A/N: FYI, this chapter is going to be a long flashback.
Grigori felt like his mission was a failure. He was taking back a prisoner in the form of the police chief, but the Upside-Down was still a big mystery. All subjects he had sent in were killed by a monster. The portal had been closed, so all hope was gone.
Then he heard of the Battle of Starcourt. The story he heard sounded suspicious to him. After torturing some eyewitnesses, he got the true story. Someone had been flayed and had survived for some time. They even summoned something from the Upside-Down. All of Grigori's subjects had been animals. He had never tried to send a human.
Grigori asked his best men to retrieve the body. He wanted to experiment on it. He wanted to see if there was anything special about his DNA. They stole the casket that night but forgot to fill the hole back up. Grigori was mad about that, but he quickly got over it. They were going back to Russia soon; they wouldn't be captured. He was also surprised that the corpse hadn't decayed.
They traveled back to Russia. The same day, Hopper was signed into the prison. The day after, the experiments began. Grigori was sat in his office when his second-in-command entered. "Something has gone wrong with the corpse," he said.
Grigori followed him to the basement. Barely any of them cared to learn the name of the corpse. They often just referred to him as "the corpse" or "the experiment." The guards who dug up the grave knew, but no one bothered to ask.
As Grigori arrived at the lab, he saw the corpse wasn't a corpse at all. The boy was thrashing around on the table. He was screaming threats at the scientist. They held him down by his ankles and wrists on the surgery table. "He was buried," Grigori growled. "How is he still alive?"
"He discovered he was shortly before he awoke," his second-in-command, Mischa, answered. "The explosion at the mall sent him into a coma-like state. His organs have been mostly destroyed by whatever is in him, but it kept him alive. It also lowered his body temperature."
Grigori then smiled darkly. He had just what he needed. The Upside-Down was a part of him. He could probably move through the other dimension without a problem. The boy was now asleep again and restrained to the table.
His scientist made a serum. This was to make him be able to take control of himself more. The serum began to work quickly, but he needed doses every few weeks. The boy gave them his name: Micheal Wheeler.
After the first dosage, he was restrained to a table. He was going to be sent into the Upside-Down. Mike seemed to know what was going to happen when they brought out the blindfold. Grigori would later discover that he knew someone who said this was how she entered the Upside-Down. Mike thrashed around on the table, but he was given a sedative.
Mike screamed as he was brought into the Upside-Down. Gregori smirked, glad to finally be on the right track.