Here's Chapter 1 everybody! I hope you enjoy!

I wrote this pretty quickly while trying to stick to some guidelines so sorry if there are a few mistakes

Incoming sadness (you've been warned)

Thanks again to everybody who is reading or following.

Let me know what you think!

Michael woke up the next day to sun rays entering his basement. The cold floor was hard and he had a rough night of sleeping. No nightmares though, that was a bonus, he could scarcely remember the last time he actually had a good dream.

He shuffled onto his feet and yawned, stretching his skinny arms outward. It might have been a rough night of sleep, but at least he had the small comfort of the blanket fort. His hair was tangled and messy from rolling on the floor. He heard a voice calling to him from upstairs.

"Michael? Michael!? It's time to get ready for school." She shouted, unaware he was in the basement. That was until she starting coming down the stairs. She jumped when she saw her son standing in the middle of the basement floor, the lighting barely enough to illuminate that it was him.

"Michael, you scared me," she began, "what are you doing down here?"

"I couldn't sleep, so I came down here last night," he replied, not knowing that this would begin a string of questions from Karen. Michael was tired and wasn't thinking straight.

"What do you mean you couldn't sleep last night? Don't you always sleep upstairs?" She eyed her son. Michael just stared back at her and didn't have an answer. "Do you come down here a lot? What's wrong?... Why are you down here so much?... Are you okay?... Can I help you somehow?... Were but just a few of some of the questions his mom was throwing at him. He was defenseless, and he was breaking. Michael tried to hold back the tear he quietly let fall down his pale cheek. His thoughts filled with the scenes of Eleven shouting the Demogorgon out of existence.

"Honey what's wrong?" Karen finally finished feeling desperate to get an answer from her son.

Finally… after one month, after so many guilty thoughts and tragic attacks on his mental psyche… Michael broke. He didn't feel weak, he just felt defeated and finished.

"Mom… I, I think my heart is broken," Michael said, starting to sob, letting the tears fall. He didn't care about keeping Eleven a secret anymore. He needed to tell someone. He needed to cry, and to vent, and to release the emotions he was building up for a month.

Karen became overwhelmed with fear and protective instinct for her son. Her face curled as she frowned, a sad expression across her face.

"What happened honey?" She asked.

Michael could barely speak at this point; his broken sentences and words were all but impossible to pick up for his mother. "I lost someone, she's gone, and I don't think she's ever coming back. It's like she's here with me, but she's not," he began, "and there's a part of me that's ripped out, I don't know how to describe it." Michael finished before adding one more sentence to his cry for help. "I loved her mom, I really loved her."

Karen was a mother, she had been through life, she had been through school and lovers and family deaths, broken promises, and a few broken hearts here and there, but in all her years growing up, she had never seen herself the way her son was standing before her and drowning in sadness. The only thing she could do was close the distance between them both, her arms around him as he buried his head in her. She caressed his hair, trying to calm him down. She could never understand what her son was going through, but she could at least try.

A realization came to Karen as she was staring at the back of the basement, looking at the blanket fort. Starting to connect the small fragmented pieces of the last month she pulled together that the fort meant something more than just a nice 'sit down' spot for him and his friends.

"Did she ever come over here?" Karen asked, but after the events of last month, she knew that it had to be true. She did find that strand of blonde hair from the wig in his blanket fort after all. She never gave it a second thought until now.

Michael nodded his head, still upset, and crying. Even though the movement of his head was shaky, it was enough for Karen to gather that it was a yes.

"Was she over here often?"

Another nod.

"Was that fort you made meant for her?"

Michael nodded and the crying picked back up, it was hard for him to think about it.

"And that's why you sleep down here, isn't it?" She finished.

One last nod from Michael. Their cold bodies stood in the basement for a long time, just holding each other. Enough time passed for the sun beams to switch their positions. Tears went down Karen's face as she empathized with her son's emotions. She tried to connect to him and be there for him. It was everything a mother should do. She was an intelligent woman and could tell that whatever set Michael into this dark place must have happened the same night she found him at the school. The two almost mirrored their embrace from that night.

"I'm sorry." Karen said shakily with sadness.

Upstairs, leaning against the wall next to the basement entrance was Nancy. She overheard the emotional event and was also crying. Of course, she knew all along that Michael was heartbroken, but to see her little brother this upset tore her apart. Her thoughts wandered to Jonathan, and how she could have lost him too. The image of the Demogorgon pinning Jonathan down to the floor, inches away from erasing Jon Byers from this world. What am I doing? She asked herself. After lingering over the sad thought she picked herself up and got ready to head out, school would be starting soon.

Karen decided that Michael should stay home. She would make him his favorite food and they would talk. There were still a lot of questions she wanted answers for, and Mike was now ready to talk. Of course, he wouldn't tell her everything about El, her powers, her past. The last thing he needed was for his Mom to think he was crazy. Heartbroken Michael was, but not crazy.

Michael sat in the basement at the Dungeons and Dragons table. He was trying to get his mind off El as he scribbled some notes about the new campaign he was creating. His job was important, and he didn't want to let his best friends down.

Karen didn't want to overextend herself in having Michael open to her. She didn't expect him to tell her everything, but she was concerned about learning that her son was hanging out with a girl here at her own home, who she didn't even know existed. Her feet moved out of the kitchen down onto the first couple of steps to the basement.

"Michael, can I come down?" She asked.

"Yes," Mike replied.

Karen's footsteps drove her to the bottom of the basement. She placed Michael's food onto the table, hot macaroni's and cheese with hot dogs cut and thrown in. She sat down on the small chair next to him.

"Michael," She began, "what was her name. Can you tell me about her?"

"Her name was El."

"Oh, that's pretty, was it short for something?" Karen asked.

"Umm yeah… it was short for El-" Michael started but remembered that he was about to tell his mother about the girl with psychic abilities that was raised in a lab and could shout things out of existence, whose nickname was short for eleven, which was exactly what she was. The eleventh test subject from Hawkins Lab. Saying her name wasn't going to make things easier to keep her secret safe.

"Short for what?"

"El, was short for Eleanor."

"That's a pretty name," Karen smiled.

"Yeah," Mike said, "she was really pretty."

"What happened to her?"

Michael contemplated how to respond to this question. He needed to open up to his mom about the events of last month, but he didn't want to spill the whole truth.

"She died. I don't know how, but I just know that she did." Michael said. He was doing what he did best when he lied. It wasn't the truth, but it wasn't false either.

"How did you find out?"

"Chief Hopper told me, he knew I was close with her." He said as he started eating his food, driving the fork into the tiny noodles.

"I see," she said, looking down at the floor. The death of a child was never a laughing matter and was always sad, but this was a worse feeling, because this child was connected to her son.

Karen began again, "why wasn't it on the news?"

Michael stopped and thought again about his answer, then remembered a detail he had used before.

"She was from Sweden, and her parents didn't want anybody to know about it, but the Chief wanted to tell me."

Michael and his mother talked for the better part of an hour. He was pouring his emotions out to her and trying to make sense of what love feels like after you've lost it. It was a strange thing to him, opening to his mom about this. He never thought in a million years he would have to, maybe not as a twelve-year-old at least, but the situation left him with no choice. When they finally finished talking she grabbed his empty bowl and the glass of milk she brought down with it, heading upstairs.

"Michael," she started, turning back to her son, his glassy eyes staring at her, "If you ever need to talk about it again, I'm here." She finished.

"Okay," Michael said, wiping a tear from his eye.

Karen walked back up the steps to the house, she needed to get going to run some errands.

At the middle school; Dustin, Lucas, and Will were all in math class. Their teacher was going over some math problems on the black board that was dusty with chalk. Lucas was in between them.

"Psst, where's Mike?" Dustin whispered to Lucas.

"I don't know, probably at home asleep, he looked sick yesterday." Lucas replied.

"Yeah, you're probably right." Dustin turned back towards the front of the class and started writing down some notes about the problems Mrs. Garland was hap hazardly completing.

Will the wise was also doing the same, but he wondered if Mike was truly okay. Sure, yeah, Lucas was the observant one with it came to the physical, but Will discernment of what was going on with someone emotionally was a gift. He knew his friend was hurting and concluded that something must have happened because of it.

Suddenly the classroom door opened, the principal had smile on his face. Mrs. Garland dropped her chalk and turned to the man.

"Mr. Coleman how good to see you. I see you have our new student with you." She said excitedly. Her voice was chipper and almost like a child.

"Why yes, he's good to go. Ready to learn," Principal Coleman said, looking down at the new student then back up at Mrs. Garland.

"Well we have a seat ready for you, its right in the second row over there, those two seats, you can choose either one." She said.

The new student walked out from behind the principal, revealing himself to the class. He was tall or at least taller than everyone else, but only a little bit. His hair was short and brown, shaped a little like Michael's father. Strangely he was also very skinny.

"That kid needs to eat something," Dustin whispered very quietly to Lucas. Lucas just nodded his head in reply.

The boy was wearing a loose dark green long sleeve shirt that looked like his parents didn't even glance at the size before buying. Blue jeans, and a brown backpack. He shambled over to one of the empty seats. As he was moving over Will looked up at him and smiled.

"Hi," he said.

"Hi," the boy replied, giving a quick glance and a small smile. He sat down at one of the two empty desks, which were right behind the boys, then he pulled out a white composition notebook from his bag. His face went cold and unemotional. Like he never knew what it meant to be nervous. Will watched him as he sat down and then turned back to the front of the class.

"Okay, now that you're here you have to introduce yourself to the class," Mrs. Garland directed towards the new student.

"Me?" He asked.

"Well yes silly, you are the only new student to walk in. Go ahead and introduce yourself."

"My name… well my name is Sean, Sean Caster." He said as he went to scratch his head.

Dustin turned back to glance at him, when he turned he caught the very end of the boy scratching his head. A smile was on Dustin's face, but then his eyes wandered over to something, something that he never thought he'd ever see again, something that was very easy to read and understand. The sleeves of the loose shirt Sean was wearing revealed something on his arm.

Dustin was staring in confusion as he read the numbers 002. As quickly as he saw them they vanished under the cover of the sleeve returning to position. Immediately Dustin returned his focus to the front, wondering if he was going crazy. He slowly looked over at Lucas, who had noticed his hurried head turning back to the front. Lucas knew something was wrong, and after class he was about to find out exactly what it was.

Uh Oh! New player entering the arena!

Who is this mysterious Sean, and what is he all about?

ALSO! I want to let you guys know that happiness is not far from being around the corner, I won't exactly say how

You'll just have to find out when it is revealed later ;)

Thank you guys again for reading and if there is anything I can improve on message me or give a review.

More chapters to follow shortly.

Have a great day

-10plus1