I haven't published any Stranger Things content and haven't posted anything on here in quite awhile. I hope you enjoy. I don't own anything mentioned.
She was scared and cold. She followed the sound coming from the start of the woods. Part of her feared that it could be the men who she had just escaped from.
They were too far for her to reach with her powers. It could be the monsters that took over the lab, death was better than going back there.
She moved closer and could finally hear inside. She flipped through their minds like filing cabinets and knew they were good.
There were three, young like her. Two boys and a girl, she had never seen someone her age besides her brother but that was long ago. She moved fast so she could get closer. She needed their help, she couldn't stay out here anymore.
She stepped onto the path behind them and cleared her throat. They turned around and flinched when they saw her.
They looked her up and down, this made her scared. She looked down at her bare feet, dirty and red from the cold.
"Are you alright?" The one on the end asked. He had lots of curly hair sticking out from underneath a hat. She went through his thoughts, he was good. He worried about her, she reminded him of someone named El. She went through the other two's thoughts and found his name was Dustin.
"Here take this," Dustin stepped forward and unzipped his coat. When he got close she flinched, she didn't mean to but couldn't help it.
"Its alright, I won't hurt you. But you'll freeze out here." He spoke slowly and moved slower. He placed the coat over her shoulders. She put her hand to his cheek and dived further into his mind. She watched moments of his life through his eyes and it made her smile.
"Dustin, thank you." She said softly. He was about to ask how she knew his name when he looked at the inside of her left wrist. He saw the number 010 tattooed, he thought of El again.
"Is your name ten?" He asked quietly. She shrugged her shoulders in response and lowered her hand from his face. She tucked it inside the jacket and smiled at the warmth. He smiled back, she liked his dimples.
"Dustin, everything ok?" The boy with darker skin asked, fear in his voice. She could her what he was thinking, and it made her feel bad. She was scaring him and the girl too.
"That's Lucas and Max, they're my friends. They won't hurt you either." He pointed them out and looked at her with a cautious smile.
"Were you at the lab?" Lucas asked. She nodded.
"Did you know El, Eleven?" He asked again. She shook her head. She put her hand to Dustin's cheek again trying to find this El they kept thinking of. She could feel his shoulder's tense when she touched him.
What is she doing? He thought. She ignored that and kept searching, she finally found the moment. A small girl with a shaved head in a yellow shirt too big on her. She had the number on her arm, 011. El was from the same place as her and her brother.
"Not ten, just my number. I don't know El, but she lived where I did, the bad place." She spoke to them, trying to speak loud enough so they can hear.
Papa's voice was echoing through her head, speak up, Papa can't hear you when you mumble. She shook at the thought of him and tried to push it away, she brought the tattered sleeve to her nose and wiped the blood.
"What are we going to do with her?" Max asked Lucas and Dustin.
"I'll take her home with me; my mom is probably asleep now." Dustin said, he looked at her as he spoke.
"Are you sure? She could be dangerous." Lucas said in a hushed tone. This hurt her, she wasn't bad.
"Not dangerous, I'm good." She said to Dustin.
"I know, forget them. Lucas is jealous that you touched my face." He laughed, his laugh was infectious and made her smile.
Dustin put his hand on the middle of her back, she couldn't help but flinch at his touch. She exhaled and looked at him apologetically.
She started walking with them, they were quiet. Well quiet in the sense they didn't speak but their thoughts were loud.
They didn't just think about her, they wondered what powers she had, what she was doing to Dustin. They also thought about Will and Mike and the Mindflayer. They thought about how El closed the gate.
Their thoughts were so interesting, she wondered who these people are most of all she wondered about El. Could El be her sister, maybe she knew where her brother went or what happened to Papa.
They walked for a little, she wasn't as cold anymore. Her legs and feet still felt frozen, but Dustin's coat was big on her and so warm.
They walked out of the woods and she felt a bit scared. It seemed like the monsters killed all the bad men, but more might still come for her. If El was from the bad place too and she was still safe maybe that meant the bad men won't look. This thought made her feel less afraid.
Max and Lucas walked in a different than they did. She liked walking with just Dustin, it wasn't as loud as when there were three minds.
Max and Lucas weren't as afraid as they were when they first saw her. She knew why they were scared, she was a stranger and she looked kind of scary. She wore a hospital gown and a bloody lab coat she took from one of the bodies she passed on her way out of the lab. Her hair had leaves stuck in it from sleeping on the ground.
"Did El stop the monsters?" She asked quietly. She remembered hearing all the screaming in the halls and could only get inside people's heads a few times. The cement walls were hard to get through and the people ran by fast, but she saw the monsters through their eyes.
"Yeah, they're gone now. They can't come back-"Dustin looked at her "-and the bad men won't come back either." He continued. This made her feel safe. She didn't have to be afraid of the bad men.
"Sorry about Dart. You cared." She said softly. Her heart ached watching that moment, she could feel Dustin's sadness.
"How do you know about that?" He asked.
"I can see inside, I can watch your memories and feel your feelings." She replied.
"Is that why you touched my cheek?" He asked with wonder.
"Best way to see, without touching I can only hear the thoughts." She answered and continued walking, the road was cold to her feet.
"So, you can read minds? Like Professor X? You have to meet El." He stopped and spoke fast. He thought is was cool, he called her a superhero. She didn't know who Professor X was or what a superhero was.
The didn't walk for very long before they reached Dustin's house. His driveway was steep, but the porch light comforted her. She had been in the dark woods for almost two days, it was nice to see light after so long in the dark. Dustin guided her to the back of the house.
"Wait here, I'll let you in through the window. Ok?" He whispered. She nodded in response. He walked back to the front and she waited nervously.
Finally, the window in front of her opened. And Dustin smiled at her and put his arm out to help her through. She took it and let out a sigh of relief when she was greeted by the warmth. His house was dark but so warm, warmer than the bad place.
She sat on the chair by the window, the room was poorly lit by small paper lanterns strung to the wall. There was also a red light over Yurtle's terrarium, that memory made her giggle.
She had never seen a creature like that, but the way Dustin felt when he got him was unlike anything she had felt. When she went through the bad men's minds there was always hate and anger and regret. She felt bad being there, having to go through bad men's heads made her bad sometimes.
"You can put these on, I'll wait out there." He sat some pajamas down on the bed and smiled. She liked his dimples and how bright his teeth were. He walked out and quietly shut the door.
She took off the lab coat and glared at it as it hit the floor. She pulled the hospital gown off and put it on the floor, she exhaled and put on the long sleeve shirt that was too big for her and she put on the fleece pajama pants that kept falling off her slender frame. She decided to just hold them onto her waist.
"Dressed now." She whispered to the door and Dustin walked through it. He smiled and chuckled at her.
"Sorry they're big. Its all I have." He whispered. She put her hand on his wrist and could feel her cheeks redden. He was happy but embarrassed and he thought she looked even smaller wearing the oversized pj's. She tried to contain her giggling.
"Do you see something when you touch me?" He asked softly.
"Sometimes, that time I felt the same as you. Happy and red." She whispered back.
"Red?" He asked.
"Red like your face, you felt all red and thought it was funny." She replied. He chuckled again.
"I like your laugh, makes things better. Feel better, not afraid." She told him, he smiled a different type of smile. This one was not like the red one, but it was a warmer smile. He thought good thoughts about her, they made her happy.
"We should sleep, my mom will come in to check on me and I've gotta wake up before her." He spoke fast and looked down at the ground.
"You sleep in my bed and I'll sleep on the floor. Oh, shit lemme hide these." He picked up the lab coat and the hospital gown and rolled them up in a ball and threw them into his closet.
He took one of the pillows off his bed and the small blanket off the foot of his bed and got down on the floor. She got on the bed and pulled the Star Wars blanket over her. His flannel sheets were soft and warm, his bed was nicer than the one in the bad place, not as hard. She put her head on the pillow and looked over at him, he closed his eyes but she could tell he wasn't sleeping.
A girl in your bed, a fucking girl in your bed! Shit. Dustin thought to himself. His cheeks reddened, and he opened his eyes and looked at her.
Can you hear me? He thought again.
"Yes." She replied.
"Thank you." She whispered to him.
"You don't have to thank me. I'm sorry you were in those woods, had to be scary." He spoke softly.
"Not as scary as the bad men, or the monsters." She replied.
"Well, the monsters are gone. My friend El killed them all, she's a badass and she closed the gate."
"Can I see more of her?" She asked him. He nodded and put his arm up to her. She grabbed his wrist with both hands and searched.
She watched the memories of El, when he found her he was scared. But when she showed her powers he thought she was cool, he laughed. El was strong but had different powers. She also saw El with longer hair, she looked scary. El's nose bleeds too after using her powers.
"El is strong." She whispered and let go of his hand. She put her sleeve to her nose.
"Are you strong like her?" He asked.
"Different kind of strong, I can't move things. I see and feel. I can see moments through your eyes and feel and see everything you did. I can hear what you think, and I can do a bad thing." She started to sniffle.
"I don't like that though, it hurts too much." She whispered. He nodded and didn't know what to say. He wondered what the bad thing was but then caught himself and knew she could hear.
He tried to get himself to sleep but he just kept thinking. She tried to block out his thoughts, but it was hard, they were loud, and he was so close to her.
She finally found herself starting to fall asleep, she gave into the sleepiness. She started falling into the darkness of sleep when something caught her. His thoughts were of her, he was picturing her. Her blue eyes and her dark hair that touched her shoulders.
To him her eyes were big and round and scared like a deer's. In his eyes, she was good, she was a person not a thing.
She smiled at his view of her. She was much better in his eyes. She put her hands over her heart like she did every night and tried to go back. Go back through her mind to the earliest moment. She passed through memories of Papa and her brother and the tests.
She finally found it, her Mama, she saw it for a moment. The room yellow and warm flooded by the afternoon sun. She was so cold, she was so tired, she was hurting so much. She cried out for her babies. But her cries were ignored.
Papa told her those moments weren't real. They were fragments from other people's memories that she had pieced together.
That wasn't true, it was her Mama. Her Mama had blue eyes like hers and brown hair like her brothers and she looked tired and felt sad.
She wiped the blood from her lip and let herself fall asleep. She drifted to sleep thinking of Mama and Papa and her brother, she hoped they were all alive. Finally, she thought of Dustin; her new friend that gave her his coat and his warm bed and safety.
AN: I hope you liked this. With the release date put out it really got me in the spirit and this idea has been eating at me for awhile. Thanks for reading!