Finally, I reached another vent exit. It was above a brightly fluorescent lit room. I slightly hovered over the vent, making sure to not cause any loud noise. I saw a long glass table with a complex overrun machine behind it. I recognized the set up of the room... Shaking the thought from my head, I bent down to listen to the conversation.
"Stop trying to escape boy, there's no way out," the voice similar to the one earlier haunted my thoughts.
Did he have Lucas? Were there more children like the girl he saw in this place?
As I tried to get Lucas's attention, I noticed that he had a gag in his mouth and a blindfold covering the top half of his face. His hair was also shaved to the scalp. I reached up to brush through my hair with my left hand while my right balanced my weight on the vent opening. I curled my fingers to get a strong grip on the curves of the metal. I abruptly lost my grip and broke the hinges of the vent. I stood on my aching and bruised knees and sat back on my heels, adrenaline rushing through me. I felt my heart pounding and my blood thrashing throughout my body. I waited for the man to find me...for me to end up like Lucas.
***
The feeling of my heels returned and began to creep up my legs. I then blinked my eyes to return my vision. My first view were the straps connecting my legs and the table...the table? I glanced around, my nerves spiking. I was breathing hard. I slowly glanced around the medical-like room. I noticed a large glass window on to my right. I could see a man with a gas mask covering his whole face. Another man wearing the same equipment was standing over a body laying on the exact glass table as me. It was Lucas. My head began to pound. I had to get out of here to help Lucas. I tried to sit up, but couldn't raise my chest because of the similar straps that held my legs down. I had a long paper like robe that covered my entire body. I turned to face the window again and noticed that the man that was working at the table was gone. At that same moment, the heavy metal door to my room opened. I turned to face the door on the opposite wall of the window, just as the door was opening.
"What have you done to my friend!" the word friend came like a habit. I missed it.
"Your friend?" the man said as he removed his gas mask, "he's mine now."
"What do you want from us?" I screeched, is throat rough.
"You're some smart kids, but you have something of mine, something very valuable," the man whispered under his breath. His skin was extremely pale and there were strong black rings under his eyes. The hair on his head was streaky and thin. It gave me shivers, like this man would've played the mad scientist in a horror movie.
"We don't have anything of yours! I don't even know you!" I shouted, becoming aggravated.
"Oh boy, but you do. Don't you recognize me?" The frail man grinned. I noticed a brown scar across his forehead stretching from temple to temple. The man walked across from his spot next to me. He walked over to my table. I noticed him holding a piece of paper, maybe a photograph.
"I know you know this girl. She's valuable to me," the man said as he held up the photograph to my face. The picture was of a young Eleven. I bit my tongue to keep me from crying.
"Eleven..." I spat through his tears.
"I knew you recognized her, boy," the man huffed. He stood from his chair and left the room. He returned within a few minutes. He was holding a recording system.
" I need you to record everything you know about her in this," the man forced the microphone at me. I turned toward the straps on my body and squinted at the man.
"I need you to stay strapped down, just in case..." his voice trailed off as he dropped the system on the glass table. I grabbed the microphone as the man left the room, his back towards the door watching my every move. I switched the red ON button on the recording system and took the small microphone and held it up to my mouth.
"Eleven..." I didn't think I would be able to make through this without crying. My hands shaking and my voice on the verge of breaking as I started again.
"Eleven, my friends and I met her in the forest right outside of our neighborhood. I knew she needed help," my memories flashed back to the day he and his friends met her. It was a dark and stormy night and they were looking for Will while Hopper, the Hawkins chief, scolded them when they brought the offer to. Will had recently gone missing and the town went ballistic, especially his mother. My thoughts went back to Eleven, "She was scared of us. I offered her the back of my bike and to go home. I had to explain to her that we were going to help her. I had to pull her by the wrist towards my bike. That was when I noticed she didn't have shoes...or pants. I hadn't even noticed her shaven head..." As I finished my sentence, my lungs felt heavy. I went back to my vision of Eleven. I mapped her face. Dark brown eyes, thin pink lips, light peach fuzz brushing her cheeks and her light brown hair, obviously recently shaved. I turned my view to Lucas's room. He was still laying on his glass table while the man that gave me the machine talked to him. I could see Lucas nodding his head. Then, I saw Lucas and the man glancing over through the window at me. I focused on Lucas. Lucas tilted his head down, the same way Eleven did when she fought the demogorgon. The thought of that day caused me to shut my eyes tightly and then shoot them open again, like it was just a dream. Eleven. Her gaze. Her hair. Lucas's was becoming something that Eleven used to be. Still watching Lucas, I stretched my legs, for they began to lose feeling. I returned back to my little machine. Why was this man forcing me to talk about Eleven? My anger rose. I turned my view to the door. It was thick, sure to block out the room's noises. I was laying on his side as he slammed the machine on the concrete floor. I watched it leave his hands in slow motion. It shattered into a million pieces. It began to beep. Beep. Beep. Beep beep beep. I felt a sense of relief. I suddenly heard the door creep open. It was the man that was in the next room working on Lucas. I stretched his neck to see Lucas standing behind the man.
"Get him," the man forcefully said to Lucas. I could see him ducking under the man's arm that was bent holding the door open. I saw a look in Lucas's eyes that I've never seen before. A look of killing. A look....a look that I saw on Eleven a few seconds before she disappeared while killing the demogorgon. Before she turned to me, a look of goodbye.
