"Twelve? Can you hear me?"

Twelve snapped out of his day dreaming state and looked up at Papa giving him a nod. Papa never liked when him or Eleven weren't paying attention. He felt as if that was disrespectful. And disrespecting him always needed up in him disciplining them, brutally might I add.

"I don't like that you're lying to me, Twelve." Papa's face was blank but his tone was something that scared Twelve. He sounded angry but what made him scary was that he was calm when he spoke, a calm that scared him.

"Good miracles don't lie, right?"

Twelve gulped nervously and gave a quick nod. He didn't want to anger Papa. He never wanted to be on the other side of Papa's fury.

"I need you to look for me. Find Him." Papa's hand found it's way to Twelve's shaved head. He rubbed it slowly and agonizing way, that made the brown skin want to shrivel up and die. He hated when Papa touch him, he wanted when anyone touched him. But he couldn't stop the man from doing it. He only could wait for it to stop, trying not to let loose a tear. "You'll need to go inside the bath again."

Twelve felt goosebumps raise up his arms and legs. "The bath?" He asked with a bit of a tremble in his voice. He hated the bath, he hated that dark place. He hated it ever since he saw the dark place, the otherworld and Him. It gave him such a shuddering feeling in his gut-it hurt so much he felt like he was going to explode. He hated feeling like he was going to fall straight through the floor of the Dark Place. But what he hated the most was searching for Him. Twelve didn't know, or at least didn't see the face, of Him but he could feel Him. Somewhere in the Otherworld.

And He felt familiar, a terrifying familiar that Twelve could only describe as a deep settled hatred.

"Yes. The bath remember?" Papa took his hand off and now grabbed his clipboard. He looked at Twelve as they sat on the bed, sensing the fear of the boy. But he wasn't concerned about that. He needed to find it. "I need you to look again. You understand, right?"

"No." Twelve shook his head with teary eyes. He knew he shouldn't have said no, because no just wasn't an answer, but he really was terrified from what'd he seen. He didn't know about any other subjects inside of the lab and surely, he didn't want to end up like them.

"I don't-"

Papa sighed and placed a hand on the boy's shoulder. At first it was thought to be comforting. "Twelve . . . it can't hurt you. Whatever is in there cannot see or hurt you."

"You're my favorite, can't you see? You can do some many extraordinary things, just like Eleven. But yours will help us find it. Yours will help us kill Him." Papa's voice was soft and calming but Twelve was nowhere near comfortable or anything of the sort. He was uncomfortable and felt icky more than anything.

"You remember all the training you did? With Brian?" Papa asked the boy who nodded but cut his eyes at the name.

All the training he did almost broke him, he fought with the man until he couldn't feel anything anymore. And he trained with weapons of all kinds sometimes on people.

"You are the weapon to stop this."

"Don't you want to stop this?"

Twelve shook his head. He hated being near Him.

"P-Please. No. P-"

Papa's grip now had gotten tighter as if he was threatening the boy subtly. "You do not have a choice, Twelve."

"You will do this." Papa told the boy who now had half of his face hidden behind his knees as he sat on the bed with tears now coming down his cheeks. "Right?"

Twelve felt the grip get tighter and felt pain shoot up from his collarbone. He just wanted him to let go, please. Just let him go!

"Yes." Twelve finally obeyed and Papa smiled caressing his cheek but the boy flinched abs moved away. But Papa still held his smile.

"Good." Papa said before he got up from the room to walk out.

Once the door shut, Twelve started to let his sobs out. He fell into his bed, laying down on his side with his knees to his chest as his tears wet the sheets. He noticed that a red mark was on his shoulder, near his collarbone, were Papa had grabbed him.

He only cried, the harder he cried the more the lights flickered at his sobs.

Vee woke up suddenly, his chest heaving up and down. His breathing had started to become faster as he looked around his surroundings, seeing the forest him and El slept in. His wig wasn't on his head anymore and his face had patches of dirt on them, along with his clothes but he couldn't really care. His breathing calmed down when he realized it was just a nightmare.

A memory if he wanted to be specific. A very terrible memory that no child should have to endure on their own.

Birds chirped loudly in the trees, reminding Vee of when he heard the baby bird earlier, and the sun's golden rays beamed on his brown skin. Though, Vee was used to getting dirty that didn't mean he wanted to be dirty. He absolutely hated the smell, feeling, taste of the brown earthy substance that was all over the ground. Especially when it was muddy, he hated mud. So naturally he needed to find somewhere to clean up.

Or at least, something like that.

He decided to snatch his wig from his head, liking the new feeling of free from the itchiness of it. The breeze brushed against his buzz cut head and the little hairs he had on his head, felt free for the moment. He decided to leave El asleep since they both had been running all day/night and she stayed on watch. Even though he begged her not to, the girl was persistent. But he was stubborn. So, they came to a compromise of one staying up for a couple hours and the other would wake the sleep person so they could watch.

But El forgot. Probably on purpose so Vee could sleep.

He rolled his eyes and stood up, with a slight wobble, looking around. He needed to find something or somewhere to wash his wash. He didn't care if the water was cold, hot, or warm. He just wanted the dirt off his cheeks. So he started to walk.

Aimlessly, he walked through the woods. Tree branches scratching against his sleeves and the cool November breeze hitting his body, sending chills down his spine. Branches snapped at each step and the colorful leaves made loud crunching noises. The noises scares Vee a bit, so he got paranoid. He wasn't dumb, he knew he was making them but . . . then again. Him and El were on their own again, which meant out in the open. That's what really made him frightened.

But he pushed through, like he always did, nothing was going to stop him from washing the filth off his face. Eventually, he found his way out the woods and onto the street. Unable to find a lake, or any source of water, he thought about maybe going into a store for food for him and El, then maybe taking a shower in the skin? Or at least, cleaning his face up.

He was used to showering in sinks. The laboratory usually made him do that when he was on punishment, and that was pretty often since he was stubborn. So, as punishment, they wouldn't let him shower like a person. They would watch. They watched as he undressed, washed, rinsed, and dried himself off in the tiny room with a dirty sink and a tiny bar of soap. He hated every second of that as he could feel the eyes of the bad men.

He walked down the streets not minding all the stares he was getting. Instead, he looked around for a store. Lots of disgusted glances and worried stares were put against him but he didn't really care. Nor did he really notice them.

He found a rather giant building that had many people coming in and out. He saw that the door opened whenever people walked through it and wondered how did that work? Was it a magical door? He also had seen fruits when the doors opened and decided that it was now or never. He needed to go in and out, really quickly so no one noticed him.

He went through the glass doors, gaping at how they opened without needing to be opened by him, and looked around at everyone. He suddenly felt all the glances of most of the people in the store but he tried to just push on and forget about them. He needed a bathroom first or anything he could use to wash his face. He would ask anyone for a bathroom but . . . he didn't want to attract attention.

He immediately went down the isles of food, not looking at anything yet. He then turned to the left and found a isle that had giant gallons of water and many bottles of water in one container that seemed to be wrapped around in some sort of plastic? Vee looked to his left then right, grabbing three bottles of water. One for his face, one for him, and the other for El. Immediately he trailed out the isle getting the attention of a couple workers who looked at the boy confused and worried.

Vee hadn't noticed that he looked like he'd been playing in dirt all day with a couple of cuts on his face. Then the tiredness in his face was apparent, even though he slept, but he hadn't played attention to them yet.

As he looked around the food section he almost dropped the water bottles as he found a wall of Hersheys. He grabbed at least ten of the bars and stuffed them all in his pockets. Once he got those he looked around for something El could eat but he heard a man speak behind him.

"Young man? Where's your parents?" The man in a blue uniform asked but Vee only turned his head around, not his body. Maybe he should've been a little cautious about who was behind him. Since he could feel every emotion of everyone in the room, but, obviously, it overwhelmed him a bit. So he couldn't really tell who was coming behind him. He could only feel that there was someone closer.

"Do you have a number we can call?" He asked again with the sweetest tone as possible. But Vee didn't even try to feel through his emotional state to see if he was telling the truth. Truly, he was tired and ready to go.

"Piece of shit," Vee spat with a tired voice and went to look for more food. The man just gaped and looked at his coworker who shrugged in shock. Another coworker was more angry than shocked and decided he needed to teach this kid some manners.

"Hey, kid," the other man, not the one from before, followed Vee through the isle until he found the boy at the frozen section trying to get a box of egos for El. "Kid!"

Vee didn't turn around or spare him a glance. That only made the man trail towards him faster with anger. "That was real disrespectful of you, kid, huh?"

Vee still hadn't answered.

The man griped his shoulder, "Someone needs to teach your kind manners-"

Immediately Vee turned to the man and let out a loud scream, all the lights broke and all the glass doors on the freezes shattered or cracked. The man flew back a couple feet into a fruit section, tumbling in the oranges they had placed out neatly. When the man got up, his face appeared to be burned and he let out a scream as people went to help him.

Blood trickled down the boy's nose as he had gotten a bit dizzy from everything but pushed through the pain and headaches. He needed to get out.

Vee then started to speed walk out the store, with everyone trying to help the man he'd just thrown, and he successfully made it out the store without anyone stopping him. He kept walking instead of running, cause his feet were honestly sore, and once he gotten back into the woods he realized that he forgot the eggos.

He frowned a bit and realized that he'd just exposed himself in a public area. With many people. That was stupid and reckless of him. He had no idea why he had did that, but he thought of the scream to out of reflex.

So much for not attracting attention.

𓄇

Vee had made it back to where El should have been but only had seen empty boxes . . . of eggos.

He sighed a bit realizing that she'd ran off somewhere without him. But the egos that were on the ground were half eaten so that must've meant that she wasn't far. Unless she had to run but he didn't want to assume the worse just yet.

It was only when he closed his eyes, feeling for any emotion of the girl and found that she wasn't far but wasn't close either. He wiped his nose and placed the water bottles down, along with the Hersheys, but kept one of the bars. He opened it, how Lucas had showed him even if he did struggle a bit before he did, and started to take tiny bites. Soon those bites turned into big bites but he still tried to conserve some as he walked. He looked around the woods for the girl as he'd gotten closer and noticed her standing very still as if she was straining herself.

El, he called out to the girl mentally but she didn't turn around only responding with a weak help that sounded through her thoughts.

He dropped his Hershey and once he got to see what she was doing, he saw Mike floating in the air with Dustin in a chokehold as a knife was pointed at his mouth. The people were Troy and his minion, who Vee didn't know the name of, and they all gaped as the boy floated in the air, eventually falling down on the ground.

Vee and El both emerged from the woods with glared on their faces and blood running down her nose. The bullies only let out a low scoff and stood tall until they realized these weren't normal kids. They were miracles.

El threw down Troy's friend while Vee slipped into the boy's mental state quite easily than he expected. El then broke his arm as he screamed. Fall, the simple command made the boy make himself fall as his eyes turned to the whites for just a moment until he fell on his broken arm.

A higher pitched scream released from his mouth. "She broke my arm!"

"Go." El demanded with Vee by her side. Both of the kids had bloody noses but that didn't stop them, they were hellbent on protecting their friends.

Troy and his minion skedaddled away from the demand and Vee let go of his mind as he ran but then felt a terrible migraine start. His limbs started to feel weak once again and it wasn't long before he fell to the ground from exhaustion. El fell along with him but he sat up a bit trying to make sure she was okay.

Mike rushed to El, "El, are you okay?!"

"Mike . . . I'm sorry," El apologized to the Wheeler boy who furrowed his brows.

"Sorry? What are you sorry for?"

"The gate . . . I opened it." El answered for Mike as her lip started to tremble in guilt. El went into the void and released enough energy for the gate to be opened. But Vee was worse. He was trained by going into people's heads by projecting and killing them, slowly but effectively. And he contacted him, effectively causing the barrier to break so El could find Him. And if he didn't...he would be tortured. It was so terrible. He had been the monster in disguise. He was the Bad. Not Mike. Not Lucas. Not El. Not the bullies. He was.

"I'm the monster . . ." El cried. But Vee shook his head. El was good person. El was his sister. She wasn't the monster. He had been the cause.

He was the one to contact Him, he was always the one.

"No," Vee shook his head. "You're not. I am. I hurt people. I found Him, not you."

"You are good. I am the Bad."

Mike shook his head, "No, El, Vee. You're not the monster." Mike stared at her smiling brightly. Vee could tell it warmed the girl up. But he just gave with a solemn smile.

"You saved me. You saved us," with that Mike pulled the girl into a hug, Vee didn't join in. Bad boys didn't deserve hugs. Monsters didn't deserve anything.

So, he watched as the two hugged and only Dustin awkwardly gave him one.

And this time Vee just accepted it.