping gray particles outward.

Journey to some unknown world.

The tree hole tunnel appeared, and the watch hands on Dean's wrist completely stopped.

"This place is actually connected to a different world, no wonder I can't find Jonathan's exact location." Dean looked excitedly at the tree hole and then at the badge, "Shoal, is this what you mentioned yesterday from the world?" ”

"It belongs to the main world like the Spiritual Prison, and it is a slave world that opens a node to directly establish a tunnel, and crosses the two worlds without going through the void?"

"Hawkins Town's from the world?"

"Yes, master." Shoal's eyes sparkled, "The kid you're looking for and the monster you're chasing him should be hiding inside." ”

(End of chapter)