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( pre — the vanishing of will byers )
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november 1, 1983
RAIN BEATS DOWN ON the leaf-covered ground of the woodland surrounding Hawkins, Indiana. The pitch darkness of the night, just barely past the witching hour, is illuminated only by the pale glow of twinkling embers from a teenage girl's hand. She's shielded herself from the rain under a canopy of branches by the side of a muddy road, desperately trying to figure out where to go and what to do.
She's never been this far from the Lab before. She's never been outside of the Lab before. Everything is new to her — the cold rain pelting against her forever-warm skin, the squishing of mud between her toes, the twigs and stones digging into the soles of her feet.
Zero didn't leave Hawkins Lab with an actual plan — that was her first mistake. Her second was not taking a moment to study the fence surrounding the large building that she'd been trapped in for sixteen years. Her palms, shins, and the backs of her thighs and buttocks sting with fresh cuts from climbing up and over the flimsy barrier, not realising that the top of it had been lined with razor wire. By the time she figured it out, she was already halfway over. It wasn't worth turning back to find a better way. And her third mistake was not making sure that she wasn't being followed.
She was.
Despite the harsh winds howling all around the trees, and the drops of ice-cold water dripping onto her battered, bruised, and bloody form, Zero remains unfazed. She had always had an unnaturally high body temperature. She considers it a welcome side effect of her Lab-gifted abilities, and for that, on this freezing morning where her breath turns to fog in front of her, Zero is grateful.
What Zero can feel is her body succumbing to exhaustion. She'd only been running for fifteen or so minutes, but for someone who hadn't needed to run since the Massacre of '79, it was a lot. Her legs threaten to give way with every step, and even the fire dancing on her fingertips intermittently sparks and sputters — like a television succumbing to static for a moment before returning to a clear broadcast. Blood drips from her left nostril, trailing its way between her parted and chapped lips.
