Chapter Text
── ☄︎ ──
NOVEMBER 6TH, 1983
HAWKINS, INDIANA
The night was quiet, as it always had been in this small corner of Indiana, and yet this night in particular was so unlike any other. And it all started where every problem in this town began...
HAWKINS NATIONAL LABORATORY
U.S. DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY
The underground labyrinth of halls were especially bare, deserted of both man and sound. The only remaining sign of life was the subtle melody of the generator humming as it struggled to pump light throughout such a vast facility. That was, until... BAM!
A single steel door ripped open, colliding fast and hard with the walls with a fantastic thud. Swallowing all remaining silence along with it was the cry of alarms that flooded the hallway as the lone straggler ran for his life; A man, soaked in sweat and terror finally found himself at the end of the hall. He made it to the elevator. Hope dared to flair in his chest as he furiously slammed his fist onto the button on the wall. As he did so, he continued to look over his shoulder in a panic.
It was coming for him. That... Thing. Whatever it was exactly, he wasn't sure, but one thing was certain: it was hungry for his blood. BOOM!
The sound was distant and muffled, but it rattled his bones like thunder. It sounded so close. BOOM!
The soft chime of the elevator's arrival might as well have been a choir of angels. Three titanium plates in the wall began to peel themselves apart and the man wasted no more time. He squeezed himself through the opening and returned to hurrying the elevator before it could even finish opening.
It closed nowhere near fast enough.
He's left standing there, waiting for the steel trap of a box to catch up to his latest demand in a temporary chaotic stillness. The doors wouldn't move, his body stuck stock-still, and it didn't matter he was so afraid to make a sound that he held his breath, sound was all around him and flooding his senses. Blood roared in his ears, and the wail of the alarms echoed painfully down the long hall he found himself staring down, threatening to catch up to him. None of it, however, was enough to drown out the dying shrieks of the men that thing just devoured -- those shrieks never stopped, they clung to him no matter how fast he ran.
A fleeting part of him wondered about the kid, but fear swallowed that thought right up.
Another moment passed by him as nothing new happened. Maybe, came a short-lived thought spoken from a frenzied part of his brain, I'm stuck in a damn time loop. The doors don't close, the alarms shriek for help he still can't give and nothing continued to happen. For one foolish second, he almost began to believe he just might be able to make it. But that wasn't enough to cast away the fear looming over his shoulder, watching him, breathing down his neck.
He couldn't seem to take his eyes off of the hallway that stretched out endlessly before him, either. The man attempted to take this gift of a moment to calm his breathing. In such a state, he was sure his heart would kill him if the monster didn't get to him first.
His hopes of escaping grew stronger as one moment stretched into two. Of course, that was when he finally heard it.
Already, it had found him. And it had come to claim his life.
A low growl unlike anything he had ever heard rumbled above him like a monstrous storm cloud, greeting him one final time. Then, a deep and drawn-out trill of delight, so far beyond anything animalistic.
It took every remaining ounce of courage just for the man to slowly crane his head up -- to look his fate in the face. But nothing could have prepared him for such a grisly end. Not even the brief terror he witnessed this thing unleash minutes ago.
There was simply no time for his life to flash before his eyes before it ended. The man's feet had already left the floor as the monster scooped him up. His final, dying shriek had fused with the wailing alarms and then been abruptly silenced when the doors finally closed, sealing him and the monster inside.
The flickering lights that ran up and down the hallways had no one left to dizzy, the alarms no one left to warn. The underground labyrinth had become a tomb for most those inside, and a hunting ground for a most dangerous predator. Few had survived its wrath, and many yet would meet their end tonight. All thanks to a single ripple in the scheduled quiet and bore of such a small, unassuming town. A ripple that would soon enough come to shift the waters of Hawkins forever.