Zero: A Stranger Things Fanfiction

Chapter 004

Jenna closed the front door behind her cautiously, guiding it back to the frame as lightly as possible. Her house was dim, deafeningly silent, and as peaceful as it got. Standing there in the living room, goosebumps still raised on her arms from the walk home, she wondered if her parents had just stopped caring about her overnight. Maybe. They had always been threatening it.

She padded up the stairs, every step of her converse watched for volume. She flicked the overhead on once she got to her room. And there it was. Apparently, Mom and Dad still cared enough to punish her for last night.

Her stereo was gone, replaced by Dad's chunky alarm clock. On the wall across from her, a tangle of wallpaper and cords hung dejectedly without a phone to connect to. Jesus Christ. At least they hadn't hit her.

She sighed heavily and sat down on her bed, the springs squealing quietly. Then, to her own surprise, she laughed. Her whole phone had been ripped out of her wall, and Nancy Wheeler was probably having sex with Steve Harrington.

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"Are you ready, Zero?"

The IV pumped painfully in the girl's arm, connected to a monstrous, frightful machine Zero had only seen a few times before. Various bandages wrapped around her arm, each one dripping with cords. Despite all of it, she nodded shakily and focused on Mama. The woman leaned forward and Zero gently put her hands on either side of Mama's head.

"You may begin. Remember, darling, only the memories I told you about. Nothing more."

Zero's eyes closed. Under her eyelids, her eyes moved violently from side to side. A low vibration dripped into the air, humming incessantly.

"When you were twenty eight, you rode a horse. Brown and white. With a pink nose. You wore a... a light pink dress and a black helmet. The sky was cloudy."

"That's good, that's very good. Now go deeper. A decade." The room's vibration upped a frequency, its volume increasing. Blood steadily rolled down from Zero's nose.

"You were eighteen. You went to a party. A red sparkly... a red sparkly dress. You had long hair..." The girl's face tensed, physically straining. A stream of blood began dripping from her other nostril. "They were singing a song while you danced. Good-goodnight Irene." Zero's breaths began getting ragged.

"Okay, darling, you can come closer. That's alright, come back up." Zero nodded gratefully and the new trickle of blood stopped.

"You met me when you were thirty eight. You had a navy blue outfit, with a white ruffle. Pearl earrings and pink lipstick. I was very little. But I told you how you were feeling and you liked that. You stayed." Zero's eyebrows knit as she kept digging.

"What emotion was I feeling that day, darling?" There wasn't an answer for a moment.

"There's something else," Zero whispered, her hands curled into fists on her legs. Mama shook her head just a bit against Zero's hands.

"What emotion, Zero?"

"They blindfolded you when you left. So you couldn't see where you were going. And a man told you something... about my brothers and sisters. A... 'project'."

"Zero, we're done now." Mama's voice had grown dangerously cold, but Zero hadn't seemed to notice.

"You were excited and said it-"

A bright flash of pain blinded Zero's mind. She cried out and scrambled backwards. Mama stared at her in disbelief, a muscle twitching in her forehead, another in her jaw.