Chapter Text
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NOVEMBER 6TH, HAWKINS, INDIANA, 1983
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It was a beautiful night, and the Hawkins National laboratory was shown out in the middle of the woods by the lampposts, surrounded by an electrified fence, only a few miles from the nearby town of Hawkins. The night air was cold but peaceful. The residents of Hawkins all believed that the lab workers who lived there were working on new technologies to defend the United States from enemies, such as the Russians.
It was a story the Department of Energy, the people who ran the scientific institute, were keen to promote.
The reality was the lab was studying psychic power, and they didn't let a little thing like morality get in the way of 'progress.'
Many people who stared at the lab might view it like a prison, especially if they were aware of the scandals of the past. Outwardly, the lab was calm, but on the inside, an experiment was taking place, a highly unusual experiment.
Deep inside the lab, there was a massive room of white painted walls containing a sensory deprivation tank. Some scientists were working on the final preparations for the subject who would be placed within it, while others were monitoring from the control room, using highly sophisticated instruments.
Everyone stopped when the tall, white haired, immaculate form of Dr Martin Brenner stepped into the room. Respected and feared by all, and watched with anticipation and dread, Dr Brenner led a small girl with a shaved head towards the tank.
"It's okay, Eleven, these are friends," Brenner told her when she was wary of the dozens of lab workers. He held her hand. "They're just here to watch. Don't focus on them. Stay in here," He tapped her head. "Like before."
"Yes, papa." She whispered obediently.
Snapped out of their spell, the lab workers carried on with their work, but some of them couldn't help but watch the girl, whose existence was a closely guarded and tightly kept secret, a testament to the United States's obsession with psychic power.
Her name was Eleven; it was the only identity she had grown up with. The girl had been taken from her family as a baby, and great steps had been taken to keep her in the lab, where she had been experimented on for years and years. Only a few lab workers knew the full story behind the girl and her history, and knew the real reason behind these current experiments.
They said nothing while the girl was suited up.
They lowered her into the tank, but before she went in, Brenner told her not to run from whatever she saw, and to remember that it couldn't hurt her in there. Eleven said and did nothing; she had learnt the hard way what happened if she disobeyed Papa, or if she said no.
They shut off the tank, and Eleven found herself back in Void Space.
Void Space was a black nothing containing nothing in all directions, and the ground was wet. As she looked around, Eleven's breathing came out in fearful gasps when she saw the shapeless grey mass in front of her. It was the monster she had seen in the Void Space before, and she hung back, terrified. She could see the monster was eating something.
Eleven slowly approached the monster in Void Space. It was eating something, alright, but Eleven couldn't tell what it was; the sounds it made with its meal made her more frightened.
Very nervously, Eleven reached out to touch it.
The monster roared viciously at her, making her shriek in terror, and she turned and rushed away. Eleven wanted nothing more than to escape the tank, but she couldn't help but look further, completely unaware that outside the Void Space, the psychic backlash of her screams was ripping a hole in the wall.
Eleven wouldn't know about that for the moment, as she desperately looked for something else, a friend in her horrible life…
As she ran, she screamed in shock as she was covered with black goo…
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…..Eleven was still screaming as she came out of the Void space, and she found herself back in the Bath.
"Stop screaming! I'm going to help you!" A voice said in her mind, a growling, menacing voice, but it shocked her into silence.
Eleven stopped screaming, "Who-Who said that?"
"I'll tell you in a moment….Jane," the voice said in her head.
"Jane?" Eleven repeated curiously.
"That is your name. The name your mother gave you before you were taken out of her arms," the voice replied.
"My…mother?" Eleven repeated.
The voice said nothing, and Eleven gasped as black goo spread over her face, and ripped its way through the suit, and she watched through unfamiliar eyes as she smashed her way out of the Bath, startling the monsters that resembled the one that she found in the Void Space.
The monsters were surprised when the tank suddenly shattered, and she stepped out, shaken by what had happened. Eleven watched, wide-eyed as the monsters stopped what they were doing, and they stared at her a moment before their heads peeled back, like a grotesque, flesh, tooth-studded flower, and roared at her, and charged.
Eleven screamed, and she tried to run…only to discover she couldn't move. "Wha-?"
"No, don't worry, let me take care of this!" The voice said.
Eleven gasped as her arms shot up out of her control, black goo covering them, as they shot out, and black tentacles shot out, and the same black goo covered her chest, revealing a massive mouth filled with more teeth than a shark, and the monsters' primal instincts screamed at them they were in the presence of a superior predator.
But it was too late. The tentacles and her arms grabbed the monsters and brought them to her enormous mouth, and they were shoved in, roaring and squealing in terror.
Once they were dead, Eleven looked at her hands in shock.
"What just happened?" She whispered.
"I did," the voice said.
Eleven squeaked in shock as she suddenly leapt into the air, her hands and legs covered in the black goo, and she stuck to the ceiling as if the goo was like glue. Eleven gaped in shock as the goo creature took control over her whole body, and raced all the way while clinging to the ceiling like a huge spider towards the tunnel.
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Elsewhere, things were chaotic; people were dying, the usually strong lights flickered and alarms blared as a man in a lab coat ran through in a hurry, eyes wide with panic as he panted trying to escape from the monsters who'd come out of the hole.
Everything had happened so fast, and so quickly, he hadn't even known he was running until now; the scientist didn't know how many of his friends and colleagues were dead, but quite a few in the tank room were gone, startled by her psychic scream. When he reached the elevator, the scientist let out a ragged sigh of relief as his body, not used to exercise, came to a stop. He clicked the button for the elevator rapidly, looking over his shoulder a few times.
Sweat poured from his face as he hurried inside and clicked the button for it to go down. He was relieved to see that the hallway he came from was empty.
But as the elevator began to close, the man heard growling and slowly looked up.
Something grabbed him and dragged him up to the ceiling out of sight as he screamed.
The elevator closed, and the man was no more.
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Meanwhile, at Mike Wheeler's house, he and the boys were playing D in his basement. Mike and his friends, Dustin, Lucas, and Will, had no idea what had happened at the lab; as far as they were concerned, this was a normal night before school in the morning. They had no idea that, in the years to come, they would look back…
And wonder just how much of their lives would be changed.
But that had yet to come, in just a few hours.
"Something is coming. Something hungry for blood." Mike explained. "A shadow grows on the wall behind you, swallowing you in darkness. It is almost here."
"What is it?" Will asked excitedly, clearly, deeply invested.
"What if it's the Demogorgon?" Dustin asked nervously.
Lucas rolled his eyes. "It's not the Demogorgon."
"An army of Troglodytes charges into the chamber!" Mike exclaimed as he slammed the piece down on the table.
Dustin looked amused. "Troglodytes?"
"Told you," Lucas smirked.
They all laughed, but Mike suddenly looked nervous. "Wait a minute…did you hear that?" He looked around the room. "That…That sound… Boom, boom, BOOM!"
He slammed his hands on the table to make them all jump.
"That didn't come from the Troglodytes, no, that came from something else." He told them.
He slammed a new piece on the table. "THE DEMOGORGON!" The boys groaned.
"We're in deep shit." Dustin hissed.
"Will, your action," Mike said.
He hesitated. "I don't know!"
"Fireball him!" Lucas insisted.
"I'd have to roll a thirteen or higher!" Will protested.
"Too risky, cast a protection spell." Dustin chimed in.
"Don't be a pussy, fireball him!" Lucas snapped.
"Cast protection!"
Mike slammed his hands on the table again. "THE DEMOGORGON IS SICK AND TIRED OF YOUR SILLY HUMAN BICKERING. IT STOMPS TOWARDS YOU, BOOM!"
"FIREBALL HIM!" Lucas shrieked.
"PROTECTION!"
"IT ROARS IN ANGER!"
Will panicked and threw the dice. "FIREBALL!"
But he threw the dice a little too hard, and they went flying. The boys scrambled to search for them, only for Karen, Mike's mother, to call for Mike. She opened the door and stared down at him from the top of the stairs.
"Mom, we're in the middle of a campaign!" He complained.
"You mean the end? Fifteen after." She snapped and closed the door.
Mike hurried upstairs to talk to her in the kitchen. "Mom, wait, just 20 more minutes."
"It's a school night, Michael." She sighed. "I just put Holly to bed. You can finish next weekend."
"But that'll ruin the flow!" He insisted.
Karen closed her eyes, not in the mood for his son's stubbornness (why her eldest kids had to inherit that trait from her, she didn't know), but she prepared herself for a fight if she had to,
"Michael-..," she began, readying herself.
"I'm serious, Mom. The campaign took two weeks to plan!" Mike groaned. "How was I supposed to know it was gonna take ten hours?"
That took the wind out of her sails, and Karen just froze and looked at him, stunned. "You've been playing down there for ten hours?" Karen's voice squeaked at the end.
Mike paused, exasperated when he saw this wasn't working, and turned to his dad, who was fiddling with the TV, hoping for some support from him. "Dad, don't you think 20 more minutes-?" Mike began hopefully, before he realised just who he was speaking to.
"I think you should listen to your mother," Ted stated simply before turning his attention back to the TV, proving truly he didn't care what his son was even saying, or what he wanted. As long as he stared at the TV and let himself become brain-dead for another hour, Ted Wheeler didn't care.
Mike got frustrated to see that both of his parents had gone back to their own devices, as if he wasn't even in the room anymore.
But he was used to that; while Karen and Ted Wheeler provided for their family, gave their children gifts and money for whatever they needed or wanted, that was as far as they were prepared to go. They didn't care otherwise.
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Back down in the basement, Will found the dice. "Does the seven count?"
"Did Mike see it?" Lucas smirked.
"No."
"Then no."
The boys grabbed their stuff, and Dustin took the rest of the pizza with him.
He went upstairs to see that the door to Nancy's room was open, and she was talking on the phone.
"Hey Nancy, there's a slice left if you want it." He insisted kindly, not realising he was intruding on a private conversation, or even thinking Nancy wouldn't want to speak to him, never mind want a slice of pizza when she was getting ready for bed herself.
Nancy smiled and got up, and then slammed the door right in his face.
When he got outside with the others, he spoke. "There's something wrong with your sister."
"What?" Mike frowned.
"She's got a stick up her butt."
"It's because she's been dating that douchebag Steve Harrington." Lucas huffed. "She's turned into a real jerk."
Mike rolled his eyes. "She's always been a real jerk."
"She used to be cool, like that time she dressed up as an elf for our elder tree campaign." Dustin insisted before riding off on his bike. Lucas followed, but Will held back a moment.
"It was a seven," Will confessed.
"What?" Mike looked at him with confusion.
"The roll was a seven," He explained. "The Demogorgon got me. See you tomorrow."
He rode off, and the lights on Mike's house flickered briefly, but he paid it no mind and went back inside.
The boys rode their bikes together, and Lucas parted off to go to his house. "Race back to my place?" Dustin asked. "Winner gets a comic."
"Any comic?" Will questioned.
"Yeah." They sped off.
Will got ahead of him, though and Dustin stopped at his house, sulking about the comic he was gonna owe him.
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Will continued on his own, but he didn't spot the signs on the metal fence saying the area was Hawkins' lab territory. Like everyone else in Hawkins, Will had heard the rumours, but he'd never paid any attention to them.
The light on his bike flickered, and Will spotted a strange figure up ahead that startled him badly. He made a sharp turn off the road and fell off his bike.
The creature growled and began to chase after him, leaving him no choice but to run and leave his bike behind.
He managed to get back home and screamed for his mom and brother, but the only one there was his dog.
He tried to use the phone, but it wasn't working, and he soon spotted the large figure outside the house. He paled as it seemed to force the lock open.
Will ran outside for the shed and grabbed the rifle, hurrying to fill it with ammo.
But as he waited for whatever it was to open the door to the shed, something appeared behind him.
Will didn't even have time to scream before the monster grabbed him, and he vanished from the world.
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The next morning, at Chief Jim Hopper's house, the chief of Hawkins' police was about to wake up. In his house, there was a little drawing of a girl and her parents was hung up on the wall. But the house was a mess; Beer cans littered the house, and the TV was on, talking about a strange power outage that had happened the previous night. Passed out on the couch was Jim Hopper, who was awoken by a dog barking outside. He checked his watch and groaned, already bored to tears about the day he was about to have.
He had a cigarette, took a shower and put himself together before leaving the house to go to work. All the time, he did his best to avoid looking at the drawing his daughter had made.
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Meanwhile, at Joyce's house, she was trying to find her keys. "Where the hell are they? Jonathan?" Joyce yelled.
Jonathan was cooking breakfast. "Check the couch."
"Ugh, I did," But she complied anyway and paused when she found them. "Got them," Joyce added sheepishly.
Jonathan rolled his eyes.
"Sweetie, I'll see you tonight." She told him as she hurried to leave.
"See ya."
"Where's Will?" She paused when she realised her youngest son wasn't there having his own breakfast; usually, he would have had a quick wash, put on some clean clothes and would be here, either drawing or reading a comic before he had to go to school.
He shrugged. "I didn't get him up yet, so he's probably still sleeping." Joyce groaned.
"Jonathan, you have to make sure he's up!"
"I'm making breakfast!" He snapped.
Joyce sighed and went to his room. "Will, honey, it's time to get up-," She froze when she realised he wasn't there, and she trailed off, staring around the room for a moment, seeing that her son's school things were still here, and she realised with a shock his bed hadn't been slept in.
She went back to Jonathan. "He came home last night, right?"
"He's not in his room?" Jonathan frowned.
"Did he come home or not?"
"I don't know." Jonathan sighed.
"You don't know?" Joyce snapped, starting to get angry and worried now. Jonathan froze when he picked up on her tone and mood, knowing better than to try her when she was like this. He had to tell her the truth.
He set the breakfast down. "I-I got home late, I was working. Eric asked me to cover, I said Yeah. I thought we could use the extra cash."
And they did need the cash. Ever since his bastard deadbeat father had cleaned them out and ran away, like he always did, when he was chasing after get rich quick schemes which did more harm than good whenever he wasn't working and acting like a hippie without a care in the world, proving he didn't care about responsibility, Jonathan and Joyce had both had to seize every single job they could get.
Joyce had often talked about how she would like nothing more than to get out of Hawkins, look for somewhere else so that they could have a better life, and Jonathan was all for that.
"Jonathan, we talked about this!" Joyce snapped. "You can't take shifts while I'm working!"
"Mom, it's not a big deal, he was at the Wheelers' all day." Jonathan insisted. "I'm sure he just stayed over."
But Joyce wasn't having it and hurried to call Karen.
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At Mike's, Mike was pouring syrup on his eggs, which made Nancy gag. "That's disgusting."
"You're disgusting." He replied without missing a beat.
Nancy rolled her eyes and decided to just ignore her immature brother.
Karen grabbed the ringing phone while holding Holly. "Hello?"
"Hi Karen, it's Joyce."
Mike poured syrup on Nancy's eggs, making her scowl. "What the hell, Mike!?" Nancy yelped, wishing her brother weren't so petty and childish.
"Language," Ted warned her absentmindedly, nose in the paper. Of course, heaven forbid Ted even try to find out what pissed off his eldest daughter, or investigate what Mike had just done.
"Quiet!" Karen snapped at all of them as Mike cackled.
"Was that Will I heard back there?"
"No, just Mike." Karen sighed.
"Will didn't spend the night?"
"No, he left a little bit after 8. Why, he's not home?" Karen asked with concern.
"Um, you know I think he just left early for school. Thank you so much, bye."Joyce hung up.
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Back at the Byers, Jonathan and Joyce exchanged worried glances.
Something was obviously wrong.