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I know I’m late posting theories but its been hard getting time to write them down. So here goes.

WARNING: SPOILERS FOR THE COMIC & THE TEASE FROM THE COMPANION BOOK FOLLOW

1. The Rats. We all know by this point one of the episodes is titled Mall Rats, and its unlikely the title is talking about kids hanging out at the mall. The poster pretty much confirms this as running towards whatever horror has escaped the upside down are many rats. When Hopper found that large chamber in the tunnels there were multiple piles of bones and furred flesh from the wildlife that had either stumbled into or been dragged into the tunnels to feed the vines and Demodogs. So its possible that some rats may have entered the tunnel, made contact with the upside down atmosphere that could carry the Mindflayers essence/virus/whatever and become infected/possessed like Will was. The only thing that debunks this is that everything connected to the mind flayer supposedly died when the gate closed, which would mean any rats infected should have died as well. Another possibility is that some rats may have made it through the tunnel all the way to the gate and entered into the upside down where they have been corrupted and mutated by the Mindflayer ready for when the gate is reopened. Which comes to my next theory (we’ll come back to the rats later):

2. How the creature(s) crossover. One thing that has never been established is how the original Demogorgon from season 1 opened those mini gates (they don’t have a name so im going with it) whenever it snatched prey and took them to the upside down. I say minigates because unlike THE gate these ones were small and closed themselves after an amount of time. The Demogorgon opened at least 3 in the byers home itself. It also used ones we didn’t see it open like the one it used to catch Barb & the one in the woods with the deer. Janes the one who originally opened the first gate after making contact with it but afterwards it seemed to be able to open any gate it wanted whenever it caught the scent of blood. But then in the comics we see Will finding the mini gate he talks to Joyce through in season 1, though its not fully formed and more like a window. Now it wasn’t till season 2 we learned that the Demogorgon & everything “alive” in the upside down is just a vessel for the mindflayer to control, so did it inherit the ability to open gates or did it lose that ability when that particular Demogorgon was destroyed? In season 2 it already had a stable gate that didn’t close after a while so it may not have seen the need to use it & focused on expanding into Hawkins through its tunnels. On the other hand if it doesn’t have that ability maybe the creature(s) will cross through a random minigate that opens if they do indeed still open. Again what debunks the minigate theory is that everything from the upside down appeared to die when the gate was closed, so if there are minigates to the upside down there should have been a “signal” that would have kept them alive. That being said we never saw what became of that piece of the mindflayer that was exorcised from Will in the cabin. Maybe because it’s a piece of the mind flayer itself it is able to survive the gate closing and took possession of those rats to survive, slowly growing its shadowy essence/virus through them and its goal of the season is to get Jane to reopen the gate.

3. The Poster’s Monster. We can only see what might be part of two arms or legs and its knee’s/elbows. But if you can find a good enough picture you can see all the disgusting detail of what I think it might be made of & what its name might be. Remember the rats running towards it? I think their running to become part of it. Those little thin protrusions running up and down the limbs look very much like tiny ribcages don’t they? Also I cant find a clear enough picture online but someone had a close up pointing to one of the rats on their Instagram story & I swear I can see a rat face near one of its knees/elbows. In the World Turned Upside Down book the sneak peak mentioned that this season would have some disgusting body horror moments reminiscent of The Fly which I took to mean that it would be a human going through a disgusting transformation, but know I wonder if whatever escapes the upside down or has been in hiding since season 2 is slowly building itself a new body out of the rats it has infected. Then as it gets bigger it starts looking for other bodies to assimilate/mutate. This also fits into a real life disgusting phenomenon that is also the name of a Dungeons & Dragons monster: THE RAT KING. In real life a rat king is created when a large swarm of rats is so big that multiple rats end up getting their tails knotted together through having to crawl over & around each other in tight spaces. Google it but be warned its pretty gross since they do not survive as they cannot move and get to food/water whilst stuck & in some cases their feces have glued some of them together. The D&D equivalent doesn’t have a picture but is basically a wererat. Doesn’t match what I’ve just described but since when has any of the creatures from the upside down looked like the D&D monster their named after? Another thing that makes me think it’s a cluster of bodies is from one of the pages of the last issue of the comic series. Its hard to tell if what Will is seeing once he’s connected to the mindflayer via that vine in his mouth (that’s also impregnating him with baby Dart) is real since earlier he was hallucinating that he actually was Will the wise but I cant help but notice how similar the horror he is seeing has a similar look to our mystery monsters limbs. I feel like this whole section is a tease of whats to come & just how many worlds the mindflayer has taken (WTF is that massive jaw bone from?!!)

I have more theories on other stuff but this has taken long enough to write so think I’ll stop there for now. I don’t know which I want more when season 3 hits: for my theories to be true or for them to be something else entirely. I just hope whatever answers are revealed they make sense within the world the Duffers have created.