My Number One (001/Henry Creel/Vecna x Reader)

Progress

That evening, as Henry and I sat in front of the fire (which wasn't as grand as the big fireplace in the aged library at our old house), I began to wonder what I would do with Eleven in the end. If our plan was to go ahead, I couldn't keep her alive forever. Was I just prolonging these painful thoughts by keeping her captive in the basement, or was I letting myself slowly ease into the process of killing her. In other words, should I rip the band-aid off and kill her, or should I keep getting closer to it step by step so it won't be such a shock once its done? The truth was, I wanted to kill Eleven in theory, but when faced with the logical processes in which I could proceed with it, I could barely bring myself to think about them.

"What are you thinking about?" asked Henry, curious, and perhaps a little concerned at my lack of conversation.

"Nothing," I said, brushing it off with a smile.

"You can't think about nothing. Is something troubling you?"

"No, no." I looked away.

Henry pulled me against his chest. "You can tell me."

When Henry acted like this, it was so hard not to trust him with my thoughts. I wanted to own up to him, but I knew I shouldn't. I hadn't made up my mind yet about what I should do with Eleven, and if I mentioned the fact that she was in our basement to Henry, he would make the decision for me and kill her.

"I just mean it's nothing of importance. Just thinks we've spoken about already. About the plan."

"Okay," Henry whispered, and he kissed me on my forehead.

*

The next morning, Henry unleashed the Mind Flayers into the Rightside Up for the first time.

They were tremendous at taking humans down in bulk. But, even better than just killing them, they became a part of the Spider Monster, aiding us with our plan.

People were dying and being taken into the Spider Monster fast. I became nervous, because it was becoming obvious to the humans that something supernatural was going on. We were no longer taking individuals from small towns; we were taking masses and masses of people from everywhere.

"We either need to stop this before the authorities or governments find out, or finish off the human race quickly, before they'll have time to act. There's no in between, Henry," I said from behind him as he stood near a portal on the edge of some woods.

"Stop this? That's not an option, Twelve."

"Then we need to go quicker. People will realise what's going on soon. There will be people who will enter here from portals, either out of curiosity or with the goal of killing us, and there are too many portals for us to guard them all. Hundreds of thousands...maybe even millions including all of the portals there must be around the world. And we may be powerful against regular civilians, but we may not be against government weapons. I'm sure they'll begin inventing something as soon as they get a hint of our existence and what we're doing to the world."

"So you're doubting me?"

"I'm not doubting you, I'm doubting your plan...our plan. Henry...maybe we should've thought this through more."

"Twelve, the Spider Monster and its Mind Flayers will be enough. Even if some people manage to get into the Upside Down, number one: out of the entire world, what are the chances that they'll end up in this random small town and find us, and number two: once they enter the Upside Down, how could they stand a chance against our monsters?"

"They could find us by tracking where the recent activity of human disappearances are, or recent sightings of monsters. I'm sure there will be agents dedicated to keeping track of this. And, as for them standing a chance against the monsters, as I said, the governments could invent weapons."

"Well, hopefully, if the Mind Flayers and Demogorgon and Demodogs are doing a good enough job, anyone who does sight a monster won't live to tell the tale! And, the government is such a small portion of the human population that I don't think we need to worry about them. By the time they invent such a weapon, most of the population will probably be wiped out."

I sighed, then after a pause said, "And what about CCTV?"

"I've already checked, and our monsters don't show up on video. They're part of this dimension, the Upside Down. The humans who invented their feeble video cameras have no idea of this dimension, so they didn't build the cameras to record it."

"I'm sure they'll catch on soon enough and invent the technology to capture them on camera," I argued.

Henry grabbed my hands. "We'll be done by then, I promise. There will be no one left to invent it. They'll all be dead."

When he said those words—"they'll all be dead"—it sent a chill down my spine. I wasn't sure whether that chill was from my excitement for the relief I'd feel once we'd finish our task and have no people left to threaten it, or if it was from the pure coldness of the sentence. So cold that I almost felt a chill in his breath brush my face as he spoke the words.

*

Another week passed by, and I was starting to believe Henry when he said our plan would work. Because it was. We'd killed off a big chunk of the population, targeting the wealthiest countries first as they were the biggest threats to our plan. Throughout this period, I'd been placing food and water in the basement while Eleven was sleeping to keep her alive. Without her, Mike and his little friends had made no progress in intercepting our plan. Eleven was their only strength.

On this particular day while I was placing Eleven's food on the floor beside the mattress I'd put down for her, she woke up before I had the chance to leave the room. I didn't have to rush to shut the door though, because her wrists were still wrapped in vines which grew from Upside Down plants in the humid basement. I had also let the vines grow around her hands and fingers, securing them in the form of a closed fist, for even less chance of her being able to use her powers. There was little chance she'd use them besides that anyway, because she couldn't attack the vines—they were immune to her power—and she wouldn't attack me because that would give her even less of a chance of surviving down there.

Eleven rolled over and blinked slowly, sleepily, up at me. "...Kill me," she whispered, her mouth hardly moving.