The Long Game━ (l. sinclair)

takes a toll, my foolish pride - how long before i see the light?

Sam Hughes, who could easily become Sam Creel with one, dangerous step.

She rapidly blinked past the tears, rubbing them away again and agitating her eyes. Her fist was still bleeding and hurting profusely, but that was the absolute least of her worries. The scenes Vecna (Henry?) were showing her weren't tormenting visions, they were honest memories that tormented Sam a million times more.

The scene shifted again.

The hospital was familiar.

Sam was back in Hawkins National Laboratory.

It wasn't like anything Sam had witnessed, though. She only remembered the different type of walls, and the way each room was formatted similarly. Sam had been in multiple of them when Will was possessed, but wherever she was now was unlike all the rest.

When she thought things couldn't get worse, they did.

Sam stood near the entrance of the closed room. Before her, a young boy was strapped down in a treatment chair with buckles. Instantly, Sam recognized him as Henry. He was just as young as she'd just seen, leading Sam to believe this was where he ended up right after murdering his mother.

There was a man curled over one of Henry's strapped-in arms. A needle buzzed electrically, coming in contact with Henry's skin. The man was giving Henry a tattoo, and Henry in the chair winced and grimaced painfully.

Sam moved to get a better look at the entire scene. She discovered that the man was not any plain scientist — it was Dr. Martin Brenner.

With a fearful jolt, Sam realized where this was going.

Brenner wiped young Henry's tattoo when he was finished. The clang of the tattoo gun echoed when Brenner set it down on a metal try. Finally, now that Brenner's hands and arms were away from Henry's, Sam had a clear vision of what Henry's new tattoo was.

001.

Sam stuttered, choking on a breath.

Vecna was Henry was 001 was Sam's uncle was—

"All done," Brenner said to Henry as his tattoo was finished. He finally met Henry's hesitant eyes. "Not so bad, was it? See? There's nothing to be afraid of." Then, "Is there, Samantha?"

Sam's eyes magnified fearfully, hands shaking more furiously before. Her heart dropped and she felt paralyzed, unable to take her gaze off of Brenner.

The man finally looked away from Henry, and now to Sam. His entire eyes — the sclera, the iris, the pupil, everything — had turned from their natural state to an electrifying crystal, blue.

Like uncle, like niece.

This wasn't a memory, anymore. This was Vecna.

"Why don't you take a seat?" Brenner-Vecna asked Sam, in his distorted, gravelly tone.

Sam flinched minutely, only for a few seconds. Then, she let her instincts kick in. She startled backwards, and, quicker than she'd ever done anything before, Sam turned on her heel and booked it out of the tattooing room.

This quadrant of the lab was unlike anything Sam was used to seeing. Upon first glance, Sam immediately knew this was where Brenner would keep the kids he experimented on. In the distance, she heard the faint sound of children desperately screaming for their life. Fluorescent lights flickered overheard, whirring and buzzing whenever Sam came near. The only familiar sight she saw was dead corpses and blood splattered on the pristinely white, tiled walls.

Her chest constricted terribly in that constant, unrelenting cold.

Something horrible happened here.

Sam turned down the next hall and she ran. She'd never run so fast — not when Brenner and his men were after Eleven, not when she was being chased by a Demodog, not when Sam was trying to evade a flayed Billy — never. This was so much bigger than any of that, because Vecna right here was the source of all those gut-wrenching events. Sam sprinted as fast as her legs could carry her. Her chest was on fire, her mind was on fire, her legs were on fire. Sam didn't breathe, she just ran.