Seven

"Oh god, here we go," The dark skinned boy groaned, "It's Eleven all over again, I'm telling you!"

Eleven? I remember that name. She was a girl in the lab. A small girl with brown eyes and a shaven head, just like I once had. I never saw her much, only when we were put together for group testing, but judging by the few encounters I had with her, she seemed like a nice enough girl.

"This is nuts! This is nuts! THIS IS NUTS!" The curly haired boy kept chanting, making me flinch when he started yelling.

"Guys, calm down, you're scaring her!" The floppy haired boy glared at the others before sitting next to me, "Is that your name? Seven?" His voice was soft and gentle. I nodded, before he continued, "Alright, well, I'm Mike, that's Lucas," He pointed to the dark skinned boy who wouldn't stop glaring at me, "Dustin," He pointed to the curly haired boy. He grinned at me and I noticed he had some teeth missing. "And that's Will." He pointed to the small boy with the bowl cut.

"Nice to meet you." Will grinned.

"Nice to...meet you." I repeated. I'd heard that term before and I think you say it to people you just met.

"Listen, sorry we kinda freaked out when we saw your tattoo, it's just... We've kind of been in this situation before." I gave him a confused look. What's that supposed to mean? What situation? "We found a girl, about six months ago, she'd run away from Hawkins Lab and we tried to help her. She had a tattoo just like yours and she had these really cool powers. Her name was-"

"Eleven." I finished Mike's sentence for him. I figured that's who he was talking about since Lucas mentioned her.

"You know Eleven?" He asked me, his eyes wide and I nodded, "Do you know where she is?" I frowned and shook my head. Why did he need to know where she was? What happened to her?

"But you're from Hawkins Lab, right?" Mike guessed and I nodded hesitantly. He noticed my uncertainty and added, "Don't worry, no one will find out about you. You're safe with us."

"Hold on, if you're from the lab, why isn't your head shaved like El's?" Lucas butted in to interrogate me.

"El?" I glanced at Mike, confused.

"Yeah, we called Eleven El for short." He explained.

"You didn't answer my question," Lucas snapped, the tone of his voice making me flinch, "Why do you have hair?"

"Lucas, leave her alone." Mike glared harshly at him.

"I ran away." I confessed, hoping they would connect the dots and work out that my hair had grown back since I left the lab.

"From the lab?" Mike questioned, looking concerned as I nodded, "How long have you been running for?"

"A year."

"A year?!" They all yelled in unison, causing me to shrink back in fear.

"Sorry." Mike quickly apologised when he saw how I reacted.

"Wait, so, you haven't eaten properly or had any real shelter for a whole year?" Will asked me and I shook my head.

"Well don't worry, you don't have to live like that anymore." Mike told me and I gave him a small smile.

"Wait, wait, wait, if you're from the same place El came from, does that mean you have superpowers?!" Dustin asked enthusiastically.

"Super...powers?"

"Yeah, they're like special abilities that superheroes and people like that have," Mike explained, "I think El had telekinesis, you know, she could move things with her mind and stuff like that." He paused and looked at me, "Do you have anything like that?"

"Yes."

"What is it?!" Dustin practically shouted in my face. I flinched and cowered away from him.

"Dustin!" Mike glared at the pudgy boy, "What he means is, can you show us your powers? If you want to?"

I gave a small nod before holding my hand out. A bright orange flame emitted and hovered above my palm for a couple seconds before I closed my hand, instantly putting out the small fire. I then looked up to see Mike, Will, Dustin and even Lucas staring at me in amazement, mouths wide open.

"That was awesome!" Mike exclaimed.

"That was so cool!" Will squealed.

"You have fire powers!" Dustin declared, disbelief written all over his face, much like his friends.

"The was pretty awesome." Lucas smiled and I smiled back, glad that the boy who seemingly hated me was finally starting to take a liking to me.

"Are you cold?" Mike frowned once he noticed I was shivering. It was a side effect of my powers. Because it takes so much of my body heat to use my powers, every time I do, I become extremely cold, freezing even and sometimes it makes me really weak and I've fainted from it before. This time I only used my powers a little bit for a couple seconds so it wasn't too bad, just a shiver.

"My powers...make me cold." I said, my teeth chattering a little.

"Here, put this on." He gave me the beige coat he was wearing when they first found me.

"Thank you." I smiled, putting it on over the red hoodie I was already wearing.

"Boys! Dinner!" A woman's voice called from upstairs. The four boys glanced at the stairs, then at each other, then back at me.

"We'll be back real soon, okay? Stay here." Mike told me and I just nodded before they all ran upstairs.

About thirty minutes later, I heard footsteps coming back down to the basement. I panicked a little but relaxed when I saw it was just Mike.

"Hey, Seven, I bought you some lasagna." He said, handing me a plate of what looked like a pile of pasta, meat and cheese.

"Where's Will, Dustin and Lucas?" I asked, noticing they were absent.

"They had to go home." Mike explained and I just nodded before tucking in. I almost moaned at how good it felt to be eating real food again, especially this lasagna stuff which was delicious. So delicious, in fact, that I finished it in less than two minutes.

"Damn, you must've been really hungry." Mike chuckled and I just smiled sheepishly, wiping some sauce from my face.

"Mike?"

"Yeah?"

"Why did you ask me if I knew where Eleven is? What happened to her?" I finally asked the question that had been bugging me.

I saw Mike tense up a little but he told me anyway after taking a deep breath, "When we met Eleven, in the same week, Will went missing. He was taken to this place called the Upside Down, do you know it?" He looked at me and I nodded. I knew all about the Upside Down. "Cool. Anyway, we eventually found Will, with El's help and she destroyed this monster that had taken Will in the first place. We called it the Demogorgan, but when she destroyed it, she disappeared too and now I don't know where she is. I don't even know if she's alive." He looked close to tears by the time he finished explaining. He obviously cared about her a lot.

"I'm sorry." I reached out and placed my hand gently on top of his. Mike looked over at me and gave me a small smile, which I returned before he changed the subject.

"Hey, what do you think of Eve for your nickname?"

"Nick...name?"

"Yeah, a nickname is, like, a special name that you give someone. It can be a shorter version of their name, or it can relate to their personality or their appearance. See, my name is actually Michael and Will's is William, but our nicknames are Mike and Will. I was thinking you could be Eve, as a nickname for Seven?"

"Eve..." I repeated.

"Yeah, Eve, do you like it?" He asked. A smile crawled onto my face and I nodded, making Mike grin.

It was silent for a few moments after that and I couldn't tear my eyes away from Mike. I liked the way he looked. His chocolatey brown eyes popped against his pale skin and his face was nicely framed by the mop of floppy dark brown hair on his head. My favourite feature, though, was the delicate blanket of freckles that was sprinkled over the bridge of his nose and spilled over onto his cheeks.

"Why are you staring at me?" Mike giggled, pulling me out of my daydream.

"Um- I... No reason." I stuttered, awkwardly looking away for a second, feeling my face heat up.

"Mike?" I spoke up after a minute.

"Yeah, Eve?"

"I like your freckles." I told him shyly.

"Oh, um, thanks." He smiled, his cheeks turning a very light shade of pink as he bought a hand up to where his freckles were located.

A couple hours later, Mike's mom called down telling him to go to bed because apparently it was a "school night", whatever that means. Mike said that if I slept on the couch his mom would see me if she came down to the basement so he built me a bed out of blankets and pillows under the small table that was against the wall, which was hidden by the table cloth.

"Is your ankle feeling any better?" Mike asked me after helping me from the couch over to my makeshift bed. I simply shrugged because it didn't feel much different since Mike first bandaged it up.

"Alright, well, sweet dreams, Eve." He smiled at me as I sat down.

"Sweet dreams, Mike." I smiled back, causing Mike's smile to grow into a grin before he covered me with the table cloth and walked away.