heaven-sent | b.h.

07.

The cabin is still a mess when Frances returns the next morning. The windows are covered with cardboard and duct tape, and inside, the floorboards are scratched and worn in places they hadn't been before.

"Dad?" she calls when she finds the kitchen and living room empty. "El?"

There's no response beside the sound of the wind raging through the woods outside. The TV screen is grey with static, and both El and Hopper's bedroom doors are open, revealing two empty rooms. Frances's stomach twists in worry. El isn't allowed outside of this cabin, ever. Where the hell are they?

Piles of files and papers are scattered about all over the floor, sitting beside a floorboard that had been pulled up. Frances kneels, inspecting them. They are all stamped with Hawkins Laboratories, typewritten, ink seeping into the damp from their time under the floorboards. Frances has never seen them before—and yet perhaps she should have, because she finds one of her familiar baby photos with a record under the label 002. Beside it is the date of birth: her date of birth.

"What the fuck?" she whispers, searching through the other papers frantically. She must have misunderstood, she thinks, until she stumbles across adoption papers with her name written in bold. The date of adoption is only a few months after her birth, and both her mother and father have signed them beside a name she doesn't recognise.  

Her mind races, trying to conjure up images she might have seen in her old photo albums of her mother pregnant. There were plenty of her with Sarah, but none, she realises, with her. She didn't have that many baby photos either, other than the one in front of her and then ones of her a little older. Her mother said she had surgery when she was little and they didn't want to remember how hard it was with pictures. Now she wonders if that was a lie.

She goes back to the lab records, tears pricking her eyes as she traces a list of symptoms scrawled in black ink beneath the heading 002. Golden eyes, advanced mental and physical capabilities developing more quickly than in other subjects, surgery performed to remove protrusions in the shoulders, translucent skin, abnormalities in blood sample. She hadn't been crazy in thinking her eyes had changed. There really was something wrong with her.

"Dad?" she yells again, throwing the papers down. She can't look at them anymore. "Dad?"

No reply, but she hadn't expected one. She runs out of the cabin, suppressing a sob as she scans the woods to see if he's nearby. The woods are silent, empty. A fog lingers around the trees eerily. She's alone.

* * *

Florence, her father's assistant, peers over her glasses with an alarmed expression as Frances marches through the police station, searching desperately for a glimpse of her father.

"Morning, Frannie," she greets cautiously, standing from her desk and frowning. "Everything okay, sweetheart?"

"No," she answers, tears staining her flushed cheeks as she checks his office. It's empty. "Where is my father? Where's Hopper?"

"I don't know, honey. It's a Saturday: his day off."

"Can you see if he's answering his radio? It's urgent."

Florence takes her glasses off to look at Frances properly. "He didn't come in this morning. He isn't working today. What's wrong? Are you in trouble, sweetie?"

"Can you please just try to catch him on his fucking radio?" she snaps, slapping her hands against the front desk angrily.

There must be something in her eyes, because Florence pales and sits down in submission, grabbing her radio with shaky hands. Frances might feel guilty if she wasn't so hysterical. "Station to Hopper, do you copy?" When a reply doesn't come, she clicks the call button again. "Hopper, do you copy? I have your daughter here. She's very insistent on speaking to you. Over."