Salt To The Wound (A Stranger Things Story)

Season 1-Chapter 16: Memories (Els POV

El has been hanging out with Julie so much recently and both love some good mystery and adventure they kind of just match like her and Max used to before she changed. "Hey," Julie said she had her hair straight down and it was icey blonde with pink tips. "Hi," El said smiling, "so I was wondering if you wanted to explore deeper into the woods and see what we coukd find,"Julie asked and El nodded. "Of course we coukd also just skip our last three periods and go since they're boring asf,"El said and Julie smiled nodding.

They dove into the woods seeing what new and special thinhs they could find stumbling across different animals and they loved animals. They took pictures as if they were sight seeing and then they sat on a log. "You know I enjoy doing things with you El Hopper,"Julie said smiling at El, "I enjoy doing things with you too Julie Bell," El said and then they kissed each other. The first kiss El ahs had since freshman year with max and it was wonderful, even better than all the kisses with Max this one was just different. Julie pulled away to see Els reaction and Ek was just stunned. She really loved that kiss and thought to herself that maybe she wanted to be something more than friends. Maybe Girlfriends? She thought to herself and Julie just stared at the lake smiling.

"Well let's go back now," Julie said gettung up and so El followed her, but El had one thing on her mind, what were they? "Hey uhm wjat are we?" El asked pretty straightforward and Julie turned. "I'd like you to be my girlfriend," Julie said smiling and El nodded. Maybe now she could finally get over Max and move on, they walked back home and El walked inside the house. "Hey," she said passing Hopper to get to her room. She then opened her phone and went through her messages with Max, she couldn't help herself. They used to text goodmorning and goodnight every single day and talked all the time about the most random things always changing subjects. El smiled to herself and went through their pictures smiling at every single one. El still really liked Max and what they uses to do every day, and when she went to the arcade with Max some of that old Max came back. That was until she went back into her shell.

Hopper took El to go meet up with her mother. "Hey," she said to Ek and El half smiled at her. "So we need to talk about this Dr. Brenner guy," El said getting straight to the point and her mother turned away to both sides. "Not here," she said and El nodded. Whoever this guy was he was obviously dangerous, and that's why her mother was scared. "Look let's talk somewhere more private, follow me" her mother said and they both walked to Ivys car. They got in the car and Ivy looked at El "like I said he experimented on little kids and killed them out of rage and we saved you buy there's more," she said and El was intrigued by this. "He also blackmailed both me and your dad to keep this from the government and so we did. But then your dad left with you and I escaped, I never thought I'd see you again," she said and El looked forward. "Wait so he's been looking for me," El asked and Ivy nodded. "He hasn't been able to find you because we changed your name and kept you in Hawkins, but now in since you left Hawkins and been to almost every one of our site. I bet he has eyes on you," Ivy said scaring El a little, she then realized that she jeopardized herself. "If we keep you in Hawkins maybe he won't find you but promise me you'll tell me or Hopper if somethings off." Ivy said looking El dead in the eye. El started to realize the danger of the mission and she was kind of intrigued. "Yeag I primise," she said lying, she wanted to find out more.

That night El snuck out and Julie was waiting for her and so they drove off deciding to investigate the situation and so they went back to the underground base. They saw some type of back door to somewhere else. "El help me with this," Julie said and so she did and opened the door. Inside was a room, there was a TV, a couch, and some magazines. But it all looked so old and then she saw a picture on the dresser of her, Hopper, and Ivy. El knew there was something they weren't telling her she had a gut feeling there was more to this story. They searched around the room and when they opened the closet there was some sort of device that could fit on someone's head and when she looked on the back of the door she realized this was her room from a long time ago. "Wait eleven? Is that your full name?" Julie asked but El truly didn't know. She turned to look at Julie with a confused face and that's when they heard a noise so they hid in the closet and closed the door. She could hear her mother "look Hopper she needs to know more about her past and she's going to be mad if she finds out herself," her mother said and she could hear them approaching the room. "No she dosent if I looked after her more she would've never found out," Hopper said as he opened the door to the room El and Julie were in. They held their breath hoping Hopper wouldn't open the closet. "She's 16 you can't keep shielding her forever," her mother said, "I'll shield her from this terrible past as long as I can," Hopper said as he left the room and they could finally breath. They heard the door that led to here close and so they decided to get out of there.

When El got home she wanted to confront Hopper about all of this so bad but resisted the urge. She just went upstairs and layed on her bed trying to think about something else but she couldn't. Who was Dr. Brenner kept echoing in her head. She couldn't put her finger of it she didn't even remember anything past 8 years old. She couldn't even get the slightest memory until after she already turned 9. She was very confused by this, why was this her friends coukd remember their 7th birthday but she couldn't go past 9 now she was really confused and couldn't keep this to herself. "You and Dr. Brenner were friends weren't you, you helped him experiment on those kids," El confronted Hopper and Hopper turned looking confused. "Don't play me Hopper you know something I don't, did you wipe my memory?" El asked and Hopper turned from confused to angry. "Don't you ever accuse me of something like this!" He said yelling at El but El wasn't going to back down. "It's true isn't it! Your part of the reason those kids are dead!" El said yelling back at Hopper. "Eleven Jane Hopper don't you ever and I mean ever say something like that again!" Hopper said realizing what he said. "Who in the fck is Jane!" She yelled back at Hopper. And Hopper stormed out of the room leaving the house, and now El was going to get to the bottom of this mystery, she wasn't going to let it go.

When El went outside about to call Julie again she thought about the name Jane and a forgotten memory came up. Suddenly she was in a little girl's body and she had no hair she looked around seeing Hopper talking to three other kids and her mother playing a hame with another one. She then looked up and there was the old guy from the pictures it was Dr. Brenner. "Are you okay Jane?" He asked her and then she realized she was actually Jane. And that she used to be one of the kids he experimented on. Brenner led her out of the big room into the small one she saw earlier. And then they heard screams and that's when Brenner opened the door and Hopepr and Ivy were killing the little kids and then Brenner started to attack Hopper and that's when Hopper stabbed him and Jane screamed until she was out of the memory. She was so confused by this and wanted to ask Hopper why, why did he do this? What was the motive?and then she decided nit to call Julie, this was something she had to do alone.

She then went back to the base again to see if there was anything that could trigger a memory so she could see who her parents really were and maybe Brenner was the good guy. So she looked around this time and opened the drawer seeing a picture in the second to bottom drawer. She looked at it and it was a picture of Brenner hugging her and it led her into another memory. "Hey Jane," Brenner said, "Hi," Jane said and she was playing tic take toe alone and si Brenner joined her. "When am I going to get powers?" Jane asked and Brenner turned "Soon Jane, soon," he said and the memory was over. And she thought about it powers she thought to herself and looked around the room and grabbed the thing from the closet and put it on her head. She was again met with a memory, "maybe this could help activate your powers," Brenner said putting the thing on her head. "What is it?" Jane asked and Brenner looked at her after applying it to her head. "Well how about we call it rhe activator," he said and Jane smiled. When the memory was over she applied the activator to her head just like Brenner did and then she was ket with another memory. This time it was with Hopper, but she wasn't there. "Ivy are you sure this is the only way," Hopper said and Ivy nodded. "This is the onky way we are gettung out of here," and she handed him the knife and she held her own as they looked back at the innocent kids. "It has to be done," Hopper said and he walked towards the kids as the memory ended. El found everything she needed. They were going to kill these kids for their own selfish reasons. She then headed home.

"Where have you been," Hopper asked and El turned to look at him. "Not killing innocent kids," she said and walked up the stairs closing and locking her door. The person who raised her all of her life was basically a murderer. He killed all those kids so he could leave that place, El would never be able to look at Hopper the same way. She then tried to go to sleep but could only think about the terrified screams from the kids, how she saw both of her parents covered in blood. How Hopper has been lying to her all of her life, how he continued to lie. She layed down looking at the ceiling wondering what if I become them

I loved writing this chaoter is was so mysterious and cool ily all ❤️