AN: The idea for this story actually came to me in a dream! Haha! Hope you like it! Please review!
(Disclaimer: I do not own any Stanger Things character or places)
BREAKING NEWS: HAWKINS LABARATORY SHUT DOWN DUE TO ILLEGAL EXPERIMENTS ON MINORS
Emma Hatfield
January 2nd,1984 The government-ran lab in Hawkins, Indiana has been shut down due to illegal experiments on minors. An anonymous report claimed that a 12-year-old girl has been found after being experimented on due to Dr. Martin Brenner's hypothesis of the girl having "powers", such as telekinesis and telepathy. No such evidence has been found by state doctors and medical professionals. The girl's identity is to be remained unknown. Dr. Martin Brenner is awaiting trial and is being held in custody while the investigation is being held. Investigators began searching for evidence in the laboratory on Friday morning. No report has been given.
Jim Hopper POV
To say that I was curious was sort of an understatement. This wasn't a "want to know" situation, it was a need to know. After all that had happened involving this lab, I just had a feeling that something else was in there, something that could hold the secrets to the "Upside Down" and how El came to be. Poor kid. Ever since we had found her again, she'd maybe said on or two words. We still had no clue what had happened to her after she defeated the Demogorgon and disappeared.
As I pulled the cruiser into the long driveway of Hawkins National Laboratory, I glanced at the clock on the dashboard. 1:33am. Perfect timing. There were absolutely no cars or any signs of investigators. I thought back to the newspaper article I'd read earlier. Surely, since they had been there since Friday, they would have found some evidence of what went on here.
The halls were deserted, and dark. Much different than the last time I was here. I shuddered at the thought. The fact that I had almost basically murdered a young girl haunts me to this day.
I saw the familiar radioactive barrier, and walked through it. So what if there were cameras everywhere, I got myself out of this place last time without being killed. There was a hallway to my left, the one I traveled down two months ago when I found the gate. Man, that seems like ages ago. There was also a hallway to my right. I decided to turn and go down that one, I'd never been in it before.
There was only one door in this hallway, at the very end. In this room, there was a chair, a table with a lamp on it, and one single bookshelf. Seemed suspicious enough. It was just too plain for a lab like this. There had to be something more. I thought back to all the books I'd read as a kid, and to Sarah. About the swinging bookshelves that opened when you pulled out a certain book. It was really cliché, but who knows.
I scanned my fingertips along the tip of the bookshelf. They came away dusty. I looked at each of the books until I found the one without the dust. Of course Dr. Brenner would do something like this. Not too obvious, but just obvious enough so that someone, someday would find it. I pulled the book. The bookshelf opened. Well, I'd seen stranger things happen.
What I saw next did not surprise me either. What a sick, sadistic man. There was a row of prison cells running down the left side of the hallway I now stood in. They hallway was decorated almost like a nursery, with floating clouds and farm animals painted on the walls. The first cell was labeled 010. The next one, 011. It was the only one whose door was open. I didn't even have to think about why that was. But, why did El have a bedroom, when the rest of them had to stay in here? Then, I noticed something. Above the cell 010, there was a date, September 4th, 1983, and a big red "X". I shuddered. So, El was the current alive subject? It was the only theory that made sense to me right now. I slowly walked down the rest of the hallway, only to find more cells exactly like it. I was about to turn back around when I heard it. Footsteps. Coming from somewhere in the hallway I was in. Strange, I hadn't seen anything in there before. I walked back and looked into each of the cells. 020, empty. 019, empty. 018, 017, 016, 015, all empty. I stopped in my tracks when I came to the next cell.
The face I saw looking back at me was one of terror. Of pure, utter fear. I took a step back, startled.
