Nine (A Stranger Things Fanfiction)

Nine

    Lights burn my eyes and I squint over the bright light bulb that is so close to my face I can feel the heat rising and covering my face with a soft blanket of heat. I pull away from the light and I feel Dr. Brenner's wrinkled, shaking hand on the sides of my head pushing it back into place. He tells me something but all I can hear is the small pulsing of the light, my heavy breathing, and my heart thumping rhythmically in my ears. He lets go of my head and I can hear the faint tap of his shiny shoes clicking on the cement ground. I hold my breath and wait, wrapping my hands around the arms of the chair im tied into with leather straps; tightened to the fourth hole on each one. I close my eyes so the light doesn't burn through them and I sit there and wait. I think about the songs I use to sing in my cell to calm me down; the ones I remember my brother singing me when we were little. 

    I don't remember my parents or the house I lived in; not even my friends, but my brother sticks out clear in my mind. I remember the way his brown hair swept over to one side in the front, the way his freckles looked like tiny stars on his sharply carved pale face. I remember that he hated his big eyes because one was a vibrant green and the other was a pale blue. 

    Dr. Brenner's shoes echo through the hallway outside this small dark room with windows that reflect the light when I tilt my head one way or another. I open my eyes as he enters and I hear him pause, then metal scraping against plastic and chords swishing on the ground as he steps behind me. I close them again as he grips my head with one of his hands, sliding it down my tangled hair. I wince as he catches a finger on a knot and tugs, my head jerking to one side from the force. 

    "It's okay, Nine. It'll be over before you know it and you can go back." His hoarse voice whispers in my ear and I shudder. Then, he grabs a handful of my hair and presses a metal object onto my scalp. The metal thing makes a clicking sound and begins to vibrate as he drags it down my head. I close my eyes, a tear escaping my eyelashes and slips slowly down my face, tickling it slightly. Dr. Brenner continues moving the metal mechanical razor over my head, cutting off my hair.

    "Come on, Nine. Don't take it personally, its what we have to do." Dr. Brenner says with a sigh, but I know he isn't sorry at all. He tilts my head down and shaves the bottom of my hair, breathing a tune as he does so.

    The food here isn't the best, but it isn't the worst either. Everyday I have waffles in the morning with a glass of water (And on rare accessions, milk), half a ham and cheese sandwich with the crust cut off with a glass of water in the afternoon, and a baked potato with a glass of water at night. I can tell the time by the time I am served food. At 6:00 AM I get breakfast, At 12:30 AM, I get lunch, and at 8:00 PM, I get dinner. For the rest of the time, I am either in my cell or having tests run. Tests usually involve sitting at a table trying to crush and bend metal or move things with my mind and floating in a tank of 1,500 pounds of salt and water. This has been only happening for a week and i'm already exhausted. The purple rings under my eyes, sit perched on the ledges of my cheekbones that protruded from my facial features, matched the color of the tie Dr. Brenner wore, which I noticed when he moved around to face me, running the mechanical razor over the top of my forehead. 

    When I was around seven years old, I would have these tantrums, but they weren't like regular tantrums. These tantrums would go on for hours and things would happen. The lights would flicker when I screamed and my parents swore they saw things move. By ten years old, my mother was sent to a mental hospital and my father had attempted to kill me twice. My brother left for college when I was nine and I could never get in contact with him.  When I was twelve I ran away and almost died from heat exhaustion, but was found by a man named Ted who lived in a small house with a baby girl named Nancy and a wife named Karen. When I was fifteen I found my grandparents in Texas and lived there until the age of seventeen when they both died because of a fire I started with my mind. When I was eighteen I moved to where I am now; Indiana. 

    Dr. Brenner hums under his breath and finishes his job, wiping the small hairs off his sweaty palms with his pant leg. I look up at him, glaring.

    "Don't worry, Nine" He says rubbing my new buzz cut. "You're still pretty." He smiles and pats my cheek before leaving. I close my eyes for a second and hang my head, the tears already dry and beginning to pinch my cheeks. A few seconds later, I hear several pairs of heavy footsteps come up behind me and a sharp pain in my neck. I look up in shock of the pain and I turn my head to see a man in a clean black suit with a small needle. My vision becomes blurry and my muscles relax. My head droops and my eyes roll into the back of my head.