Chapter 016: Double Vision

It was her. She was the girl I had seen in the drawing at the lab. She looked a little bigger than she had in the vision, but her shaved head was still there. When she had looked at me, I knew immediately. Something inside of me felt connected to her, but I wasn't sure why. I had never seen her outside of the vision I had had, but something was telling me she was the key to all of this. There had to be a reason she was living in Hawkins Lab and why they were desperately trying to capture her again.

My answer came in the form of a nosebleed. I had struggled to hang onto Dustin as we zoomed through the town. I was pretty light for a sixteen-year-old, but I was still about fifteen to twenty pounds heavier than he was, so our weights didn't quite balance out. The boys kept yelling back and forth. Eventually, the third one, Lucas, showed up, pedaling just as fast as the other two. We dodged the vans through every shortcut they could find, but it wasn't enough. They had caught up with us each time. In a matter of minutes, they had cornered us. It looked like there was no way out until the craziest thing happened.

Just as we were about to run right smack dab into the van in front of us, it was hoisted into the air. I watched in awe as it flew right over our heads and smashed upside down onto the road behind us, cutting off the rest of them. My jaw nearly dropped to the floor. How on Earth, I thought, but when I caught sight of the girl, I knew exactly what had happened. It was the little drop of blood falling from her nose that made me realize what was going on. Whoever this girl was, she was like me.

"What did you do," Dustin called out to me, snapping me right out of my thoughts.

"What did I do? What did you do?"

"Can we talk about this later," Lucas yelled, shutting us up.

I continued hanging on for dear life as the boys pedaled through the town, hoping and praying that nobody was following us. As we zipped through the dirt, weaving around tree after tree, I couldn't tear my eyes away from the girl. There was just something about her. I had never felt this kind of connection before. I hadn't even realized I was staring at her until her head snapped over at me, in which I quickly averted my eyes. Based on what I had just witnessed, I did not want to get on her bad side.

"Ho—holy shit," Dustin exclaimed as we started to come to a stop. "Did you see what she did to that van?"

I looked around, taking in the sight of what looked to be a vehicle graveyard. "No, Dustin, we missed it," Nancy's younger brother, Mike, shot back. Dick.

"I mean, that was," Dustin stammered.

"Awesome," Lucas finished. "It was awesome." I watched as he stepped closer to the girl, kneeling down in front of her. "Everything I said about you being a traitor, I was wrong. I'm sorry."

The girl studied him for a moment as he placed his hand on her shoulder. "Friends," she muttered, "friends don't lie. I'm sorry too."

"Me too," Mike added, holding his hand out to Lucas, who had stood back up at the sight of it. It took a good second, but Lucas still grabbed his hand and gave it one good shake.

"Well I'm glad you guys are having a nice little heart to heart here, but I think you forgot we're being chased by some big bad guys right now," I interjected.

"She's right," Dustin said. "We need to figure out a plan."

"What plan," Lucas asked. "We don't know anything about the lab."

All three of them looked over at the girl, seemingly expecting some kind of magic answer from her, yet she stayed silent. "Okay, fine," I sighed, taking their attention away from her. "The Chief and I snuck in a couple of nights ago, but we got caught. They're going to be on high alert now."

"You snuckinto a heavily secured building," Dustin exaggerated. "With the Chief?"

"Trust me, it wasn't that easy."

"Wait," Mike interrupted. "So you're telling us they caught you?" I nodded. "And they just let you go?"

"I—I don't know. I don't know what happened. I, uh, passed out," I lied.

Dustin raised a brow at me, clearly suspicious. "Then why were they chasing you?"

"Uh, I—um"

"Powers," a soft voice said from behind me. I turned to see the girl that I had been so fascinated with this whole time, just observing the three of us. "She has powers," she repeated.

My eyes darted around, double checking that no one else was listening. "How do you know that?"

"What is she talking about," Lucas asked.

I let out a heavy sigh, though I was still incredibly confused. How did this girl know about any of this? Did she know who I was? "I promise I'll explain later. We really need to map out a plan first."

The boys exchanged looks between each other. I was nervous that they were going to shun me from their little fugitive circle, but neither of them said a thing. Lucas had walked away to search for something to build a makeshift map with while the other three found a bare spot to sit down. Neither of us had even had time to speak by the time Lucas had gotten back, placing three sticks in a triangle and using another as a pointer.

"This is Randolph Road, right here," he began, pointing towards the closest corner. "The fence starts here and goes all the way around." He dragged the stick around the entirety of the triangle before landing right in the middle of it. "And this is the lab right there. The gate's gotta be there somewhere."

"Who owns Hawkins Lab," Dustin asked from beside me.

"The sign says 'Department of Energy'," Lucas replied

"Department of Energy? What does that mean?"

"It's the government," I interrupted.

"She's right," Mike added. "It's the military."

"Then why does it say 'Energy'," Dustin asked.

"Just trust me, alright? It's military. My dad's told me about it before."

I looked over at the girl, who had been silent this whole time. "But what are they doing? Why do they need all of this? Why do they need her?"

"They make weapons," Mike explained, "to fight the Russians and commies."

"Weapons," Lucas repeated.

Then, suddenly everything made so much sense. This girl had been stuck in the lab her whole life because they were training her to be a weapon. Then came the thought that maybe that's why they had been after me too. Maybe they had found out and wanted to use me just like they did her.

Dustin let out a gasp. "Oh, Jesus. This is bad. This is really bad."

"That place is, like, maximum security," I told them. "I can get you in, but I can't guarantee you'd make it out, especially right now."

"So then what do we do," Dustin asked.

"I don't know," Mike replied, "but we can't go home. We're fugitives now."

Just moments later, the bone rattling sound of a helicopter cut our conversation short. All five of us quickly looked over towards the sound. You could just barely see the silhouette of a helicopter heading right towards us. My heart started pounding. If these people ended up finding us after all that effort we put in, there's no telling what they would do. I watched the kids quickly jump up from their spots, grabbing their bikes to shove them underneath an old school bus sitting off to the side. I rushed over to the doors, prying them open. "Get in the bus," I shouted at them, practically pushing each of them to the ground as soon as they stepped inside.

As soon as I was able to account for each of them, I slammed the doors shut and threw myself right behind them. The moment my knees hit the floor, the sound was at its loudest. The helicopter was now passing right over us, hopefully oblivious. Eventually, it died down a little, signaling that it had flown on by. I sighed with relief. We were safe. For now.

"You hid her in your basement this whole time?!"

"She didn't have anywhere else to go!"

"And you didn't think to tell anyone?"

"Who was I going to tell?"

"Me!"

"I didn't know you knew!"

I let out a frustrated groan. I didn't know Mike or the rest of Will's friends very well, but I was still worried about them. I mean, they're eleven, and they decided to hide a telekinetic refugee in a basement. Who does that? Dustin had ended up interrupting our argument, but I had already tuned out of it. I was now focused on the girl practically cowering in the corner next to Mike. I needed to find out what she knew about me and how she knew it.

Without giving the boys another second of my time, I scooted over to the girl, giving her a warm smile in hopes that she'd feel comfortable enough to info dump on me. "What's your name," I asked her.

She hesitated for a minute, staring at me like nobody had ever spoken to her before. "Eleven," she finally said.

"Eleven?"

She nodded. "El"

"El," I repeated. "I'm Daisy."

"Pretty," she said.

"She can talk to Will," Mike interrupted, "in the Upside Down."

"The what?"

"The Upside Down," he repeated. "It's like our world but d—"

"I know what it is. I ju—never mind."

"Have you been there," Lucas asked.

I sighed. If I was going to tell these kids what was going on with me, now was a better time than any. "I don't know if I've actually been there. I have these visions sometimes where I can phase into the 'Upside Down.' I've talked to Will, but I'm not very good at it. I don't know exactly what I'm doing yet. I can shoot this sort of energy stuff out of my hands."

"What do you mean 'energy stuff'," Dustin asked.

"I don't know, okay? I don't know anything about it. I can just do it sometimes."

"Am I the only one that's a little suspicious," Lucas piped in. "You can do all this stuff but you don't know how?"

"Look, either you believe me or you don't. It doesn't change anything," I said as my eyes fell upon the girl next to me. "I saw you," I told her, "in one of the visions. You were in one of the rooms at Hawkins Lab. You were drawing, and that guy came in, the one that was just chasing us."

"Papa," she muttered.

I looked over at the other three. "If you want proof, I can show you," I said before gluing my eyes shut, focusing in on my most prominent emotion at the time.

Fear. I was afraid. Incredibly afraid. I didn't know what was going to happen to us in the next twenty-four hours. I didn't know if I would ever see my uncle again, if I would ever see Jonathan again, or Will, or Joyce, or anyone else I loved. Would they know what happened to me? Or would Hawkins Lab cover up my death just like they did with Will? Were they going to throw me into the othe—the Upside Down? Would I have to fight off more of those things? There's no way I would win. I would die before I could kill them.

"Holy shit," I heard Dustin mutter.

I opened my eyes to see my hands glowing a fluorescent white. They had never done that before. I had honestly expected the usual tiny slivers to jump out, but here I was looking like I was half lightbulb. The boys gawked at me, a tiny drop of blood running down my face as I felt a pair of hands placing themselves on top of mine. Eleven. As she did this, I felt every cell in my body light up. Soon, my whole body was glowing the same bright white color as my hands had been. I looked over at Eleven, her eyes closed and motioning for me to do the same. I complied, my eyelids fluttering shut as the world started to morph around us.

We were no longer in the bus. We were in the Upside Down, but it wasn't really the Upside Down. I could tell by the melancholy 'Castle Byers' in front of us. The only difference is that that was all I could see. The rest of the world was just black. There were no trees, no monsters, no disgusting piles of goo all over the place. It was nothing.

Eleven appeared next to me, taking my hand as she led me into Will's makeshift fort. My heart tugged when I saw who was inside. It was Uncle Jack, cradling a cold and terrified Will in his arms. His face was covered in dirt and blood. I felt a tear trickling down. I wanted to reach out and touch them, but I couldn't. When I tried, my hand had went right through them. Eleven's grip on my hand tightened, squeezing as everything started to vanish, throwing us into another vision.

This one was much more terrifying. It was Jack, again, only this time, he was just inches away from death. He was running—no, sprinting —through the woods just a few feet away from the last vision. Right behind him was that awful, piece of shit monster, its teeth bared and rearing for him. I wasn't able to feel it hunting him this time, but I knew exactly what was going on. I yelled out for him, hoping that he would hear me and that would somehow be enough for him to escape without a scratch, but he couldn't. He kept running until he was fighting for breath. I noticed him look towards us one time, pausing for a split second just as his foot made contact with one of the black vines spread across the ground. I watched in horror as the creature reached its arms out and snatched him up.

Before I could see anything else, the vision changed again. Again, it was Jack. He was perched up in one of the trees right above Castle Byers, his eyes darting between the first Jack and back to the second. My mind felt like it was on a rollercoaster right now. There were now three Jacks right in front of me, one with Will, the other being carried off, and the third watching the whole thing. When I looked to Eleven for an explanation, all she could do was stare back at me. I wasn't sure she fully knew what was going on either. I glanced back towards the third Jack just as a piercing scream cut through the air, forcing all three of them to look up to the sky. Eleven paused for a second, and I could see the fear in her eye. I was preparing myself to kick some major ass, but apparently she had other plans, because we were suddenly crashing right back down to reality before anything else happened.

The faces of all three boys popped up one by one, their mouths gaping open as they stared at the two of us. Dustin was the first one to speak. "Were you just glowing?"

"How did you do that," I asked Eleven, completely ignoring the rest of them.

She stared back at me, and I knew she wasn't going to tell me anything. I looked towards the boys, relying on one of them to tell me what had happened, but none of them said anything. All they did was gawk, staring at me like I was some kind of alien.

"Take a picture," I snapped. "It'll last longer."

"Wait a second," Mike said, throwing his hands in the air. "If El got her powers because of the Lab, how did you get yours?"

I looked between the four of them, trying to think of the best way to explain myself, but I had nothing. "I don't know."

"You do—"

"No, Mike, I don't. I didn't even know I had them until Will disappeared, and I passed out on a toilet, and I saw him, and everyone told me I was crazy. I mean, maybe I am crazy. I sure feel like I'm crazy. The doctor thinks I'm crazy. He gave me these pills, but they didn't really work that well, and then I stopped taking them. Hopper and I broke into the lab, and now my uncle's missing. Then I found out he works for those monsters, and I had this weird dream with him in a garden and some monsters, and he—"

"The Demogorgon," he interrupted.

"Can you just let me have a mental breakdown for one second?"

"No, the monster is a Demogorgon."

"You're just saying sounds right now."

"I'm not. It's the same thing as a Demogorgon in DnD."

I crossed my arms, scoffing in disbelief. "You're basing all of your knowledge on this thing off of a roleplaying game? You know this thing is killing people, right? This isn't a joke. P—the—their—d—d," I stuttered.

It felt like I had lost my voice. The more and more I thought about it, the tighter my chest started to get. My fight or flight instinct was kicked all the way up to a ten. My legs felt like jelly, and I was soon struggling just to suck some oxygen into my lungs. It was like a pile of bricks had fallen on top of me, and I couldn't get them off.

"She's having a panic attack," I heard Lucas say. "What do we do?"

My mind kept racing, replaying everything that had happened over the last week, everything that had been my fault. I got Hopper caught at the Lab. If I hadn't roped him into this and begged him to believe me, he would be safe. If I had never told Jonathan about that vision at school, he would've been able to mourn and move on. Joyce would've never known about the Upside Down. Nancy wouldn't have almost died. Jack would be waiting for me at home with a hopefully unburnt dinner. Jack. God, I missed him.

The world around me was spinning faster and faster, the reality of everything knocking the wind right out of me. I was scared. I had never experienced the feeling of utter doom, like it was inevitable that I was going to die any second now. My breathing started to pick up. My lungs had been getting smaller and smaller. That's when I felt a hand on top of mine and fingers interlocking with my own. I looked over to see El, her eyes wide with a sense of comfort in them. I was glued to her as I worked to steady my breath. Everything started to slow back down to reality. I smiled at her, hoping that she understood how grateful I was for her.

She smiled back, the first one I had seen from her, and uttered one word to me. "Friends."