I can't lose you again"

"You won't" – Michael Wheeler and Jane Hopper.

The heavy silence fell upon the room once again. Joyce let out a sorrowful gasp and Hopper closed his eyes and stepped back. Mike flinched in surprise and looked at her in complete shock.

"I-it's me, El", he said "It's Mike".

She only stared at him, except that, unlike less than an hour before, when they cuddled in the Ferris wheel, she was scared of him. The realization suddenly came to him and it felt almost wrong to say it out loud.

"You don't remember me?", he asked.

Much to his horror, she shook her head. Mike looked at Hopper in search of an explanation, which he didn't provide.

"H-how about me, sweetie?", Joyce asked, motherly approaching the girl "Do you know who I am? You saved Will's life a while ago. You saved my boy".

El stared at Joyce in fear and confusion.

"How about us, El?", Lucas asked from where he, Will and Max stood "You've been our friend for over a year now. We've seen you doing some pretty cool stuff".

"F-friend?", El asked.

"Oh, no…", Hopper mumbled.

Mike lowered his head and started weeping. He didn't even try to hide it. His head was still aching from the fall and every sob made the pain feel worse, but he couldn't stop it. Jane was gone. El was gone. The girl who loved him was gone. Now she was 011 again; the frightened girl that knew nothing but fear. Nancy started crying as well and Lucas saw a tear sliding down Will's face.

"What happened to her?", Mike asked, trying to wipe his tears.

No one answered.

"What happened to her?!", the boy yelled, startling the girl.

"Shit, I don't know!", Hopper shouted back.

"How can you not know?! You were there the whole time! You saw what happened!", Mike spoke, getting up from the floor.

"What am I supposed to know?!", the chief said.

"Something! Anything!", the boy yelled.

"Alright", Hopper said with a shaky, though very angry voice "You wanna hear what I know? She steps into that ride with you. Next thing I know, she's unconscious!".

El tried to push herself away from Hopper and Mike, but she was already in the very edge of the couch. Her breathing was beyond fast and she looked around like there were monsters in the house with her.

"Stop it, you're scaring her!", Max yelled.

Mike and Hopper halted. Everyone turned their attention to the girl. Once the boy and the chief stopped arguing, she walked to the couch and knelt next to Eleven.

"El, do you remember me?", she firmly asked.

The other girl flinched and shook her head.

"Well, my name's Maxine. You can call me Max", she spoke "We didn't really like each other, but… But today you saved my life and I'm really thankful for that".

Eleven seemed a bit less tense now. Everyone immediately understood what Max was doing. She wasn't trying to force Eleven's back inside her head, but accepting that she had lost her identity and trying to explain as much as she could like it was the first time they ever met.

"M-Max", El said.

"Yeah, you can call me that", Max smiled "Now, El, what's the last thing you remember?".

"Bad…", Eleven said.

Max's smile disappeared.

"Bad? Those bad men at the lab?", Max continued.

Eleven nodded.

The red-headed girl sighed.

"Well, what were they doing?".

"The Bathtub", El said "They made me touch it".

Max frowned.

"…What did they make you touch?".

"The monster", Eleven replied "And it got out".

"That was almost two years ago", Mike said in disbelief "The last thing she remember is opening the gate".

El glared at Mike and then back at Max, giving her an interrogative stare. The redheaded girl decided to change the subject to ease the tension.

"Um… Well, that's our friend Mike, by the way. He really likes you", Max said and saw the boy blushing "Those are Lucas and Will, they're also our friends".

"What… Is friend?", El asked.

"Friend is…", Max tried to find the right words "Is someone you'd do anything for. You can trust them and they are always there for you. We can protect each other and… Like you always say, friends don't lie".

"Friend", Eleven repeated that word, experimenting how it felt in her lips.

It seemed like a familiar word for her, but she couldn't tell why. It just felt like it wasn't the first time she heard it. She looked at Hopper and Max followed her eyes.

"That's the chief, Hopper. He's your dad", Max explained.

"Like Papa?", El inquired.

"No, not like him. Hopper, he… He won't hurt you or make you use your powers all the time. He will actually take care of you".

El looked at the teenagers and Joyce.

"Those are Steve, Nancy, Jonathan and Mrs. Byers", Max told "I'm not sure what to tell you about them, we don't see them often".

Eleven remained in silence, absorbing the information she had just heard. Mike stepped forward.

"Eleven, you don't know what happened, do you?", he said.

She shook her head. He sighed.

"You, um… You just saved our lives… Again… And you probably hit your head really hard or something, because you, um… You lost yo…".

"Alright! Alright", Hopper said, keeping Mike from finishing the sentence "Can I have a word with you for a second?".

He pulled the boy by his arm and walked to a remote corner of the room.

"Why are you doing this? What did I do now?!", Mike protested.

"Listen here, kid. She's really messed up now and telling her that she just lost her memories will just make things worse. The best we can do now is calm down and hope that her memory comes back", the chief spoke.

As expected, Mike snapped.

"Are you kidding me?! Wait?! That's your plan?!".

"No, it's just out only option!", Hopper affirmed.

"I call bullshit on this option!", Mike yelled.

Steve rolled his eyes. 'Like sister, like brother', he thought. He eyed the girl on the couch once more and frowned in concern. He had been told that two things kept El from bursting into a murdering rampage: Her emotional bonds and the imminent threat of being discovered. She had just forgotten both of those things, which is why the teenager immediately stepped back when she lowered her head and stared at the boy and the chief.

"Stop it!", she yelled.

Mike and Hopper were thrown against a wall and both hit their shoulders. Luckily, Mike didn't ram his head against the wood; that would've been infinitely more painful. By the time the chief and the boy were getting up, the whole room was dead quiet. No one could really believe what they had just witnessed. Jane had thrown Hopper and Mike, her favorite people on Earth, against a wall. She still gave them a furious look.

"Holy shit", Lucas said and he and Will ran towards Mike to make sure he was okay.

Steve rushed towards the cop and tried to help him to get up, but Hopper refused with a gesture and got up on his own, groaning as he stretched his knees. Max looked back at Eleven.

"El, no! They're your friends!", she said.

Eleven just looked at Max and then at Hopper and Mike with a blank expression. The other girl immediately remembered the story that Lucas had told her in the Ferris wheel and she did not believe it until just then.

As if to make things even more chaotic, the distinct hum of an engine denounced that a car had just parked in front of the house, drawing everyone's attention and making Eleven flinch. They all were dead quiet, not sure of how to react to a strange presence at that time, but they all were relieved when the doorbell rang and a familiar voice started spilling out words.

"Joyce? Are you home? What the hell is going on? Do you know where Michael is? Ted and I went to the fair, but the boys weren't there, there was just… Oh, God, Joyce, answer the door!", Mrs. Wheeler said.

Steve confusedly lifted and eyebrow.

"What the…? I told your mom that you'd be home by…", he checked his watch and widened his eyes "Oh, boy…"

"No, no, no, no!", Mike said "I can't leave yet, Eleven might…".

"Yeah, you can't do much about it now, my friend", Steve said "The best you can do right now is explaining to your mom what the hell you've been up to".

"No, Steve, please, let me stay here, let me stay with El!", the boy cried.

Steve walked up to the front door alone, answered it and tried not to look into Karen's and Ted's angry eyes.

"Steve…?! What…?", Karen started.

"Okay, listen… None of that was my fault and they're all safe", he told them "They got lost in the fair and Mike is freaking out about it, but he's all good, trust me".

"Why didn't you call us, son?", Ted Wheeler asked in a monotonous tone.

"The power went down…?", Steve replied.

Ted looked at his wife in confusion and then it clicked to him.

"Oh, right. It did".

"Just let me take Mich…", Karen said, walking in.

"Who-who-whoa", the teenager said, stepping to the side and blocking Mrs. Wheeler's way so she wouldn't look at the bloody and confused mess that was Jane Hopper "You don't need to come in, it's all a mess in there and Mrs. Byers barely started cleaning it up…".

"Oh, I didn't realize…", Karen peeked inside "Is that Hopper?".

"Yep, but this isn't really a good time", Steve replied, trying to block Karen's view with the door "I actually shouldn't be here either. It was a bit of a last-moment choice. I should go home too. Hey, Mike, are you coming or not?!"

"No, I told you, I'm staying with El!", Mike's voice came from inside.

"Is Jane in there, too?", Karen said.

Steve smirked at Mrs. Wheeler and lifted his eyebrows almost comically.

"Just a second", he said before going back inside and closing the door "Alright, who the hell told you that you're in command?!".

"You're not in command either", Karen and Ted heard Mike replying inside.

"Let's suppose for a second that I'm not. Your freaking parents are outside! What am I supposed to tell them?", the teenager spoke.

"I don't know; tell them I'm sleeping over or someth… Ow, ow, ow!", Mike protested.

The door opened and Steve quickly pushed Mike through. While Ted didn't mind to what he had just heard, Karen seemed a bit worried.

"Was he causing any trouble?", she asked, putting her hand on the boys shoulder.

"Nah", Steve said with the least convincing expression on his face.

Without saying anything else, the Wheelers grabbed Mike and went back to their car. Karen sent Steve and empty wave and he reciprocated the move. Soon Ted started the car and they left the Byers' house.

Steve let out a relieved sigh when the car wasn't on sight anymore and walked back inside.

"Alright, they're gone. Now what?", he said.

"Now you're to take these kids home. There's too much going on for us to handle and we can't afford to get them involved on it", Hopper replied.

Steve looked at Max and Lucas.

"You heard the man, let's go".

"No way! Didn't you see what happened?! The shadow monster, it's out there; and now Eleven…!", Lucas protested.

Max held his hand and gripped tightly.

"Lucas, we should go", she said.

Two things surprised the boy. First, she didn't call him 'Stalker' and second, she was still shaking. He glared at her and noticed the way she did not look away from his eyes. He looked back at Steve.

"W-we should go", Lucas said.

While the boy followed Steve and Max outside, he looked behind one more time to see Joyce and Hopper looking worriedly at El, who still stared at Max as if a new bond had just been built between the girls. Nancy and Jonathan stood silent. They'd have a lot more of explanation to do. Will didn't move or say anything, but somewhere deep inside, awful memories had been brought up in his mind. Lucas knew that he hadn't seen the end of that chaos yet.

"Mental", he whispered and kept walking.

The first notes of an electric guitar fluttered angrily from the tape player on top of the drawer. The room smelled like second-hand smoke, but a slight sweet scent of beer could be felt through it. The cold wind from outside blew through the curtains and somewhat helped to clean the bitter air of the place. In the music that was playing, the vocalist started singing.

It's early morning, the sun comes out. Last night was shaking; and pretty loud.

"Yeah, it was", Billy chuckled as if talking back to the vocalist "It was, buddy".

The teenager had picked that night to work out as he blasted his music as loud as possible. With his sister hanging out with those weird middle-schoolers she called her friends and his dad out along with her mother, there was finally no one else around to bother him, to tell him what to. That being said, limits were not a word to be used that night. That was what he pictured as a perfect weekend.

My cat is purring, it scratches my skin; so what is wrong with another sin?

Not to mention the party the previous day. Hawkins could feel like hell to Billy, but he they knew how to throw a party and he had to admit it. Last night had been wilder than usual. Literally no one had gotten out of it sober. The teenager could barely remember it, but he was pretty sure that a guy there was dared to drink gasoline. The best thing was, due to being unable to drive home, Billy convinced the host of the party to let him stay at her house. Next thing he knows, he wakes up in her bed in the following morning.

The bitch is hungry, she needs to tell. So give her inches and feed her well.

Damn, it felt good to be him.

Billy took another drag of his cigarette before letting go of his weight to make a quick pause on the exercise. He got up from his bed, cracked open a can of beer and walked up to the window to exhale the smoke outside. There were no cars to be seen around, except for the parked cars around the street. His family still was hours away from arriving, which meant he could keep the music up for a while.

More days to come, new places to go. I've got to leave; it's time for a show.

He happily took a sip of his beer.

Here I am! Rock you like a hurryc-

All the lights went out and the tape player immediately stopped. Not even the stars were visible due to the thick blanket of clouds that hovered above Hawkins. The night was pitch black and seeing was now a challenging. Outside, the neighborhood dogs started to bark and howl.

"What the fuck?!", Billy yelled, looking around "You gotta be kidding me; this piece of shit place just went out of power?!".

As expected, the shadows did not provide an answer.

Igniting his lighter to get a slight glimpse of illumination, Billy left the room and wandered through the house. He could be the tough boy at school, the one who all girls always talked about and the one who would never lose a basketball game, but in his house, he couldn't even find a flashlight without his dad around. Well, his 'perfect little sister' had always been the responsible one, which meant that she would likely know where to find a flashlight. He grunted in frustration. That was the first time that he ever needed her and she wasn't around.

He stumbled around for many long minutes, beginning his search for a reliable light source on the living room, then moving to the bedrooms and finally finding a few candles in the kitchen. He lit one of them up with the flame of his lighter and stuck it to the kitchen table.

Once the place was barely illuminated, Billy instinctively left the house and looked around. There was not a trace of light as far as the eye could see. Some people had also left to check on what was happening, but they knew just as much as the teenager. Hawkins had gone black and no one knew why. He went back inside.

"I swear this place just gets worse at every minute!", he yelled, slamming the door shut.

The more he thought of it, the more he understood that his only option at the moment was going to bed. It was still pretty early for that, but the teenager figured that some alcohol would help him to fall asleep. After finishing his beer, he threw the can away and went to bed. Hopefully the power would come back on before his dad arrived so he could still enjoy a few hours of his Sunday, but he wasn't counting on that. Once he lay down on his bed, it didn't take long before he fell asleep.

…ane! Here I am! Rock you like a hurricane!

Billy woke up abruptly and struggled to open his eyes. The song was playing. The lights were on; the power was back. He wasn't sure how much he did sleep for or if there was anyone else in the house. Judging by the lack of complaints about the thunderous music that blasted from his tape player, he was still alone.

Something shattered in the kitchen. The noise was so loud that Billy could hear it even with the music on. Maybe there was someone home after all.

"Max, what are you doing, you little shit?".

My body is burning; it starts to shout. Desire is coming, it breaks out loud.

Besides the tape player that did not stop playing the iconic song from 'Scorpions', the house was silent. Billy waited for an answer, in vain. He was about to yell a curse word when a shadow slithered from under the door.

Billy jumped back and retrieved until his back touched the wall.

Lust is in cages 'til storm breaks loose. Just have to make it with someone I choose.

The smoke quickly scattered around and reached inside the room, though there was no wind to move it. The light on the ceiling started flickering and the music got louder.

The night is calling, I have to go. The wolf is hungry, he runs to show.

"Shit, shit!", he said "What the hell?!".

No one answered.

He's licking his lips, he's ready to win on the hunt tonight for love at first sting!

The shadow slithered closer to him, getting faster at each second. It moved like it had a brain of its own, as if it was hunting the teenager.

In a blink of an eye, it flung itself towards Billy, completely blocking his vision and filling his nostrils with the scent of burnt flesh. He couldn't breathe or see; the smoke was trying to get inside him. It slithered inside his ears, mouth and nose. With horror, he realized that it was getting in his eyes. All he could perceive besides the unbearable feeling that something was trying to reach for his mind from inside was the loud music that refused to stop playing.

Here I am! Rock you like a hurricane! Here I am! Rock you like a hurricane!

Blindly swinging his arms at the cloud of black specs like a swarm of insects, Billy stumbled on a chair and fell to the ground, where he was unable to fight the shadow. He couldn't inhale anymore and his eyes felt sore. In the teenager's mind, he was going to die right there, without even knowing what was happening.

But then it stopped.

Widening his eyes and talking a deep gasp of air, involuntarily kicking his legs behind and reaching forward with his arms as if he was drowning and tried to swim to the surface.

A relieving moment went by with nothing but the song playing on the background, shooting out fast and sharp notes of a guitar solo. Panting, Billy quietly got up and looked around. It was gone; his room was empty. Not only that, his breathing was now normal and his eyes didn't hurt anymore. It was like the shadow had never been there. He turned the tape player off.

When did his room get so warm?

Billy didn't take long to realize that the air itself felt scorching and quickly took his shirt off, hoping to cool down, but the heat just kept getting more and more intense at each second. He ran into the bathroom, turned the tap on and hastily washed his face, rubbing his eyes with his palms as he tried to ease the warmth. It seemed to work. The air got moister and colder.

But when he opened his eyes, he realized that the air wasn't the only thing that felt different. He jumped back when he looked up to the mirror to see no reflection, but a bunch of black roots tangling up on each other and obstructing the whole wall. They covered every surface like vines. A thin layer of dust floated in the air and the only illumination came from a ghostly red light outside.

As if the horrifying sight of this new twisted world wasn't enough to frighten the teenager, dozens of flashes invaded his mind. Disgusting-looking holes in trees from which a shy red light slithered through, crumbled down tunnels with dead roots, quadruped creatures without faces and an absolutely huge shadow hovering above the clouds. They all disappeared just as fast as they made their way into his mind, but he wouldn't ever forget them, like pictures shown to him to prove that this nightmarish dimension was real.

"This isn't happening, this isn't happening, this isn't happening... This isn't! Happening!", he yelled in a fear-fueled anger.

The flashes did not stop. A loud hiss echoed in his head.

"Fuck this! Get out of my head!", he shouted, trying to cover his ears.

The hiss got louder.

"Get the hell out of here!", he got up and yelled.

The mirror in front of him shattered. The wall crumbled down. Petrified, Billy jumped back, feeling a sharp pain on the back of his head. His nose bled.

He looked around, trying to acknowledge what made the tiles in the wall break apart until he realized that he was the source of the energy. The hissing stopped. Billy could feel that he was doing what that force wanted.

He wanted to do it, too.

With a single twitch of his neck, he ripped the door off the wall next to him and it hit the corridor floor with a muffled thump. The pain on his head had gotten worse, but it was still bearable. Billy grinned and let out a scream as he unleashed this new energy on everything on his sight,

Breaking everything around in a wild frenzy, he laughed like a maniac. Soon, the bathroom was just a pile of rubble. He had received a power he could not even begin to believe that was possible, a power that came from this mysterious source that showed him all of those images on the back of his head.

It did not give away those abilities for no reason… No… 'He' wanted something in return. 'He' wanted Billy's help with a couple things, starting with getting rid of Max and her creepy little friends. That would be a pleasure to the teenager. After he was done, he could use that new skill for personal purposes.

The world flashed and everything went back to normal. Nothing was broken anymore, but his powers were still there. Billy looked at the mirror again, his face bloody and his skin pale. Some of his veins were pitch black. He grinned.

He had never felt so powerful, so capable of fighting back all of his problems. And that was exactly what he planned on doing.

Next chapter preview: Steve finds out that someone broke into his house during the night. Brenner and his agents keep making progress on their research.