One (A Stranger Things Fanfiction)

Chapter Five - Will Gains Wisdom

After what had happened the night before, Will's mother had insisted that he stay home from school. He'd spent the day trying to see if One really had given him her powers. He already knew that he had her healing ability, and he'd succeeded in making the lights flicker (although that particular experience had reminded him too much of his time trapped in the Upside Down). Then he'd stacked a pile of wood in the backyard and tried to set it on fire, but without success. He looked at his new tattoo again. He just wished he knew what he was supposed to do.

Mike had come to check on him after school. Will asked him what he'd missed, but all Mike had to say was that he'd gotten in trouble for falling asleep in school again. Will had tried to tell him that he didn't need to guard someone every single night. As much as Will appreciated Mike being there for him as much as he was, he was tired of everyone being so overprotective of him all the time.

Maybe, if he could harness One's powers, everyone would stop treating him like he was made of glass.

Maybe, if he could harness One's powers, he wouldn't have to be afraid anymore.

He'd tried asking Eleven for advice, but she hadn't been able to help him much. She'd just told him to concentrate. He'd concentrated until he'd gotten a headache (which his healing power quickly took care of), but he still could not conjure any fire.

Will still didn't know how they'd gotten out of that hospital without being spotted, and he still didn't know what Dustin had said to his mother, or what Mike had said to his father.

Since Mike was not here, guarding him (something that Will had both appreciated and resented him doing at the same time), Will really hoped that Mike was at home in bed for once. That guy seriously stretched himself too thin.

Will missed Lucas. He wasn't sure whether or not he believed the rumours about Lucas and Max, but why else would they have run away? Will, Mike, and Dustin had asked Eleven to try to find them many times over the past few months, but Eleven had said that they were somewhere too far away for her to see. All she had been able to do was reassure them that Lucas and Max were not in the Upside Down. Something inside Will told him that Eleven wasn't telling the whole truth, but why would she lie about something like this?

Will had a hard time getting to sleep with all of these thoughts rolling around inside his head, but eventually, sleep did find him.

The next thing Will knew, he was sitting at a metal table in a sterile-looking environment. There was a potted rose bush in front of him, and for some reason, he was trying to burn it. He extended his hands towards it, but nothing was happening.

But these weren't his hands.

This was not his body.

"I'm trying, Papa!" he said in a choppy voice that was definitely not his.

There was a man in a lab coat looking down at him in disappointment. Will found himself both fearing this man and wanting to make him proud.

Suddenly, the room started to get really warm, and the air was starting to get really dry.

"Four! Stop that!" shouted the lab-coated man.

Will realized that there was a boy about his own age sitting next to him. It was almost like looking in a mirror, except that this boy had bright green eyes, and his hair had been buzzed off. This boy had 004 tattooed on his wrist, and his nose was bleeding.

Will felt a surge of fraternal affection for this boy.

Clearly, these were not his emotions.