Chapter Text
NOVEMBER 6TH, HAWKINS, INDIANA, 1983
-8-
The Hawkins laboratory was illuminated in the middle of the woods, which surrounded it. To the outside world, the Hawkins laboratory wasn't that dissimilar to the myriad of laboratory complexes around the United States of America. Many of the scientists and workers who followed the daily routine in the complex lived in the nearby town of Hawkins. The residents of Hawkins believed the laboratory produced and researched weapons, defences for the United States, among other things, a rumour encouraged by the Department of Energy, which ran the laboratory. In truth, the lab studied fields that were much less mundane.
If anyone saw the lab right now, on this quiet night, they would have seen a quiet, ordered place, but only a few people, those who were familiar with the murkier history of the place which had been quietly suppressed by the Department of Energy over the years, knew what the place was, a concentration camp, made of concrete walls and surrounded by electrified fences, devoted to fields many didn't even realise was actually studied by the US.
But this wasn't an ordinary night. This night would be the turning point which would transform the lives of many of the local people, resulting in so much pain and grief. It was so hard to believe it could happen on a quiet night like this. Outwardly, the lab was quiet, peaceful.
On the inside, the usually strong lights which would highlight the cold, sterile walls of the lab, flickered, and alarms blared as a man in a lab coat ran through in a hurry, eyes wide in panic, occasionally glancing back over his shoulder, hoping that those monstrous things which had come out of the wall weren't chasing him.
No, he was safe, for now, but he had to get away from the Lab.
He clicked the button for the elevator rapidly, cursing that this was one of those stupid times like in the movies, where an elevator wouldn't show up, 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 in horror, but it was too late.
The elevator closed, and the man was no more.
-8-
Eyes wide, Eleven hurried through the corridors, tearing off the suit she'd been wearing, using her powers and her bare hands to tear it off. Once it was off, Eleven's feet padded softly down the corridors of the only home she knew, fear growing as she heard the sound of the monsters coming out of the hole she'd made in the wall, mingling with the distant and nearby screams of the people who had locked her up here for years.
As she raced down the corridors, listening out for any monsters, and others like Papa, Eleven froze….. and then she ducked away when she heard the sound of shuffling. When she looked around, her eyes widened when she saw the slick skin of the monster, or one of them. Eleven's heart raced with panic…and the creature turned, and its head peeled back like one of the flowers Papa gifted her whenever she did something good.
Eleven screamed when the monster bellowed at her… and then she threw out her hand, and a new, harsher scream left her throat as her mind went somewhere else, and she saw how to hurt the monster the right way, and she pictured a fire forming when she saw images in her head of the monster's fear of it.
When the monster dropped to the ground, burned out, leaving a shaken and slightly weak Eleven behind, panting out of fear, she stood there for a moment before she ran away.
Eleven remembered the tunnel; she didn't know how, and she panted hard as she crawled through it. The tunnel was wide enough for her to pass, and after a while, she saw light. Eleven didn't know what she would find, but she hoped she was far from the monsters, so why did she see ahead?
-8-
Meanwhile, at Mike Wheeler's house, he and the boys were playing D in his basement. Mike, Dustin, Lucas, and Will had no idea this night would be where their lives would change forever. To them, this was just another regular night where they could immerse themselves in a campaign. They'd been in the basement 10 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. Dustin always had the tendency to panic a little bit. "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?" He scoffed.
"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 to get them to stop and to send the boys back to their own houses.
"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." Karen sighed, really not in the mood for an argument, and knowing if her son, who'd inherited her stubbornness, went on, then she would have to lash out. "I just put Holly to bed. You can finish next weekend."
"But that'll ruin the flow!" He insisted.
"Michael-," Karen ground out, already preparing for the fight she could do without.
"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 froze and looked at him. "You've been playing down there for ten hours?" She asked in disbelief.
Mike paused and turned to his dad, who was fiddling with the TV. "Dad, don't you think 20 more minutes-?" He began to ask, before his brain engaged and he realised who he was even talking to.
"I think you should listen to your mother," Ted stated simply before turning his attention back to the TV. To him, the matter was closed, and he wasn't involved, as usual.
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. Typical. Mike should have known better than to expect either of his parents to understand what he wanted. His parents, Karen and Ted Wheeler, had always been indifferent to him and to his hobbies; oh, they would give him the money to buy his comics and everything he needed for his campaigns, but that was as far involved as they would get with him or his sisters' hobbies and interests.
-8-
Back down in the basement, Will found the dice. "Does the seven count?"
"Did Mike see it?" Lucas smirked.
"No," Will admitted.
"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, she was talking on the phone.
"Hey Nancy, there's a slice left if you want it." He insisted kindly. It completely went over Dustin's head. He was interrupting a private conversation, and Nancy wouldn't take it well.
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, still in a bad mood after his little chat with his parents.
"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.
-8-
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 grown up hearing rumours about the lab, but he had since just learnt to accept the lab's existence. He had no idea that would be a mistake.
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 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.
-8-
In the morning, Chief Jim Hopper of the Hawkins police began to wake up, struggling not to look at the little drawing of a girl and her parents on the wall, which was hung up on the wall. Beer cans littered the house and the TV was on, talking about a strange power outage that 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. He had a cigarette, took a shower and put himself together before leaving the house to go to work.
-8-
Meanwhile, at Joyce's house, she was trying to find her keys as she hectically got herself sorted out. "Where the hell are they? Jonathan?"
Jonathan was cooking breakfast. "Check the couch," he said without looking over his shoulder.
"Ugh, I did," But she complied anyway and paused when she found them. "Got them."
Jonathan rolled his eyes.
"Sweetie, I'll see you tonight." She told him as she hurried to leave.
"See ya," Jonathan said, but Joyce had looked around the room, and she had realised to her surprise, Will wasn't up, and he wasn't at the table like he usually was. That wasn't like Will.
"Where's Will?" She paused.
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!" Joyce snapped. They'd been over this. She had to get out early, so she couldn't take Will to school like she'd done in the past before Lonnie did what he usually did, run away.
"I'm making breakfast!" He snapped.
Joyce sighed and went to his room. "Will, honey, it's time to get up-." She trailed off, and she froze when she realised he wasn't there. Worse, the bed was made, but from what she could see, his school things were here, and on closer examination, she realised the bed hadn't even been slept in since yesterday.
She went back to Jonathan. "He came home last night, right?" She asked, already guessing the answer, but she was desperate.
"He's not in his room?" Jonathan frowned in surprise.
"Did he come home or not?" Joyce pressed, her voice already dropping into a tone Jonathan recognised as dangerous. Worried about what might have happened to his little brother, Jonathan stopped what he was doing, and he realised he had to tell the truth.
"I don't know." Jonathan sighed.
"You don't know?" Joyce snapped.
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."
They did need the extra cash. The Byers family had never been particularly rich, since Lonnie Byers had grown up chasing get-rich-quick schemes which never worked and left a massive mess everyone else had to clean up because he was too lazy to do it himself. Finally, Lonnie had run away, taking what little cash they had, and they hadn't seen him since.
Joyce and Jonathan both had to work hard long before Lonnie even left, but now they had to work even more.
"Jonathan, we talked about this!" Joyce snapped, although she privately agreed, especially since she wanted her boys to get out of Hawkins, which was a dead-end town. "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.
-8-
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 little 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!?" She yelped, furious. She had thought her immature brat of a little brother would respect her attempts to ignore him.
"Language," Ted warned her absentmindedly, nose in the paper. Not once did he bother to investigate what his youngest son had 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.
Back at the Byers, Jonathan and Joyce exchanged worried glances.
Something was obviously wrong.