sonder || steve harrington

chapter one

'i've been searching for a trail to follow again'

013.

that was the number stamped on her arm. but it was no longer her name.

ever since dr brenner and his team disappeared under 'suspicious circumstances', dr owens had taken over and he had a very different approach to the teen experiments. by this point, there were only two of these teenagers left in the lab. the rest had escaped, or died.

dr owens did some digging through the files and found the legal names of both these teenagers. 013 was truly called valerie mortimer and 012 was matthew gale. and by the time we begin our tale, valerie and matthew had spent almost a year under dr owen's care.

he had hired them a tutor so they could learn to speak fluent english and understand basic concepts.  however, this seemingly nice treatment couldn't hide the severe problem he was facing.  the upside down was spreading. and he needed them to stop it.

so under close supervision, the two teenagers would go into the strange tunnels and try to fight it. except, they had no idea how. despite combining the power that the two teenagers had, they couldn't figure out a solution.

anyway, our tale begins one autumn or fall depending on what you call it, when matthew and valerie were watching some television in the hopes of expanding their vocabularies.

"dr owens is coming." val told her friend, as she continued to watch the television programme.

the girl had enhanced hearing from birth, both a blessing and a curse. it meant she could hear things before anybody else, but it also meant the slightest noise was a bother to her.  thankfully, an element of this was that she could focus in on a singular sound if she focused, however she found it incredibly draining. this, along side her other abilities, made her incredibly useful for spy craft. however she was almost entirely useless when it came to fighting inter-dimensional monsters. 

"cool." matthew replied.

he was not as fortunate. his range of powers were far more physical. he was very jealous.

"val, how far is he?" matthew asked. while he was jealous of his best friend's ability, he was also fascinated by it.

"one minute and thirty seven seconds." she replied, with a small smile.

this was something matthew had taught her to say. having originally been born in canada to french speaking parents, she had an even smaller understanding of english than the other children in the lab. due to her abilities, brenner abused this by forbidding anyone from speaking english to her, so she wouldn't be able to listen in on what he was saying.

she wasn't supposed to spend much time with the other children either, in case she repeated anything she had overheard to them, since they would be able to understand. because of this, she had felt all the more isolated growing up. she was very grateful to be allowed to spend unlimited time with matthew after brenner's death.

they continued to watch the television as dr owens approached the room they were in. valerie nodded as the doctor arrived outside the room and matthew switched off the television using his mind. that was their version of fun. dr owens opened the door and walked in, while the two laughed a little.

"we're doing some testing with will today, so don't worry if you hear any strange noises." he explained, mostly to valerie. she didn't always understand him, but he hoped that by almost exclusively speaking to her in english, she'd pick it up quicker.

the boy had been brought in the night before in a horrific state and there were so many noises that valerie thought she might die.

"are you both okay? do you need anything? food?" he asked.

"sleep." val replied.

"kfc?" matthew asked, hopefully.

"sure. i'll get somebody to order kfc. valerie, maybe try going to bed?" dr owens suggested. she nodded.

she said goodbye to matthew and left the room at the same time as dr owens.

"tu respires forts." she commented, once they had both left the room.

"i'm just a bit more stressed than usual." he explained.

"sorry." she replied. she genuinely felt bad for him.

"that's okay, you go get some rest." he commented, before turning down a hallway.

she went to her 'bedroom' and changed into some warm pyjamas before getting into bed.

she focused onto the sound of her fan and felt blood running down her face from her nostril along her cheek and into her pillow. she woke up about an hour later with a pounding headache and her ears burned with the level of noise in the lab. she could hear yelling and somebody screaming in pain alongside the ordinary sounds of people working and the ventilation systems.

it got louder and louder until she too was screaming in pain.

then it stopped. all the noise quietened.

in this newfound quiet, she heard several sets of footsteps approaching her room.  the first to enter her room was matthew, who climbed into her bed and gently stroked her hair to help sooth her. the next was one of the scientists, he was holding a needle that contained a sedative.

they'd had to use it before when things got too much for her.

"it's okay. i'm okay." valerie said, quietly. "noise is gone." she could hear dr owens talking to someone on the other side of the lab, so she tried to focus on that.

"i'll get dr owens as soon as possible." the lab worker told her, before leaving them in her room.

"you're so strong valerie." matthew smiled, as he held her.

"my ear."

"val it's bleeding."

"what?"

"it's bleeding."

"ce n'est jamais arrivé auparavant."

blood started to trickle from her eyes.

"valerie!"

"je ne me sens bien." she said, starting to close her eyes.

"someone get dr owens!" matthew yelled.

'take me back to the night we met'
word count: 991

a/n: hi guys! i hope you've enjoyed the first chapter. i'm so in love with val and matthew and i cannot wait for you to see what happens next xx