☆✫❣︎𖤐♥︎𖦹𖣴
// twenty three
• 𝖺 𝗍𝗋𝗂𝗉 𝗍𝗈 𝖼𝗁𝗂𝗇𝖺 𝗌𝗈𝗎𝗇𝖽𝗌 𝗇𝗂𝖼𝖾
The group of teenagers screamed all the way down the elevator ride, Steve hands were wrapped on Julia' body pressed against him while screaming into her ear which wasn't an exciting thing for her. "We're going down! We're going down!" He shouts, Julia turned her head winching.
"Yeah, no shit, Harrington!" Robin yells right back, holding onto the boxes behind her.
"Why don't these buttons work?!" Dustin screams while he repeatedly slammed his finger against all the buttons.
"Stop screaming in my ear!" Julia finally shouts, twisting carefully around in his arms instead launched herself onto his biceps. Erica rushed over to Dustin trying to figure out how to stop the elevator. "Press the button!"
"What do you think I'm doing?!" Dustin teen voice crack when he screamed back at her, it wasn't until the room started to go way faster than before, Julia snapped her eyes closed and covered her ears as she buried her face in his shoulder, panic stricken into them as they screamed.
"Come on, press something! Just press the button!"
Suddenly the room stopped dropping, they all fell to the floor groaning. Julia knee managed to strike Steve in the groin making his eyes widen. "My groin. Your knee fell on my groin." Steve whispers clutching his lower half, Julia pursed her lips moving to get up.
"I'm sorry, I'm so sorry Steve." Julia spoke softly holding out her hands for him to take, instead Steve clasped his hands in hers. "I don't think I can move."
"Is everyone okay?" Robin asked leaned up against the wall grasping her head. A second later Steve managed to stand up and let out a loud sigh of relief.
"Yeah, I'm great, now that I know that Russians can design elevators!" Steve yells stumbling to the boy and shoved him away wanting to see if he can figure out how to get them out.
"I think we've clearly established that those buttons don't work." Robin tells him watching Steve randomly click on the button.
"They're buttons. They have to so something." Steve replies.
"Yeah, if we had a keycard." Julia came up from behind him, pointing to the the keyhole. "A what?" Her boyfriend questions.
"It's an electronic lock, same as the loading dock door, if we don't have a keycard. It won't operate, meaning—"
"We're stuck in here." Dustin finished for her, threading a hand through his curls, Julia nods watching Steve pushed back against the wall.
"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 four are responsible, she's gonna hunt you down, one by one, and slit your throat." Erica tells them, dragging an invisible knife over her throat.
The teens didn't really care since they were probably going to die in the elevator. "I don't care about Tina! Or Uncle Jacks party! Your moms not gonna be able to find us if we're dead in a Russian elevator!" Steve shouted at the small girl.
"Hey." Dustin called out, bringing the attention over to him. "What if we climb out." He suggested pointing up to the ceiling.
Steve and Dustin both opened the vent door that lend to the roof top of the elevator, and went up with the help of the boxes. "What we're you saying about climbing?" Steve scoffs lightly peering up, they had to be at least one hundred feet down from where they previously were.
Julia joined the two boys noticing that it was indeed a far way up if they were going to climb. "Jules, can't you like...." Dustin trailed off slowly making a hand motion.
Julia raised her eyebrows. "Just because you do that, doesn't mean that I know what your talking about." Julia said resting her hands on her hips.
"Use your powers to get us out of here." Dustin whispers, Steve hums agreeing with the boy and turned to the girl, Julia shook her head.
"No, I can't do that." Steve faced drops in disbelief. "Too many people already know about me, and I can't risk that, I'm sorry guys. But— I can possibly can see how far up it is."
Julia held her hands close to each other creating a ball of scarlet, peering up at the ceiling or what she thinks is a ceiling, bringing back her right hand before she threw her hand straight up.
They watch in amazement at the shooting glowing red slowly beginning to disappeared from their view. "Well, there's your answer. We have to find a different way out." Julia tells them when she didn't see the bright red anymore, climbing back down into the elevator.
••
Julia and Robin were the only ones who were trying to figure out a way out of the elevator, the boys haven't come down yet to help them until they heard something leaking from the side, they turned and saw a stream of pee.
"Can you redirected your stream, please?" Robin said loudly watching Steve drag away to the corner of the room. "Gross." She mutters.
"That's my boyfriend." Julia utters sarcastically when she spun back around and found Erica banging the green glowing glass bottle against a metal barrel. She rushed over yanking it out of her grasp. "Hey! Be careful. We don't even know what this is."
"Exactly. It could be useful." Erica told her.
"Useful how?" Robin squints coming up from behind Julia. "We can't survive down here a long time without food, but if the human body doesn't get water, it will die." Erica tells them.
"Hate to break it to you, but this is not water." Julia shook the metal bottle.
"No, but it's a liquid." The young girl narrowed her eyes with a shrug. "And if it comes down to me drinking that shit or dying of thirst, I drink." She smiled up at them.
Robin looked away from her and leaning against the door, her ear pressed against the doors when the sound of wheels come from outside the elevator. She quickly moved away and up to warn the two boys above. "We got company."
Julia and Erica joined the three above and waited till the elevator door opened, they watched two strange men walked and pick up a few boxes. Steve stared down with a close eye and quickly dropped down into the room when the men left.
Steve placed the metal bottle underneath the door before it could completely closed. "Go, go, go." Steve rushes they quickly as Erica slides underneath the door with Dustin.
After Julia and Robin when Steve quickly joined them on the other side just in time for when bottle to smashed into pieces and the green goo went everywhere melting into the floor, creating a hole.
"You still wanna to drink that." Robin mentions turning back to Erica when they all stood up from the ground peering down at the goo.
"Holy mother of God." Dustin said getting their attention, they turned back at the long hallway that appeared to be a long way down.
"Well... hope you guys are in good shape. Looking at you roast beef." Steve says and pats Dustin stomach moving passed him. "Let's go, come on."
"Why me?" Dustin whispered to the girls as they began to follow behind Steve.
••
After walking in silence for eight minutes, Dustin decided to break the silence. "I mean, you have to admit, as a fear of engineering alone, this is impressive."
"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 said softly looking over at Dustin.
"They're commies. You don't pay people, they cut corners." Erica mentions shrugging her shoulders.
"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."
"And it all comes into the mall like any of delivery and then they load it up onto those trucks and nobody's the wiser." Julia says adding to Robins theory.
"You think they built this whole mall so they could transport that green poison?" Steve wondered.
"I very seriously doubt it's something as boring as poison. It's gotta be much more valuable, like promethium or something." Dustin spoke as they continued to walked down the empty hallway.
"What the hell is promethium?" Steve asked grabbing Julia's a hand and interlocking their fingers together, squeezing her hand twice and Julia smiled to herself.
"It's what Victor stones dad used to make cyborg's bionic and cybernetic components." Robin explains, from some movie she saw.
"You're all so nerdy it makes me physically ill." Erica scrunched her face.
"No, no, no. Don't lump me in with them. I'm not a nerd, all right?" Steve declares shaking his head, making Julia laugh. "What's so bad about being a nerd?" She asked peering up at him, Steve lips parted with no words defending his case.
"Yeah, why so sensitive, Harrington! Afraid of losing cool points to a ten year old child?" Robin laughs obviously teasing him.
"No, I'm just saying I don't know jack shit about prometheus."
"Promethium." Dustin said with a nod. "Prometheus is a Greek mythological figure, but whatever— all I'm saying is, it's probably being used to make something."
"Or power something." Robin suggests.
"Like a nuclear weapon?" Julia spoke up causing the second older teenager to turn back to the redhead with a nod. "Totally."
"Walking towards a nuclear weapon. That's great. That'd be great." Steve hums giving Julia' hand another squeeze.
"But if they're building something, why here? I mean, Hawkins. Seriously of all places." Robin says which made Dustin, Steve and Julia to paused in their tracks.
"You think the Russians know?" Dustin began in whisper glancing between the two older teenagers. "About—"
"They could."
"I mean think about it, Russians underneath the mall probably building a weapon to— I don't even know." Julia exhaled sharply turning over to the girls who were still walking.
"It could be all connected?" Steve whispered softly. "Maybe."
"I'm sorry, is there something you'd like to share with the class?" Robin called out looking back at them, when a voice in russian came from Erica's backpack. They rushed over to Erica kneeling down as she pulled out the radio and listen closely to the man speaking.
"A trip to China sounds nice." Robin began to translate. "If you tread lightly—It's the code." Robin tells them speaking over the man.
"Whatever that broadcast is coming from—"
"It's close, and if there's one thing we know about the signal..." Julia trailed off glancing at Dustin.
"It can reach the surface." Dustin said with widen eyes.
"Let's go." Robin said picked up the radio, quickly getting up from her spot and began walking again and the group followed behind her.
—