Finding a Way Back Home - Mileven

Chapter Four

"I would like you to know that you aren't the reason we're not around. You're not the reason we disappeared. It has nothing to do with you. It's about something in my past."

"When I was a baby I was taken from my mom by a very bad man. He hurt me. He made me do things I didn't want to. He is also the reason I have powers. And well, why you have powers."

"Being that you're seeing this I assume that I've been gone long enough that you've matured and discovered your powers on your own. Good for you. Now that you've discovered them I think you're mature enough to know why you have them."

"Back in the early 70s my mom went through experiments. My biological mom, not your grandma. When she had me, they took me away from her. They hurt me and a lot of other people."

Sarah remained fixated on the woman on the screen. All her words were coming from her heart.

"There's so much that happened. It's hard to explain it all at once. But in this one I'm going to explain your powers."

"I'll leave you be. Come up when you're ready." Nancy smiled, going up the wooden stairs.

"I have a tattoo of the number 011 on my wrist. From when I was very young. I was a number. An experiment. The man who raised me, not your grandpa Hopper, but a different man. Well, he only wanted to use me."

"His name is Brenner. But I knew him as papa. And I don't want you to be trapped by him. That's why I'm not there. For years he constantly forced me to do things. To use my powers. He treated me like a machine."

"The experiments hurt. They left me tired and empty. I want you to have a good life. Where you aren't constantly in fear and trapped. I want you to grow up in the world. Where you are free to make mistakes and not be punished for them."

"For the first 13 years of my life I was trapped. And then finally, one day, I got out. I ran as far as I could. And I met three boys. Back when your uncle Will had gone missing. I met your uncle Dustin and your uncle Lucas."

"And of course, I met your dad. He saved me. My first home is the basement you're sitting in. With them I was free. They liberated me."

"I created such a mess when I was in the lab, when I was an experiment. I opened a portal to another dimension and caused a disaster. Hawkins was almost swallowed whole at one point. It was absolute chaos."

"We all thought Brenner died in Hawkins Middle. That he was eaten by the monster from the other dimension. But we were wrong. He made it out alive. He got captured by Russians, and they held him for a while. They used his knowledge to create their own gate to the upside down."

"I guess all the chaos really began with the Russians. I guess that's where we have to begin."

The tape concluded. She scrambled to put the next one in.

"For a year, just to make sure I was safe, your grandpa Hopper kept me away from everyone else. We thought we were in the clear after that. I mean, we seemed to be. And after a year I found everyone again. I closed the portal, and life was normal."

"When Starcourt came about everyone was excited. But it was just a cover for a Russian operation. They built a drill, a drill to open the portal. Your uncle Dustin discovered this first."

"We all had to group together to fight off the Russians in the end and we still didn't win." she sighed.

"Your grandpa disappeared and almost died. And I had to leave Hawkins. I had everything and then I lost it all. I don't want you to have that. I want you to live a full life. Where you don't lose all the time."