"Seven?" One called out quietly through the portal as she cautiously peered into the room before her.

After seeing that boy in the hallway the week previous she had been determined to see him again. Through loneliness or something else, it was hard to say, but all week she had been trying to summon a portal to him. And at last it had worked.

She wasn't quite sure what she'd find since the last time she summoned a portal to someone instead of someplace it was in the future, but she had been determined to try nonetheless. She had focused on him in that hallway. In the Lab. In the now.

"Who are you?" a small voice answered back. It sounded like the voice she had heard that time she opened a portal to Papa. The strange accent resonated in her memories. She had been right, she had met Seven before.

"My name is One," One responded. "I saw you passing in the hallway last week."

"I remember you," Seven said after a few moments of thought. The two stared curiously at each other for a few moments before Seven spoke again. "So you can open portals? That's your power?"

"Yes, what's yours?" One asked eagerly. The moment she asked, a weird feeling began to creep up her spine and suddenly she found herself climbing through the portal and into Seven's room. Why had she done that? What if someone came in and found her? She turned to go back through the portal but was surprised to find that she had closed it. She didn't even remember doing it...

"That's my power," Seven said once One's bewildered eyes once again met his. He wiped a streak of blood from his nose.

"You...you made me do that?" One took a step back from Seven as he slowly nodded his head. A shiver shot up her spine and for a second she was scared that it was from him controlling her again. Could she trust this boy?

"Sorry, I don't mean to frighten you," Seven said after noticing her discomfort. "I promise I won't do it again."

A long breath exhaled from One's nose as she cautiously reclaimed the step she had taken backwards. He sounded sincere enough but something lurked in his eyes, something that she couldn't quite pinpoint. She decided to afford him some trust, but she would still remain on guard.

"I haven't seen another kid here before you," Seven struck up a new conversation as he began to pace the room. "I've heard them, but I haven't seen them."

"I also haven't seen any. Well, except for a baby, but that was a long time ago," One admitted.

"A baby?" Seven asked incredulously. One just nodded her head. "How long have you been here?"

"I've been here for..." One started her response out confidently but then faltered when she realized that she didn't actually know the answer. "I don't know."

"Where did you come from, before this?"

"Before this?" One's nose crinkled in confusion as she tried to recall her life before the Lab. Had she had a life before the Lab?

Time had begun to blend together as of late, and she had a hard time differentiating the beginning and the end. Had there even been a beginning? Would there be an end?

A headache ensued as she tried to understand the nothingness that her memory brought forwards. All she remembered was Papa and the Lab, although something within her told there had been something else before that. What though, she had no idea.

"You don't remember?" Seven asked in disbelief.

"No," One shook her head. "Do you?"

"Neither do I," Seven admitted glumly. He sat at the edge of his bed in defeat and cradled his head in his hands. He looked so weak, so vulnerable. Something told One to sit beside him, but it wasn't Seven, it was her own intuition. She did this of her own accord.

"I was hoping you could help me remember, but now I see that it's hopeless because you can't even remember. I have nothing," Seven sobbed.

"That's not true," One said, gently placing a hand on his back. Both initially jumped from the touch but settled into it after the shock wore off. Physical contact was a stranger to them. "You have me."

When One came to she found herself on the faded couch in the Byers' living room. She looked up to see the lights and letters above her head and took a deep breath, but the deep breath ignited a fierce pain in her throat and she grabbed at her neck to make it stop. What had happened?

"Are you okay?" One turned her head to see Joyce rushing towards her from the kitchen with a glass of water.

"What happened? I don't remember anything..." One's voice came out as a hoarse whisper. It even hurt to talk. One slowly pushed herself into a sitting position with Joyce guiding her and took a few sips from the glass.

Joyce didn't respond but rather looked over her shoulder to Will who was peering out from behind the wall. "Come here, sweetie. It's okay."

Will cautiously approached the pair, a look of remorse scrawled on his face. And were those...tears? Built up in the corners of his eyes? One had to blink several times to make sure she was seeing everything correctly.

"I'm sorry." Will broke down the second the words came out of his mouth. He fell into Joyce and she cradled him against her.

"It's...okay..." One said reluctantly. She was still confused.

"Something overtook Will during the car ride and made him hurt you. Made him choke you," Joyce began to explain. One reached up to feel her neck again. That explained the pain. "It almost killed you, but right before it could Will broke through and let go. He was so strong." Joyce smiled and brushed through Will's hair with her fingers.

One stared at Will curiously. The longer she stared the more she started to remember bits and pieces. Most vividly, she remembered Will's eyes; rolled back and completely white.

"I don't know what it was." Will's whisper cut through the silence once he caught his breath. "It wasn't like the Mind Flayer, it felt different."

"The 'Mind Flayer'?" One asked. More of those weird words they used.

"It's the King Monster of the Upside Down," Will explained. "It controls all the other monsters and everything it infects. At one point it controlled me, but we got rid of it."

"I'm not familiar..." One replied. In her eight years of running around the Upside Down she had never come across a monster like that. It sounded horrifying.

One's response confused Will. The Mind Flayer was a ginormous monster after all, how could she not have seen it? But before he could question it Joyce intervened. "What was it like, honey? Can you describe it?"

"I didn't even realize what I was doing until it was almost too late..." Will trailed off as he tried to describe the experience.

A strange dizziness settled upon One. Something familiar resounded in those words and set off flashbacks from the Lab. With eyes ablaze, One shot to her feet, catching Joyce and Will off guard.

"Was there a weird feeling in your spine before it happened?" One immediately asked, looking down at Will.

"Y-yes..." Will stammered, still alarmed from One's sudden movement.

One's chest began to heave so hard that she couldn't tell what was louder; the beating of her heart or the pumping of her lungs. They were both drowning each other out. A swarm of thoughts went racing through her mind but she could only make out one of them: Seven.

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