Chapter Text
Eleven’s breath came in short gasps as she raced down the narrow hallway. All around her men in lab coats were frantically rushing past her, pushing and shouting, while the lights lining the hallway rapidly blinked on and off. Behind her came the chilling sound of a man’s scream, and the screeching of her faceless nightmare-come-true. Her skin crawled. Run, she thought keep running. Panic fueled her every movement, and fear coated her every thought. She rounded the corner and continued running down another long hall; turning and running, running and turning, she hadn’t a clue where to go, she just knew she had to keep going.
Almost completely out of breath, Eleven stumbled into a room with stairs traveling upward and hastily made her way above ground. Locking herself in a small room, she finally paused to compose herself. She was still wet from the bath, and small droplets of water dripped from her suit and pooled around her feet where she stood, trembling. The room she was in had noisy machines lined up on the back wall and cabinets along the sides, with tables of folded clothes in the middle. Wrestling out of her wet bathing suit, she undressed and grabbed a gown off one of the tables and threw it on, before cautiously opening the door to look around. She saw a group of panicked workers making their way toward a pair of doors. There was the way out, she realized, and moved to follow them. She was hurrying to see where they were headed when she suddenly collided with a uniformed man sprinting from the other direction. She tumbled backwards, then froze. Eleven expected him to electric shock her or lock her away like they often did when she failed or misbehaved. But the man hardly noticed her, and instead turned and continued running without so much as a glance at the confused girl in front of him.
Eleven made her way through the doors and finally found herself outside the lab. The air was frigid and it was almost completely dark out. She had never been this close to freedom. Outside it was calm, a stark contrast to the happenings just inside the doors behind her, but Eleven knew it was only a matter of time until that scene spilled out of the lab and into the unsuspecting world beyond. Underground, a monster was loose, and Eleven needed to get as far away as she could from it.
She took off for the fences that lined the boundaries of the lab, but stumbled and fell on the slippery, uneven grass. Stunned, Eleven lay motionless for a moment. She’d never seen grass before, only in picture books, and she was surprised at how soft it turned out to be. Despite it all, She found herself running her hand along the short blades, mesmerized at the dew that dripped from her fingers...
“Over there! I think I see her!”
The loud shout jolted Eleven to reality, and panic flooded her once more when she saw the men and their flashlights headed straight for her. She scrambled to her hands and knees and desperately began to crawl. Just beyond, the ground dipped away slightly and she tumbled downward to where a dark hole yawned in front of her. The hole was pitch black and the ground was hard and damp, but there was no other way. Eleven glanced on last time at the party of guards after her before she turned and plunged into the darkness.