[chapter five: the flayed]
:✧*⋆.*:･ﾟ
THE ELEVATOR fell down at an alarming pace. It was so fast that Gabe felt as if he could practically fly up if he let go of the shelf he was holding onto.
They all screamed, Dustin pressing several buttons on the pad on the wall.
"We're going down! We're going down!!"
"Yeah no shit Harrington!"
"Why don't these buttons work?!"
"Press the button!"
"I think I just shit myself!"
All of a sudden the elevator stopped, everyone dropped to the floor in pain. Steve had a box that fell on top of his groin, shouting for Dustin to get the box off of him.
"Is everyone okay..?" Robin asked quietly, rubbing her head, her eyes still wide.
"Yeah- IM GREAT! NOW THAT I KNOW THAT RUSSIANS CANT DESIGN ELEVATORS!" Steve walked over to the panel and began smashing buttons.
"Okay, we've clearly established that those buttons don't work." Robin stood up with the help of Gabe.
"They're buttons. They have to do something."
"Yeah, if we had a key card!" "What?"
"It's an electronic lock. Same as the loading dock door. If we don't have a key card, it won't operate, meaning-"
"We're stuck in here." Dustin finished her sentence. "Yeah."
Gabe groaned, rubbing his ass.
"Just so you nerds are aware, I'm supposed to be spending the night at Tina's, and Tina always covers for me. But if I'm not home for Uncle Jack's party tomorrow and my mom finds out you three are responsible, she's gonna hunt you down, one by one, and slit your throats.-"
"I DONT CARE ABOUT TINA. OR UNCLE JACK'S PARTY. YOUR MOM'S NOT GONNA BE ABLE TO FIND US IF WE'RE DEAD IN A RUSSIAN ELEVATOR!" Gabe walked over to Steve and pat him back to calm him down.
"Calm down babe." Gabe muttered. Dustin pointed towards a spot on the ceiling of the elevator. "Hey, what if we climbed out?"
Dustin opened the door to climb on top of the elevator. Soon followed Steve and Gabe who looked up.
Gabe exhaled as he felt dizzy just by looking up. Steve huffed. "What were you saying about climbing?"
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They all surrounded El. M/n was drinking some water and eating a candy bar. He had offered to help El look for Hopper but she declined, telling him that he should rest a bit longer.
"I found him." She spoke.
"Where is he?" Max asked her. "Woods." She responded.
"He's with.. Will and M/n's moms.
"Excuse me?" M/n nearly choked on his candy bar.
"M-my mom?" Will lea Ed forward.
"What are they doing?"
"Ill.. annoy. They're going to ill-annoy.." El spoke slowly, trying to make sense of the word.
Mike's mom began knocking on the door calling him up for some breakfast. "Not now mom!!"
"Ill-annoy? Illinois, like the state? The state of Illinois?" El only shrugged, not knowing how to respond to M/n's question.
"I-ill-annoy.." she repeated.
M
ax took El to the bathroom, the rest stayed in the room.
"Something's not right. I can't get Hopper off my back all summer, now all of a sudden he's hiking with both Will and M/n's moms to Illinois?" Mike paced.
"And Dustin's MIA too? I mean, this can't be a coincidence."
Will turned to look at M/n who was messing with a loose strand of his shirt, he had his hand on his neck.
It was placed over the bruise that began form. It rubbed the mark softly, wincing every once in a while when he touched a sensitive spot.
"Does it hurt?" Will whispered as he reached out to touch it, m/n flinched a bit, it made will hesitate but when he saw m/n give more access he let his fingertips graze the injury.
"Only when I talk.." m/n answered, leaning back against the couch. He closed his eyes and grabbed Will's empty hand to intertwine their fingers.
Lucas and Mike looked at them, their eyebrows were furrowed, not in disgust, but more in confusion, when did this happen?
Perhaps they were more focused on relationships than they were with the rest of their friends.
"We got the mind flayer out of Will before and he just came right back. We don't just have to stop Billy, we have to stop the mind flayer."
"How in the hell do we do that?" Lucas questioned.
"I don't know."
"Maybe El and M/n do." Will responded. His thumb running over m/n's knuckles, the boy had fallen asleep, in hopes that he could sleep off some of the pain.
On cue, they all turned to look towards the bathroom door. "what are they still doing in there."
"Ion know, girls jus like hangin out in bafrooms." Lucas spoke, his sentence coming out muffled from the big mouthful of cocoa puffs he just shoved into his mouth.
Lucas offered some to Mike, but he only pushed the box away. "Why?"
"I mean, I don't know.."
"They're conspiring against me." Mike shook his head. Will turned to look at Mike. "that's what you're concerned about now?!"
"It's not my main concern, it's just a sub-concern."
"I thought it was already over."
"It's not over okay? We're just taking a break."
"She said she dumped your ass. That doesn't sound like a break."
"It wasn't!" Max's voice came from the bathroom, they all looked up in shock. "You guys do realize we can still hear everything you're saying, right?" They could hear the sounds of both of the girls laughing.
"See, I told you. They're conspiring." A knock came from the door once again.
Mike turned towards the door. "Not now mom!" M/n shot up from the couch, Mike's shouting waking him up.
"Mike. Open the door." Nancy spoke. Mike furrowed his eyebrows in confusion, walking up the stairs to open the door.
There are Nancy and Jonathan standing by the door, almost out of breath.
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"Code red, I repeat, this is a code red. Does anyone copy?" Dustin spoke into his radio over and over. Steve sighed and climbed up to shut Dustin up.
Gabe and Robin were trying to figure out how to open these doors without a key card, so far, nothing. They turned to the side when they heard a disturbing sound of liquid hit the wall.
Robin huffed. "Can you redirect your stream please?" The stream began moving to the left. They both cringed.
A clanging noise broke the silence, they rushed over to Erica who was trying to smash the little capsule open.
"Hey! Careful careful! We don't even know what that is." Gabe shouts as he grabs the capsule from the young girl.
"Exactly, it could be useful."
"Useful how." Gabe raised an eyebrow, crossing his arms.
"We can survive down here a long time without food, but if the human body doesn't get water, it will die."
"I hate to break it to you, but this is not water." He gestured to the neon green liquid that swished mysteriously in the capsule.
"No, but it's a liquid and if it comes down to me drinking that shit or dying of thirst.. I drink." Erica smiled sarcastically.
Gabe rolled his eyes. "Good to know." Suddenly, a distant electronic whirring began to echo quietly.
Erica grabbed the capsule from Gabe's hand but he didn't care. He watched Robin walk up to the door and place her ear against the door.
Her eyes widened. "we've got company."
They all climbed up, staying as silent as they could when the doors to the elevator opened. Two Russian voices spoke in the silence, they looked through the small blurry windows to see what was going on.
Erica held the green capsule in her arms, looking at it once in a while.
Once the two men left, Steve jumped down and placed the green capsule in between the door and the floor to prevent it from shutting. "Let's go!" He ushered them all through the crack.
First was Erica, Dustin, then Robin, then it was both Steve and Gabe.
They were crawling through, they watched as the capsule began to crack which made them wiggle through the crack even more.
Eventually, the capsule cracked, the neon liquid emitted steam. They looked at the liquid as it began to melt through the metal floor.
"Jesus Christ.."
Gabe looked over at Erica. "You still wanna drink that?" Erica rolled her eyes.
Dustin turned around. "Holy mother of god."
They all turned around, looking at the unbelievably long hallway. "Well, hope you guys are in good shape." Steve sighed, walking past them, patting Dustin on his chest.
"Looking at you, Roast Beef."
He began walking, turning back. "Let's go, come on." Gabe led the rat forward, placing a hand onto Erica's back.
"Why me?" Dustin asked him.
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"It was the same thing, the exact same thing that happened to Will last year. And look at this. Look at the body temperatures." Nancy gestured to the sheet of paper she placed on the table.
Will leaned forward, looking at the recorded information. All of the temperatures recorded were in the nineties.
"He likes it cold.." will repeated as he looked up.
"Okay so, this crazy old woman who was eating fertilizer-"
"Mrs. Driscoll." Nancy corrected.
"Right, Mrs. Driscoll. What time was this attack?"
"Last night."
"Yeah, but what time last night?"
"Uh, around nine."
"You waited all night to call?" Jonathan looked at the female.
"I was waiting for the doctors to run some tests." Nancy answered.
"You weren't there?" Will looked up at his older brother.
"Well, I'm here now aren't I?"
"Hallelujah!" Nancy spoke sarcastically.
"Ooh." Lucas looked away painfully.
"Um so, what time was your.. sauna test?"
"Around nine." They all answered in unison.
"Well, that proves it! That proves my theory!" Nancy breathed out, having been worrying about this the entire night.
"She's flayed. Just like Billy."
"Flayed?" Jonathan questioned.
"The mind flayer. He Flay's people. Takes over their mind. Once they do that, they basically become him." Mike explained.
"If there are two flayed-"
"Then we have to assume that there are more." M/n's spoke, having been silent the entire time.
"Heather." El said. "Billy was doing something to her.. she was scared. She was screaming.. bad screams.."
"What's a good scream..?"
"Max said-" "doesn't matter!"
"I'm sorry, I'm lost. Who is heather?"
"She's a lifeguard at the pool." M/n answered. "Heather Holloway..?" Nancy asked the teens. They all nodded.
Nancy and Jonathan looked at eachother. "Tom."
They all rushed out to the car. Nancy went in the driver's seat, Jonathan in the passenger seat. Lucas, Max, and El sat in the backseat behind the young adults.
Then Mike, Will, and M/n we're stuck in the very back.
"Seriously?"
"Welcome to my world." Will pat his back as both M/n and himself walked towards the back door.
"Seat belts." Nancy glanced behind her as she was putting her hair up.
They all secured themselves. Nancy started the car, backing out of the driveway. While doing so, she also crashed into the bikes of the teens, but nobody really said anything about it.
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They were still walking through the hallway. It was pretty open, so if anybody decided to head down this hallway, they'd be screwed.
But it was so silent, and it should have been ringing of red sirens in Gabe's head, but all he could focus on for now was getting out of this hallway.
"I mean, you have to admit, as a feat of engineering alone, this is impressive." Dustin admired the work of these Russians, trying to look at the bright side of things.
"What are you talking about, it's a total fire hazard. There's no stairs, there's no exit, there's just an elevator that drops you halfway to hell." Steve grumbled.
"They're commies. You don't pay people, they cut corners."
"To be fair to our Russian comrades, I don't think this tunnel was designed for walking. Think about it, they developed the perfect system for transporting that cargo." Robin chuckled lightly.
"It all comes into the mall like any old delivery."
"And then they load it up onto those trucks and body's the wiser."
"You think they built this whole mall so they could transport that green poison?" Steve asked.
"It would be the perfect cover up, but I doubt it would simply be something as boring as poison." Gabe answered, heaving a sigh.
"Exactly, it has to be something more valuable, like promethium or something."
"What the hell is promethium?"
"It's what Victor Stone's dad used to make Cyborg's bionic and cybernetic components." Robin explained.
"You're all so nerdy it makes me physically ill." Erica spoke up after looking around at all of the teens talk their nonsense.
"No, I'm not a nerd. Don't lump me in with them."
"Why so sensitive, Harrington? Afraid of losing cool points to a ten-year-old child?"
"No, I'm just saying I don't know jack shit about Prometheus."
"Promethium," Dustin corrected, "Prometheus is a Greek mythological figure, but whatever. All I'm saying is it's probably bring used to make something."
"Or power something?" Robin added.
"Like a nuclear weapon?" Gabe asked them. "Totally."
"Walking towards a nuclear weapon. That's great." Steve said.
"But if they're building something, why here?" Gabe question, checking out his surroundings once again.
"Like seriously, Hawkins. Of all places. At the very best, we're a toilet stop on your way to Disneyland, but maybe that's it.." Gabe, Erica, and Robin continued to walk forward while Steve and Dustin stayed back.
Robin turned around. "I'm sorry, is there something you guys would like to share with the class?" A static sound echoed. They all turned to the radio that Erica carried with her throughout this entire experience.
It was a man who spoke in a different language, presumably Russian, since it has become so familiar now.
Robin grabbed the radio, placing it close to her face, listening to the voice. She looked up and began repeating the words.
"A trip to China sounds nice. If you tread lightly."
"It's the code." Robin said. "Wherever that broadcast is coming from-"
"It's close." Gabe smirked. "And it there's one thing we know about that signal.."
"It could reach the surface." Gabe and Robin glanced at eachother.
"Let's go."
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Author's Note
Hey guys, sorry I haven't posted in about a week, school has been keeping me busy and I've had to deal with personal things. I'll be posting the second part rn, I don't know if I'll be able to update for my Glee book since I have hw.
I'll most likely be posting on weekends and probably Wednesdays because I have early out on those days.