His Tenebris Moenibus - A Stranger Things Story

004

September 4th, 1979

102 Hours Remain

Truth be told, Emily hated children, especially little ones. Always so needy, obnoxious... the list could go on. Teenagers could be just as bad, bratty and apathetic. Usually, Emily disliked most of the children here. Kids Seventeen's age hadn't yet been beaten down and sometimes screamed and complained, one of Emily's least favorite sounds. Then there was Two and his gang, often picking on the younger ones.

Honestly, it hurt Emily a little bit that the new Four was one of his lackeys. She hated the number, but she hated disrespect to it even more.

Two was very callous for a twelve year old. His holier-than-thou attitude was one of the worst things Emily had to put up with day to day. He didn't show respect towards anyone, especially her because she was currently the only female orderly. That also happened to be Two's fault. Poor Johanna was a bit airheaded to begin with, but that didn't give Two the right to verbally assault her like he had.

Just as well, Emily figured. There's no place for a soft heart in the lab. Try as he may, Two couldn't get under her skin. He didn't know her past, none of the children did. She wasn't one to enjoy a child's suffering, but it gave Emily a small sense of smugness when she or one of the other orderlies had to wrangle him and take him to the isolation room or straight to Dr. Brenner if the situation called for it.

He'd gotten collared when he'd very loudly called her a bitch. How he had learned the word was beyond Emily, but a part of her so badly wanted to be the one handling the remote, cranking the electricity level to the highest setting and not letting go of the trigger. Really, that feeling passed by a lot when one of the children was being especially ornery. Two was just the most frequent offender.

Maybe that made her a bad person, but she would never act on those feelings, lest she be subjected to punishment herself. After training had stopped, Emily had hoped that the shocks would have stopped. In reality, it was almost worse. Instead of a collar, she would be subjected to two other orderlies repeatedly tazing her with handheld devices until she passed out or Brenner said to stop. Either way, she'd be unable to move for the next several hours in extreme pain.

It made her even more bitter when she came to realize that of the entire staff, only she and Henry were subjected to such punishments. One of the doctors had slapped a child for being unable to move a bottle of water during her lessons. Emily passed by Brenner's office, escorting Sixteen to the nurse's station for a headache, to see said doctor only get a firm reprimand and then sent back to her testing room as if nothing had happened.

If Emily or Henry so much as spoke to a child in the wrong way, they'd get tazed to all hell.

She sometimes wondered if Brenner was still secretly experimenting on them. Not for their abilities, but to see how long they could take it before they did something drastic. A mental game.

Standing in the corner of the Rainbow Room with her hands clasped behind her back at attention, Emily watched the children as the clock ticked closer to 10. She reflected on such punishments she had received in the past, the reasonings behind each becoming more absurd the more she remembered.

Aggressively and loudly told off Three for knocking Twelve's block tower down? Tazed.

Stepped on Seven's foot by mistake, sending him into wails that made Emily's skin crawl? Tazed, and extra for not comforting the child properly.

Spent too long in the bathroom after getting food poisoning when she was supposed to be watching the children? Tazed.

The worst one she remembered was when Nine accidentally pushed her with her powers, sending her crashing into Henry. They landed on top of each other, helped each other up, and dusted each other off like anyone likely would do. Apparently to Brenner, they were too close for his liking and they both got punished for it. To anyone else, it seemed like they were performing common human decency. The way they had gotten punished for it was almost as if Brenner had seen them in a lewd act in the corner of the room.