Every Rose Has Its Thorns (Harrington x OC)

~Prologue~

Word count: 672

November 6, 1981

Thirteen ran.

She ran as fast as she could away from these... things.

Even after five years in this god forsaken place, she had no name for these creatures. Creatures with no defining features, whose faces open like flowers.

She realizes she hadn't been paying attention, which is a bad idea where she is, until she's surrounded by younger, but just as deadly, creatures.

Her eyes widen before her hands start bursting in flames, causing the creatures to back away from her.

"Alright, you win boys." she giggles, her voice scratchy from not talking and her words not clear as she lets her powers fade out.

Completely out of breath but ready to once again find a way to escape, she walks over to one of the creatures and climbs on its back.

"Right, let's go." she whispers quietly.

Thirteen had a good feeling about this day, though she always has a good feeling about this day every year.

She drifts off into thought as her monster companion walks into the woods once more.

She knows everything about herself, she knows her real name, but she hates to say it.

When she was five years old, she was forced to go live with her fath- Papa after her mom passed away from cancer.

So she was flown all the way to Hawkins, Indianna where she landed, on her sixth birthday, only to be greeted by Papa taking her to a place she hated being: Hawkins Lab.

She shared a space with an assistant to Papa, Peter Ballard, until she lost control on her seventh birthday and was sent down to the rest of the kids.

"You almost killed Peter, do you understand that Rose?" Papa says as he drags her down the hallway by the arm to a room with a singular chair in it.

"But dad-" she starts to say, trying to get out of the chair before being slapped.

"You will no longer be referred to as Rose, you will be called Thirteen from now on." he says, sitting down beside her with a tattoo gun. "You will now refer to me as Papa just like all the other kids. Understand?"

"But-" she starts to say before, once again, getting slapped.

"Understand?" he says again, not unlocking the cuffs around her wrists.

"Yes d-" she pauses as Papa raises his hand again. "Yes Papa."

"Good girl." he says as he unlocks the cuffs.

She shakes her head, trying to get out of her head.

They come up on a familiar sight, the Castle Byers made from sticks in the woods.

"Drop at the house?" she asks the creature she's piggy backing.

It nods and goes over to the little shack, dropping her off on the porch of the house. She waves as it scurries back into the woods and she heads inside the house.

As she's about to walk inside, she hears a noise coming from a little bit into the woods. She tilts her head and walks forward, carefully lighting a flame in her palm.

She walk towards a tree and kneels, putting her hand against the red substance after putting the fire out. She pushes against it a bit before falling through, opening her eyes to a more colorful version of the world she learned to adjust to.

She starts looking around before walking towards the house she learned to call her own in the Upside Down.

Right before she makes it to the clearing, her knees give out and she slides down a tree to sit.

"Hey, are you alright?" a man's voice says.

She looks up and see a man squatting down beside her. She looks him in the eye before shaking her head slightly.

"Where are your parents?" a woman behind him asks, standing in front of four kids who look a bit younger than Thirteen herself and a boy who looks kind of the same age.

She shakes her head again before passing out from exhaustion.

~End of Prologue~