Do you approach people when you see them sitting alone? Do you wonder what secrets could they hold in their silence? Under that hood, she held many secrets. Lots of them were known by everyone. Lots of them would never be known by anybody but herself.
The men approached her, as she knew they would do. They always did approach. Green uniforms, hard helmets, expensive garments, and weapons. They only did feel safe with them. "Don't move!" yelled one of them. "Or we will open fire!" they kept going, guns pointed at her, as if she was the most dangerous being on this earth. She was, indeed.
"Don't come, please…" She said, quietly at first, but stronger as they approached. "Get out of here!" Screaming, she bolted in their direction, with blood-shot eyes and the once pretty teenager face deformed by the suffering. A burden she never asked for, a burden she always had to deal with. Her powers, her abilities, which at last had gotten out of control, took everything from her. And then, they made her a monster. "Don't come near me or I will kill you!" she screamed, clenching her fists with helplessness, crying out of her face, tears rolling a known path. But soldiers didn't listen to young women, even when they were forces to be reckoned with. And yet, they advanced.
Did they not know death when they saw it? Were they not informed on the danger that lone woman presented? Maybe that was the case. Maybe they were sacrifices. Cannon fodder for the demon to kill. If they wanted to go full force on her, they needed something to blame her for. As if there wasn't enough blood on her hands. But the soldiers, those innocent soldiers, went closer to Eleven. And Eleven was a woman of her word. Their screams of agony soon elevated to the sky, as their bones were broken into pieces.
Throungh the telescopic sight, the show was macabre. Far from their place, the screams of agony were still heard by the watcher and her friend. "They were too close" she said, calmly. "They were doomed from the beginning".
"Are you enjoying that?" He asked, uneasy. He did not enjoy that, that's for sure. That's why he had been a nervous wreck from the beginning. "Even I know they didn't stand a chance against her. Nor do we! Come here, let's call it a day and go home. Please"
But she didn't left the sight. She watched clearly how the soldiers payed their innocence, their ignorance, with their lives. "You can go home, Steve", she said softly. "Nobody's making you stay"
"Yeah", he sounded a bit annoyed now. "I'm not leaving you behind, Nance. But I know how is it going to end. And it is not pretty". He was right. It wasn't pretty. God damnit, it wasn't pretty from the beginning.
"Then be quiet", she said as she checked the rifle, the zillionth time. "I have work to do".
"You don't have to". But both knew he was wrong. She had to. She was the only one who could do it. Maybe at the start of that mess there was still a little hope. When everyone was around. Chief, Joyce, Jonathan… But it was only them now. Them, alone with Eleven, and that thing that crept from her inside and took control of her powers. "Don't do that, Nance…" muttered Steve, knowing well it was too late. Her determination was as strong as Joyce's. And while Joyce hesitated when confronted with the child, Nancy would not.
She looked throught the sight, seeing how the hooded girl covered her face with her hands. She was in pain, that Nancy could guess. She was a victim, too, helpless against the powers that had overwhelmed her too far back. If they just had saw it coming… "For God's sake, from all those nerd characters", she thought, "she had to be Phoenix".
"Let's leave her to the Army", tried once more Steve, still desperate to get away from that hell of a situation. "They started this, and they can end this". They could do it, but they both know the Army wasn't willing to end it. They didn't want a corpse. They wanted a weapon. "I'm not talking for her… Don't do this to you, Nance".
She sighed, again, and saw how what little it was left of Eleven in the young woman's mind cry for the shattered soldiers around her. "I'd love to, Steve", Nancy said, squeezing her hand around the sniping rifle. "But she killed Mike".
As if she were listening to them all that time, Eleven – or what was once Eleven – looked straight at her, and Nancy didn't see a trace of the sweet lost child Mike once loved. All that was left on those eyes was a soulless stare. The stare of a demon, with a dark red bird deep on her pupils. Steve was right, thought Nancy. That was going to be nasty. And, as well as Nancy felt her trachea give up to unseen psychic forces, she pulled the trigger.