"The mind flayer." Dustin started, dropping the D&D book on the table and making the older teens share a look. Nancy and Hopper had joined them now, the girl giving Christine a confused look.
"The hell is that?"
"Its a monster from an unknown dimension. It's so ancient that it doesn't even know its true home. Okay, it enslaves races of other dimensions by taking over their brains by using highly-developed psionic powers." Dustin explained, Hopper quick to shut him down.
"Oh my God, none of this is real. This is a kids' game." Hopper complained, everyone looking at the pages of the manual.
"No, its a manual. And its not for kids. Ad unless you know something that we don't this is the best metaphor--"
"Analogy." Lucas corrected, Dustin giving him an incredulous look.
"Analogy? That's what you're worried about? Fine. An analogy for understanding whatever the hell this is." Dustin said, shaking his head at the stubbornness of the group he was with
"Okay so this mind flamer thing--"Nancy started, only to be cut off.
"Flayer. It's flayer." Christine corrected Nancy, the girl glaring up at her before continuing.
"What does it want?" She finished her question.
"To conquer us, basically. It believes it's the master race." Dustin answered.
"Like the Germans." Steve added, Christine looking at him in confusion.
"Uh, the Nazis?" Dustin asked, trying not to say anything to discourage Steve who was really trying to understand.
"Yeah, yeah, yeah, the Nazis." Steve said, Christine clapping a hand on his shoulder as she shook her head at his comment.
"Uh...if the Nazis were from another dimension, totally. Uh, it views other races, like us, as inferior to itself." Christine was getting lost, the others not far behind her as they lines between reality and the fictional game started to blur.
"It wants to spread and take over other dimensions." Mike added in.
"We are talking about the destruction of our world as we know it." Lucas said, making Steve take a deep breath in.
"That's great. That's great. That's really great. Jesus!" Steve said, shaking his head and turning away.
"Okay, so if this thing is like a brain that's controlling everything, then if we kill it..." Nancy said, grabbing the book and looking at it.
"We kill everything it controls." Mike confirmed, that being one of the only things that had made sense in the last few minutes.
"We win." Dustin said, giving them an out. All they had to do was kill this mind flayer.
"Theoretically." Lucas added.
"Alright great. So how do you kill this thing? Shoot it with fireballs or something?" Hopper asked, grabbing the book from Nancy and looking at it. Dustin laughed as he answered, Christine throwing her head back in exasperation and exhaustion as she felt the need to sleep hit her.
