Will to Survive

The Lab's Secrets

Joyce Byers was working her shift at Melvald's General Store. She was at the register receiving the customers' money from the things they bought. What the woman didn't expect was to see Chief Jim Hopper there. She could see him at the end of the line and was trying to be quick with the other customers so she could talk to him. Once she finished with the last customer, Hopper came up to her with a serious look on his face.

"Jim, what's wrong?" Joyce asked, sounding concerned. "Does it have to do with the kids?" She added. After everything they've been through, it was always the kids being in danger that popped up in her mind. They were too young to have experienced what they experienced.

Hopper motioned for her to come outside, so the two adults went outside and sat down on the benches together. "I would've come sooner, but all these protests on the mall has been driving the station insane. Kline really made a bad move putting the mall I guess," he explained. "But I think we have another problem on our hands and it has to do with the lab. El told me about a girl named Evelyn who has a tattoo that says 015. I already spoke with Owens and he's trying to get me the files for all of Brenner's experiments. El and the other kids are worried that this Evelyn girl is going to take her away again," he told her.

Joyce looked shocked at all the information that was told to her. "Can't you go inside the lab? There has to be others too if there's a 015. They all only went up to 012, so there has to be a 013 and 014," she suggested. 

"I don't have access inside the lab since I didn't get the keys inside the building. Only Owens and Mayor Kline have the access to go in there," Hopper explained. "Apparently when you break in that lab four times, you're not allowed any access. But I'll let you know when Owens gets me the files. That way we can look through them and see if there are any other kids we missed."

Joyce sighed and put her face into her hands. "I thought we were done with this," she said to herself. "Nancy and Jonathan made the lab shut down. There's no way that there could be other experiments going on."

Before the police chief could respond, the two adults saw Dr. Owens running up to them holding a bunch of files. "Hop! Thank god I found you. I need to show you these now."

...

Hopper pulled up to the cabin's entrance and climbed out of the car with Joyce and Owens. He unlocked the door to the cabin and went inside. El was sitting on the couch with Mike, Max, and Lucas, but the four looked up when they saw the adults enter. Hopper motioned for them to go around the table by the kitchen area and they all crowded up over there.

"I was able to get the files about every experiment in the lab. But there is none about a 015. But I did learn something in my search," Owens started to explain. "I found these two men in the sealed off areas of the lab. They were building these things that they spoke about. They said it was going to be the perfect thing to destroy the world. I also saw a 013 and 014 tattoo on their left arms," he added in.

Everyone exchanged looks with each other. "There are more..." El muttered under her breath. She knew that Evelyn wasn't alone in whatever she was planning. "No files on 013, 014, or 015?" She asked the doctor out loud.

Owens shook his head. "Nothing. I'm sure that there would be files since the doctors like to keep track of all the kids they test on. But I did see some dead bodies of some doctors. They must've killed them all," he suggested. "Here's another thing. There was a woman there too who entered the room in a different door. I couldn't tell if she had a number on her wrist, but she definitely has powers," he told them.

"How do you know if this person has powers then if you didn't see a tattoo?" Lucas asked in confusion.

"Because she used them on the guy with the 013 mark. I think it's a hallucination power because he was seeing something that I couldn't and he was freaking out," Owens explained. Then he started going through all the files. "That got me thinking because I remembered one of Brenner's projects having that power. So I looked through the files and I found her," he said, picking up one of the files and handed it to Hopper.

The chief opened up the file and pulled out the sheet that was inside it. "Test Subject 008?" He said out loud. He then showed the paper of the girl to El to see if she could recognize her. El squinted her eyes while looking at the picture of the girl and shook her head. Hopper then looked up back at Owens. "008 must've escaped then, right? She didn't die in the lab?" He asked.

Owens nodded at the chief. "No she's not dead from what I know," he said. "Before the doctors realized El was the strongest, we were looking for 008 for a while because she escaped one night. But then we forgot about her when El showed her abilities for the first time. That was when Brenner's attention was all on her."

El looked down at the mention of Brenner. She still had flashbacks and nightmares about him hurting her and it scared her if she ever had to go back to the lab again. Mike immediately noticed her mood change and squeezed her hand under the table. El looked up at him and smiled before she got an idea in her head.

"I can find her," she spoke up. "In the void. We might need her to help us, so I can look for her. She's one of us. She has to help take down these people," she added. The doctor nodded and El sat down back on the couch and picked up her blindfold, holding the picture of 008 firmly in her hands. Everyone sat around her and watched her intently.

El opened her eyes and she saw herself in the void once more. She looked around a bit before noticing someone. The person's back was facing her and she was sitting down by a fire pit. El slowly walked up to her and walked around her. It was definitely the girl in the picture, but more grown up instead. The girl looked up at her, as if she could feel her presence somehow. But she shrugged it off and continued to stare at the fire.

El returned back into the real world and threw off the blindfold, gasping for air. Mike immediately used his powers to summon a tissue to him and he wiped off the blood from her nose. "Did you find her?" Mike asked.

El looked over at him and nodded. "I found her."