the massacre at hawkins lab

. ✧ ・゜. +・o ✧

September 1979

              The car rumbled along the silent road, rolling over the occasional pothole with a jolt that nearly knocked Brandon Fairgrieves out of his seat. His hands clenched the steering wheel so tight his knuckles nearly turned white, pops of pearl against the umber of his skin. His window was open a crack, letting in the soft, late-summer wind. The trees that surrounded him—their leaves just beginning to turn orange and red with autumn—seemed to close him in. A bright, cheery pop song played on the radio, far too happy for the current circumstances. Distantly, the few birds still awake sang.

Blood leaked down Brandon's head.

It was everywhere, actually: sunken into his clothes, staining the once flawless white of his lab coat; streaked across the window from a dizzy attempt to wind it down; dripping down his face from a particularly large gash that he hadn't had time to treat; covering his hands. The scent of it invaded his nostrils—as sharply metallic as a copper coin, as pungent as a slaughterhouse. The sight of it burned his corneas—all red, red, red, until every other colour seemed dull in comparison. The feel of it, like warm syrup rubbing against his skin, sent bile rising into his throat.

Twisted limbs. Eyeless faces. Mouths open in silent screams.

Dead. Dead. Dead.

He barely managed to pull over in time before he was emptying his stomach on the side of the road. His stomach lurched over and over again as he threw up, gagging until there was nothing left behind. Tears sprang, unbidden, to his eyes, smudging the world before him even further.

I never wanted this.

It had just been a day. Just any other day of work, even if that work sometimes made Brandon's knees buckle with guilt. Oh, sure, he never dealt directly with the kids—the kids that could be as young as five, the kids that passed him in the hallways sometimes and stared at him with eyes that seemed to bore right into his soul—but he did reorder their files, copy down their vitals. And, to make matters worse, he turned his back to the way that they were being treated; to the collars and the electrocutions and the screams that would sometimes echo their way into his ears, and let his coworkers study them like animals. Like they were subhuman.

Like they were weapons.

I have to, he told himself every morning, staring at the man in the mirror and trying to comprehend that it was he who was staring back. I have to, he said as he headed downstairs, preparing coffee and giving his wife—who he wasn't even sure he loved, anymore—a kiss on the cheek.

I have to, he whispered when he heard the sound of approaching footsteps that signified the approach of his eight-year-old daughter. When Alina appeared, her curly hair held back with a ribbon, typically wearing one of the old-fashioned dresses Linda forced her into, his resolve was at its strongest. This girl—with her dark, curious eyes, bony elbows, and smile that could make any sane heart melt—was who he was doing all of this for. She was the reason he stepped into that building every day, even when it took a piece from his soul.

He had to. Even if it condemned him. Even if it meant that she'd hate him when she discovered the truth.

So, it had been a normal day—or what had become a normal day for Brandon Fairgrieves. He said hello to his coworkers and shared a cup of coffee with them in the break room. He compiled the results of the previous test into a neat, organized file, then dropped it off at Dr. Brenner's office. He received a particularly nasty call from his wife, where she spent ten minutes bemoaning the fact that Alina had spilled chocolate milk on her dress.

It had all been so normal.

Until all hell had broken loose.

Brandon didn't actually know how it happened. He had been in his office, his typewriter clicking as he finished Two's clinic information. A half-eaten turkey sandwich rested on a napkin beside his right hand, a BEST DAD EVER mug sat half-full of coffee, and various pens were strewn across his desk. He picked up the red one and used it to underline a particularly important detail. He tapped his foot on the floor to the tune of his favourite song.

That was when he was blown out of his seat.

Without any visible force to propel him, Brandon went flying, hurtling back into the checkered wall behind him. His head collided against it with an audible crack, one that sent a whirlwind of pain up into his skull. The world blurred in front of him, turning into a mishmashed jumble of shapes and colours, and then darkened completely.

He slumped to the floor, unconscious. It may have been thirty seconds before he woke up again. It may have been three hours. He wasn't sure, because to him, it just felt like a blink. Eyes open. Eyes closed. Eyes open again.

But when he woke up, everyone was dead.

He didn't know that at first, though.

When he finally returned to consciousness, he did so with a great gasp, as if he'd just woken up from a particularly nasty nightmare. His body rigid, Brandon wheezed, trying to regain his bearings. The ceiling swam before him, the tiles coalescing together. Pain slammed into him, pulsing with every breath, and he would have tipped over if he wasn't already lying down.

Something was seriously wrong.

One trembling hand groped towards the source of the agony—the back of his head. Tentatively, he clasped his palm around the responsible area, then hissed between clenched teeth as the pain intensified. Something was slick against his skin, spilling through his fingers. Blood.

Oh, God.

A rattling cough broke free from his lips, and he rolled over, spitting out a mouthful of blood. His tongue throbbed—he must have bitten it. It was hard to remember what had happened. He barely knew his own name.

Hurt. You're hurt.

Somewhere in the befuddled state that was Brandon's brain, one thought connected to another, and he finally realized that he couldn't just lie here. Whatever had happened to him was bad, and he needed to find help. Someone... someone had to be able to help him, right?

He stumbled to his feet, wincing, clutching at the back of his head. He most definitely had a concussion—the world around him was wobbling, and he could barely take a step without tripping. It hurt so much that he had to walk slowly—each time he put his weight on his foot, he had to keep a scream from tearing free.

It took nearly ten minutes to reach the door, which was strangely warped, as if hammered out of shape. Brandon's hands—which were stained with blood, now, coating nearly every inch of his skin—felt for the doorknob, and he yanked it open.

When he stepped into the hallway, however, he would grow to wish he'd just remained in his office.

The previously pristine hallways of the Hawkins National Laboratory were now a disturbing picture of gore. Blood streaked the walls, the floor—it even freckled the ceiling. There was so much of it that Brandon nearly keeled over again.

And that was before he saw the bodies.

The first one he laid eyes on was one of his coworkers, Dr. Norman. He was slumped against the wall, his limbs twisted into impossible positions. One of his arms was facing the wrong way, bone poking through the skin. His legs were contorted, bruised and bloodied, and each of his fingers had been broken. His jaw had been wrenched to one side, his mouth a gaping void, and blood ran from empty eye sockets. He smelled of rot and torment, with flies already building around his fresh corpse.

For a moment, Brandon could do nothing but stare.

Then he screamed.

That was only the first, however. Down the hallway was Dr. Lancaster, her body halfway into Subject Fifteen's room. To the right was Subject Three, and back where Brandon came was a janitor he'd never learned the name of.

It went on.

And on.

And on.

Everyone was dead.

"Oh, God," he kept whispering, moving forward, because that was all he knew how to do. "Oh, God."

Dead. Dead. Dead. Dead. Dead.

Brandon wasn't sure how he managed to finally get outside. At some point, his body went on autopilot, his brain shutting down in an attempt to avoid the traumatic scene in front of him. He must have stepped over bodies and slid in their blood with a completely nonchalant expression, even though internally, everything about him was screaming. Even though a part of him wanted to lay down among those he used to work with and die, too.

But, somehow, he made it out. Somehow, he made it to his car, slid inside, and started it up. And maybe he shouldn't have been driving right now, but he needed to get out of there. He needed to get out of there.

Which led him to be here, on the side of the road, gravel bits digging into his knees and goosebumps spreading up his arms. The blood had clotted on the back of his head by now, a clump of sticky residue, and his face was still streaked with grime. His mouth was foul, as if something had crawled up and died right there on his tongue, and his ears still rang. Tears streamed down his face.

Dead.

Dead.

Dead.

Was he the only one left?

Eventually, he managed to get back to his feet. He slid back into his car with the same robotic motions that had gotten him through the Lab, turning off the radio when it threatened to play another preppy song. Then he hurtled through the night once more, eyes glazing over instead of focusing on the road. His head continued to throb.

Gaping wide eye sockets, cracked limbs, the glisten of blood on bone—

Brandon heaved in a deep breath.

It took him ten more minutes before he finally pulled up the driveway of his home. By now, all of the lights were off, the curtains were closed, and the front door was probably padlocked. This was customary for Linda, who attempted to deter him from coming home after late shifts. Even though his job was the one that provided for the family—it wasn't like her job at the laundromat would pay the bills—she'd always detested it. Which would have been understandable, but she had no idea what he actually did.

Sometimes, Brandon thought that she was just looking for an excuse to hate him.

He made his way to the back of the house, where another, chainless door lay waiting. Pulling his keys out of his pocket with trembling fingers, he fitted the correct one into the lock and let himself in.

It was just as quiet on the inside as it was on the outside—which, given that Brandon was hardly in the headspace to put up with his wife's moods, was a good thing. He pulled off his shoes and picked his way through the living room on silent feet, making a beeline for the bathroom. He needed a shower. He needed to scrub today's events off him, let it all run down the drain, until it was nothing but a memory. Right now, plastered to his skin, it was like it was happening again, and again, and again.

He had just entered the dark hallway, listening intently for his wife's snores—he could hear them, faintly, upstairs, telling the world that she was asleep—when a tug on his sleeve nearly made him leap out of his skin. Brandon whirled, already preparing himself to face his attacker—which might have been the monster in the Lab, the one who had killed everyone, leaving Brandon the sole survivor—when he met the earnest eyes of his eight-year-old daughter.

God, she was good.

"Dad?" Alina asked innocently, shifting from foot to foot. She was wearing a hideously ruffled pink nightgown, itching at the collar absently as she spoke. Any other day, this would have made Brandon frown. He'd been trying to expand Alina's wardrobe lately, but every time he tried to buy something for his daughter that wasn't pink or frilled, Linda got her mitts on it. Sometimes, she threw the clothes in the garbage. Other times, she burned them.

"Hey, Ally," Brandon whispered. "What are you doing up?"

"I was waiting for you," Alina replied, scrunching her face. "You never get home this late. I was worried. And Mom said I couldn't go to the treehouse, so I waited here."

"Oh. Well, I just got held up at work today. Nothing to—nothing to worry about. So, you can hurry off to bed, okay?"

"No."

"'No'?"

"You're bleeding."

Automatically, Brandon's hand went up to his head, but he soon realized that Alina was pointing to his shirt. Indeed, it was covered in enough blood to make any sane person believe that a wound had accumulated there—but there was nothing. Brandon's chest had been one of the only things that had gotten out of there unscathed.

"No," he said. "No, no, sweetie. I'm fine."

"You don't look fine." A tilt of the head. "Have you been crying?"

"No, baby. I'm okay. Please go to bed, all right? Your mother's going to be upset if she sees you up and about."

Immediately, Alina flinched, and a surge of guilt went through Brandon for bringing her up. You couldn't exactly blame him—he was certainly not in his right mind right now—but it had been a low blow, regardless. Linda had been hard on Alina from the day she was born, and, sometimes, Brandon suspected that there was more going on with them than what met the eye. But he had no proof, and if he was going to divorce the wife he'd been once been completely and utterly in love with, he needed some.

"Okay," Alina said. "I'll go to bed. But you have to meet me there and tell me what's wrong, okay?"

Brandon sniffed. "Of course, Ally."

Dead. Dead. Dead.

She scampered off, unnaturally quiet, evading the creaky floorboards with practiced efficiency. Brandon watched her leave, her head of curly hair melting back into the darkness, and clenched his fists. They shook, trembling with the weight of all he'd seen today. More tears threatened.

He made his way into the bathroom and locked the door firmly behind him. And it was only there, under the scorching hot water, that he allowed himself to break down.

. ✧ ・゜. +・o ✧

A/N: uhhh... hi? 

welcome back!! i know you guys have been WAITING, so i'd like to finally introduce you to cynefin, the fic i am starting two years after the other three. stranger things four took its sweet time in getting here, but it was so well-done that i can't even be mad. i can't believe an episode called dear billy was my favourite, but i guess sometimes life surprises you.

unlike the other books in this series, cynefin is following a split plot, with gabe in california and alina in hawkins. for now, this means that there will be alternating chapters with each pov, but for the shorter scenes, they might share. i hope you're excited for the gill and sinclairgrieves content, because i promise you, there is PLENTY coming!!

also, if you enjoy my works, please consider giving me a follow and maybe checking out my other books! along with the acatalepsy series, i have an umbrella academy fic called ignis fatuus (which somehow won the wattys???) and a peter parker fic called revenant. i think they're pretty good, but i might just be biased lol :)

'till next time!! :))

(wow it feels weird to say that again)

(okay bye)