SKYFALL, stranger things

008. cliffhanger

"Was it good? Was it a good drawing?" Mom asked.

"It was a kid's drawing, Joyce. It was stick figures." Hopper sounded annoyed.

I heard Mom stand up and walk into the kitchen, causing me to slide back on the wall a bit so she wouldn't see me. It sounded like she grabbed some papers, then she went back over to the table.

"It couldn't have been Will, then." She said, sliding the paper over to Hopper.

I saw Mom and Hopper's shadows move across the wall and I squeezed my eyes shut, praying that they wouldn't see me. Luckily, they didn't even glance in my direction as they crossed over into the living room.

"The night that Benny died," Hopper said. "Earl said that he saw some kid with a shaved head, and that they were with Benny. Now I pressed him, he said it might be Will, but maybe..."

"Maybe it wasn't." Mom breathed.

I felt my knees go weak and I gripped the wall to remain on my feet. I can't believe what I am hearing. There's a sketchy government building that is taking kids? What if this is where Eleven was from? What if they were experimenting on her and that's how she got powers? Oh god, what if they took Will?

I hope they weren't experimenting on him.

"There's this woman," Hopper said. "Terry Ives. She claims to have lost her daughter, Jane. She sued Brenner, she sued the government. The claims came to nothing but what if...I mean, what if this whole time I've been looking for Will, I've been chasing after some other kid."

Oh my god, was Eleven actually named Jane?

I couldn't bear to listen to anymore of this so I tiptoed down the hallway and slipped back out the door, not making a sound. I swiped at my tear stained cheeks as I made my way around the house, to the front door.

I am so scared right now. I can't believe this kind of stuff is real, I thought it only happened in books or in movies. But it's happening in my hometown, possibly to my own little brother.

I sniffed, wiping the last tear and trying to force a smile as I fiddled with the door handle, alerting them that I was home before going in.

Despite my attempts to warn them, Hopper and Mom jolted to look up at me. I stepped inside and shut the door behind me.

"Sorry, didn't mean to scare you," I said. "Good evening, Chief." I nodded to him.

I tried to act normal but I could feel that my muscles were tense. I hoped they couldn't tell. I didn't wait for a reply from Hopper before I just walked down the hall, going straight into my room.

My legs gave out as soon as I turned the lock. I crumbled to the floor and began to sob, trying to remain quiet. I curled into the fetal position and just let it out.

*.✧ 𝐁𝐄𝐋𝐋𝐄 ✧.*

Last night, Jonathan, Nancy and I had immediately run out of the woods and gotten into his car. He dropped me off at home and then he and Nancy went off to go back to her place.

I have never locked the front door behind me so fast in my fourteen years on this earth. I sprinted up the stairs and shut myself in my bedroom. I slid down the door until I was sitting on the floor, staring straight in front of me as I tried to process everything that I had just witnessed.

Eventually, I got up and went to bed, falling asleep almost instantly because I was so exhausted.

The next morning, I woke up to my phone ringing. I groaned, halfheartedly rolled out from under my cozy blankets. Then I walked over to my dresser and answered it.