C H A P T E R  F O U R  :

" A NEW EXPERIMENT "

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NEEDLE warning - i've included a gif with a needle closeup right after this warning, so if that bothers you, feel free to just scroll past the gif & down to the beginning of the chapter

the gif is purely for dramatic build-up & aesthetics, & it isn't a necessity of this chapter, so if you skip over it, you won't miss anything

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･ ｡ﾟ ⋆✩⋆  ･ ｡ﾟ

･ ｡ﾟ  ･ ｡ﾟ

| D E C E M B E R  23th, 1986 |

[ one day after y/n and hopper's attempted escape from the Russian lab ]

K a m c h a t k a , R u s s i a

Y/N SAT and fidgeted with her hands in the questioning room alone where the Russian security guards roughly placed her in after she and her father tried to send an S.O.S to Hawkins and break out.
  She stared at her sweaty and worn out reflection in the two way mirror on the blank rusted wall ahead of her—her right wrist handcuffed to the wobbly table as to not hurt anymore guards than she already did.

  She glared up at the door when she heard the rattle of the metal swing open to reveal the conspicuous doctor in his white lab coat that she wasn't very fond of a few years ago. He had a grimace on his face as closed the door behind him before making his way to sit himself at the table across from Y/N, a clip board in his hand along with a pen.

"Hello, Y/N."
He spoke with a monotone voice, awaiting her response but only saw her resist by glaring at him.
He found it interesting considering that she wasn't as bold as she was now when she last saw him that night in the middle school 3 years ago.
  There was this fall of silence in the boxed room as Y/N just continued to glare at Brenner with a pure hatred. He studied her, like she was an experiment.

And that's the moment he sparked an idea that he thought was ingenious.

"You're a very interesting child. You somehow survived the harsh conditions in the alternate world beyond the gate surprisingly well considering you are only a teenager."
  Brenner began, as he stared at Y/N with an intensity that made her feel slightly uncomfortable.

  "And what makes you even more interesting, is that you are quite the fighter. You killed 7 of my guards in less than 5 minutes with only your bare hands—do you know how intriguing that is to me?"
Brenner's voice inclined as he spoke with a rhetorical question in which Y/N couldn't care less about.
  She knew that she was a good fighter, because she was stuck in the upside down for a while, meaning that she had to fight creatures to survive.
She grew a very advanced skill set in killing and fighting like her father.

She was silent, patiently waiting him out.

"Perhaps you'd like to ask me some questions of your own."
  Brenner knew she wouldn't answer any of his questions, so he offered her a chance to ask some of her own.

With a grit of her teeth, Y/N couldn't help but worry for the safety of her father. He was her one soft spot in this wretched place.

"Is my dad okay?"
She hadn't seen Hopper in 28 hours, which was longer than usual considering that they spent every moment of every day together in the Upside Down.

They were codependent on each other now.

Brenner nodded slowly, watching as she slightly exhaled with relief that he was alive and they hadn't done anything to him yet.
But his thoughts were anywhere but focused on her.

He knew Y/N and Hopper were nothing but a nuisance and burden to him and his lab, and he had no use for Hopper.
  However, Y/N wasn't completely useless, he thought.

  "You seem to be quite the strong one.. perhaps you could be of use after all."
His words made Y/N uneasy as he flipped through his papers to retrieve a few and set them on the table to display them in front of you to view.

  They were pictures of people that seemed to have the life drained from them—their skin sickly white and thin while their bones prodded through.
  They looked horribly tortured and abused.

"These were some of the strongest prisoners that were held here that I used for some of my projects. They were all failures, and for the longest time, I hadn't figured out why my experiments failed.."

Brenner's finger's trailed along the pictures he showed her before he snatched them up and place them back into the stack of his papers, a comprehending smirk on his face as he contemplated his plan.

"What experiments?"
The aura that Y/N picked up from Brenner made her uneasy before his voice sent disgusted shivers down her back.

Brenner chuckled at her question, but found no harm in telling her because there was no way she could tell anyone when she will never escape.

"Those people in the photographs you just saw, were unsuccessful experiments from their body's rejection of a certain sample of DNA that I injected into their bloodstream to create a new substance."

These were things that Y/N already figured out at this point, but when she saw that twinkle of inspiration in Brenner's darkened eyes, she had a feeling she knew what DNA he was speaking about.

"You see..I'm working with Russia's military bases now. We became business partners in the earnings after we put aside our differences. I have connections with many people who count on me to.. 'heighten' their soldiers, and in return, I get a cover for working here with the alternate universe on Russian soil."

It was in the way that Brenner stood up from the table to pace while he explained his plans to her, that she knew how small minded he really was.

"For the past 3 years, I've been working on reopening the gate to the alternate world, and mixing the DNA of a creature from the alternate universe with a human. All my previous experiments and their bodies rejected the foreign blood, and began to shrivel and die—but I never knew why. That is, until you and your father made it out of that gate alive,"

"My experiments failed because their bodies were never exposed to the alternate universe. However, your body was, and perhaps now.. now I can succeed with my project. Now I can have a new subject.."

Injecting demogorgon blood into a human's bloodstream sounded psychotic—it sounded lethal.

  Y/N's body felt itself quiver at the sound of Brenner's chilling voice. This was a different man than the one she had fought against 3 years prior—a man with a different motive and mindset.

  "If my hypothesis proves to be correct, then your body won't reject the toxins from the serum, and you'll be living proof the heightened human."

Brenner's thought process was simple. He couldn't live with his own failure when he lost his best experiment, 011.
So instead of waiting for another psychic, he's creating his own with special abilities.

Y/N's breath hitched when he mentioned using her as his new lab rat, knowing that judging from the pictures of those dead people and Eleven's traumatic past, that Brenner stops at nothing to get what he wants.
She didn't show her fear, no.
But inside, she was screaming. She was screaming for the comfort of her dad.

Brenner stood, walking over to Y/N's side of the table to un-cuff her wrist from the table to instead cuff both her wrists together behind her back, leading her to the door of the room and out into the hallway where she saw many guards standing at attention.

Brenner led her down the hall, towards what looked like more rooms in which Y/N could feel the stares of all guards glaring at her with interest as she unknowingly passed by a cell in which her dad was being held—she would not see him again for a while longer.

  "Imagine the things we could accomplish. The boundaries we could surpass working together.."
  Brenner's words illustrated frightening images of Y/N's future that she feared would come to pass.
  Being stuck in the upside down made her forget any other emotion besides fear, and she had seen a lot of terrifying things in that wretched place.

  But for a very valid reason, Brenner scared her more.

  She would become his next obsession—his next project.

  His new experiment.

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┌────── ⋆⋅⋅⋆ ──────┐

sorry if it didn't make complete sense, but you'll understand soon enough what this chapter meant.

this chapter was shorter than others, but i didn't want to overwhelm.

what do you think so far ??

any theories so far? any predictions?

thanks for reading.. stay tuned !!

PUBLISHED
AUGUST 12 2019
at 2:21 PM