( darkest before dawn / act three )
episode six | stranger things

❛ SHE KNOWS ❜

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      AURORA WATCHED AS STEVE and Robin were escorted from the room in handcuffs. The guns they had pointed at her two friends were extremely large and there were too many people for Aurora to feel confident in her powers.

She felt a small amount of relief when the final amount of guards lefts the room, without Dustin or Erica in the grasp. She held her breath as the guards began to speak in hushed tones around her, so quiet that she couldn't even understand. She didn't move from her spot until a good ten minutes after the last guard passed her, then she hurried over to the room they had escorted Steve and Robin from.

      "Dustin? Erica?" Her voice was wobbly as she spoke, searching for her two other friends. There weren't many hiding spots that they could be — but Aurora checked every single one of them before he hands started shaking. "Shit, shit, shit."

      Aurora was almost running in circles at this point, checking every spot over and over again until she was red in the face, tears building in her eyes. Her head was pounding — and she was almost certain that the coolness she felt on her forehead was blood.

Aurora was truly alone. A month ago, she would have begged to just be alone for a day, but she knew that she would always have someone to find once that day was up. She knew that no matter what, she would have someone — that she wasn't really alone. But now, she had no one.

Dustin and Erica had disappeared. Steve and Robin had been taken. And she didn't know what to do. She pretended she did half the time, but she always had someone by her side to guide her in the right direction.

For the first time in what felt like forever, Aurora was utterly alone. And so, she sat on the steps and began to cry. Not caring that any Russian could come and get her — and most likely kill her. Aurora didn't care about one single thing. She just wanted to cry.

      And she did. Until she felt lightheaded and out of breath, her eyes tinted red. She needed to find her friends. She needed to apologize to Hopper. She needed to apologize to Mike. She needed to save the world — as Dustin would call it. She had her time to wallow in her pity, now she needed to suck it up.

      So, Aurora stood from her place on the steps and glanced around the room again, looking for anything she would've missed. It took her two looks until she noticed the air-duct connected to the floor. Rushing over to it, the lip popped off easily and Aurora glanced around one more time making sure that she hadn't missed something else before lowering herself into the vent and securing the covering over her.

      It was pitch black when she secured the gate cover over her head. She waited under the entrance for a few seconds to allow her eyes to adjust before heading straight — or at least what she hoped was straight.

      Aurora didn't know exactly how long she was moving before she knew she had made the right decision. She had made it to a fan one that had clearly been tampered with as it wasn't moving anymore. That's when she began to pick up her pace, crawling faster towards Dustin and Erica.

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      MIKE WAS ONCE AGAIN pacing the floor of Hoppers cabin, waiting for Eleven to come out of the room. And some part of Mike hoped that she would follow through with his small request of locating Aurora as well.

      "She's been in there for a long time," Max commented, glancing at the door, "are we sure this is safe?"

      Mike stopped pacing, "yes. It just takes a while, she's trying to find five people."

      Max almost agreed with his statement before she picked up one small detail, "five people? Mike she's looking for Heather, her parents and Billy. That four."

      "And Aurora," Mike added, looking down as if he knew that he had made the wrong choice in spilling the beans or even asking for the favor in the first place.

      Max jumped up, "Aurora? God, Mike you are so self centered! She isn't yours to worry about anymore, if she wanted to call you she would have. If she wanted to answer you, she would have! I'm not going to keep having this conversation with you, she is not a person you can just control. Especially after she dumped you."

      "Aurora dumped you?" Nancy interjected, having heard the tail end of Max's rant.

      Mike sheepishly rubbed the back of his neck, "we're talking a break. And, um, reevaluating what we both want."

Max smirked. "Really? If I'm remembering right — and correct me if I'm wrong — you told her she was constantly needy and a little much. And then she told you, she was taking all the constant neediness off your plate."

Nancy gasped, before smacking Mike upside the head, "Michael James Wheeler!"

"What the fuck, Nanc!" Mike cradled his head moaning in pain, cringing away from the girl as she raised her hand again.

Mike and Max began arguing again — with Mike ending up revealing that Max used Elevens powers to spy on them, before trying to use that idea against the rest of the group on how they were just treating Eleven like a cash cow for her powers.

"You're doing that too, Mike!" Max shouted, "you asked Eleven to find Aurora because she won't answer any of your calls! Isn't that the exact same thing you're accusing us of doing?"

Mike went silent. Though, it didn't last long as Eleven made an appearance. Blood was crusted under her nose and her eyes were weary, "I found him." She made eye contact with Mike before nodding at him, the boy basically ran over to the girl.

"Did you find Rory?"

"She's in a dark place," Eleven whispered, "I think with Billy."

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AURORA WAS GOING TO give up hope on ever getting out the of darkness when she finally turned a corner and light was slowly illuminating the end of the tunnel. She almost screamed with happiness as she began to hurry her pace towards the door.

      Unfortunately, Dustin and Erica hear the vents moving as she crawled her way towards them and assumed it was a Russian guard who had followed them ( though their logic had been thoroughly flawed as why would a Russian guard follow them through vents and not just where they knew the vents would lead to ).

      They didn't have many weapons at their disposal, but Erica held her heavy flashlight up while Dustin readied himself with the gate cover, holding their breaths for the person to show. Seconds passed painfully silent before a head popped out — all three of them screaming loudly.

      Aurora pulled herself out of the vent as Erica dropped her flashlight and squeezed her around the middle. Her face pressed into her stomach and she held on before Aurora cleared her throat.

      "Miss you too, E," Aurora laughed as she pealed her arms off herself, "but if you squeeze me anymore I might pee." Erica laughed as Dustin hugged her softly. "Never have I been more happy to see your face, Dusty."

      "Yours is alright," Dustin shrugged after he had let go. Aurora softly pushed his shoulder away before glancing around the room.

      "Holy shit, you guys found the mother load," she nodded, referring to the acid that surrounded them and admitted a soft green glow:

      "There's a cart here too," Dustin smiled motioning to the red golf cart, "can't find the keys though."

      Erica had wandered from the two, and was staring at a large metal cage. "Dustin?"

      "Yep?"

      "How big did you say that Demogorgan was?" She asked and Aurora spun around to look at the boy.

      "She knows?" Aurora whisper-yelled as if Erica didn't already know.

      "I kinda had to tell her!" Dustin retorted, "and she knows about your little..." Dustin moved his hands wildly, before closing his eyes and pretending to drop to the ground.

      "Hello?" Erica loudly interrupted the two of them, "how big was this thing!"

      "Pretty big, nine feet of so. Maybe larger," Aurora added, before turning back to Dustin, "are you kidding me? She's a child! Listen to me, Dustin!"

      Dustin nodded faintly as he unlocked a box screwed into the wall, spinning to hold up a pair of keys, "found them!"

      Aurora rolled her eyes, mentally cataloguing it as something to bring up in an argument later, before turning to look towards where Erica should have been standing. She was not. In her place was a large metal cage, almost ten or eleven feet tall with padlocks and more advanced locking mechanisms every other section.

      "Erica...?" Auroras voice echoed as something sharp sounded behind her, causing her and Dustin to both jump as they turned to face the sound.

      Erica stood behind them — a grin bestowed on her face as she smiled — with a large electric taser in her hand. The lights glowing blue as electricity ran across it.

      "What the HELL is that?" Dustin screeched as Erica let go of the trigger.

      Erica shrugged, "a deadly weapon. Could be useful."

      Aurora paused for a moment before nodded, she was right at least, "okay, as long as you promise not to shock me."

      "Oh trust me, this is coming home to use on Lucas when he doesn't change the channel to My Little Pony."

      Aurora let out a loud laugh at her statement, as Dustin cleared his throat to break them up. "You cannot bring that!"

      "I'm kidding, gosh. Useful in taking out commies, saving your friends?" Erica rolled her eyes.

      "I thought you were more realistic than that, nerd." Erica scoffed, before moving to sit in the cart, "besides, we don't even know where they are! Even if we did, there are way too many guards up there with weapons more advanced than that."

      Erica turned her head to look at Dustin, point to Aurora, "that's why she is our secret weapon. Hello? Literal superwoman here."

      Aurora blushed, "it's not that cool, trust me."

      Dustin shook his head, "we aren't endangering any more of us. The best thing we can do is get out of here and then send help back down to them. The chance of us and them surviving increases substantially with my plan. So trust me on this, please."

       Erica was squished in the middle of Aurora and Dustin, the seat clearly not built for three people, as Dustin turned the key into the cart and started it —

      "Wait!" Aurora called as she jumped off the cart and moved around it, only for Dustin to press on the gas as she was in front of the car. The red gold cart slamming into Aurora as she tumbled to the ground.

      "What the fuck Dustin!" Aurora cried, holding her leg softly. "Wait, means WAIT." Aurora dragged out the second wait as she glared at the boy.

      "How was I supposed to know you were just going to go in front of the cart with no warning?" Dustin threw his hands in the air.

      "Hence the 'Wait!' that I clearly announced! God you're not driving," Aurora added as she stood, a soft lip on her left leg both other than that. It would most likely bruise, but she would survive.

      "You can't drive either!"

      "I've been learning how to drive for years," Aurora shook her head, "I'm basically licensed at this point, so you've been booted."

      Dustin couldn't protest much more than that. So he be grudgingly climbed into the passenger seat as Aurora climbed into the driver seat.

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( LET ME SPEAK : )

guys...i'm backkk
okay i wasn't really gone, i was just
stuck on this frickin chapter and then
life caught up to me and i forgot about
this book a tintsy bit. but here we are,
and i'm planning on getting to season
four by the end of this month? maybe
early october and finish the book by like
end of year? hopefully? crossing my fingers
and toes!?

also on a completely different note... guess
who is four weeks into junior year and already
failing 2 classes!
ME! yaaaay ( i'm already crying )

credit goes to fivehxrgreeves