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

❛ DÉJÀ VU ❜

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      FOR A MOMENT AURORA felt a disorientating sense of weightlessness, she felt as if her soul had lifted from her body as she was simply watching from above. Until the room began its free fall into a void that the five knew nothing about.

      She could've screamed — but Aurora didn't recognize her voice — Robin and Erica's mouths had opened as well, but Aurora couldn't hear anything besides the deafening scratch of metal overtook every sense. Loose items floated around her as if someone had simply turned off gravity.

      Aurora had studied physics last year, she didn't believe in anything that couldn't be proven, but it seemed as if time had been placed in slow motion. Aurora watched as Erica reached for Robins hand as she opened her mouth. She watched as Dustin tried to clutch onto something that had been bolted down. Steve struggled to hold onto the table in the middle of the room, his face slightly pale.

      "Hold on to something!" His voice was strained to reach over the sound of metal scraping against rock. "We're going down! We're going down!"

      "Yeah no shit!" Robin retorted, and in normal circumstances, it would've brought a smile to Aurora's face.

      Dustin screamed something incoherent before rushing to the control panel, desperately trying to stop their uncontrollable descent. After a few moments, Erica hurried over to him and frantically slammed her hand across the buttons as well.

      "Just press something!" Aurora shouted before the room slammed down. Aurora stumbled forward, and the last thing she saw was the corner of the table before a blinding pain.

      Aurora hadn't been out long, maybe not even for more than a minute as a sharp pain radiated from the left side of her head, pulling her from the depths of unconsciousness. The world came in fragments — first, the sharp, metallic taste of blood in her mouth, then the cold surface underneath her cheek.

She blinked slowly, trying to make sense of the swirling shapes and colors around her. Stars bloomed across her vision as she attempted to sit up, Auroras hand flew to the front of her head which was the created of her pain, only to pull back and find her fingers covered in blood. The room seemed to spin, a disorienting whirl of shadows and indistinct forms.

      A mumbled bunch of words sounded from everywhere around her. Slowly, the muffled sounds and ringing dissolved, and Aurora could hear once more, her senses coming back to her torturously slow. She heard Steve shouting something, the louder he got the more the dull pain turned to throbbing. She let out a soft groan as Robin and Dustin jumped to her side.

      "Aurora?" Robins voice was soft and quiet, "are you okay?"

      "Of course she's not okay!" Erica scoffed, "look at her face."

      Aurora groaned, "thanks, E."

      "Erica!" Robin scolded, "can you see if there's a first aid kit somewhere in this hellhole?"

      Aurora didn't hear a response, but from the scuff of shoes she could tell Erica had complied. Robin had requested she keep her head down to ensure blood flow as she double checked everything else about Aurora.

      "Steve!" Robin shouted, "stop pressing the fucking buttons, we've established that they don't work!"

      "Here." Dustin spoke, before a few moments later Aurora felt a hand on her chin.

      "Okay, shit sorry this might hurt," Robin told her before she placed an alcohol pad to the cut on her forehead. Aurora winced and attempted to pull away though she didn't make it far. Robin whispered apologetically as she disinfected the cut before placing a bandage overtop.

      When Robin finally left go, Aurora got the chance to look around. It seemed like the room had been designed for the fall, as none of the boxes — except the one Steve had pulled down and left on the table — had moved at all. In front of her, the metallic table loomed above, smeared with a streak of crimson where her head had made contact. She shivered slightly, before slowly standing.

      Her legs wobbled like a new born calf's, but Aurora held to the table as she regained her balance, blinking stars out of her eyes once more.

      Robin and Steve began arguing over the keycard needed to operate the buttons as Erica smiled at Aurora, before moving to stand by her.

      "If you are taller than me someday," Aurora whispered as she held Erica into her side, "we can no longer be seen standing side-by-side." Erica laughed, the helmet she had worn hit against Auroras side as the two felt a small sense of relief.

      "You should've taken my helmet," Erica remarked as Aurora cracked a smile.

      "You can't operate anything without the keycard," Robin concluded.

      "Which means we're all stuck in here," Dustin smacked his hands against his legs in defeat.

      Erica stepped out of Auroras arm for a moment, "just so you nerds are aware, I'm supposed to be spending the night at Tina's and Tina always covers for me. But if I'm not home for Uncle Jacks party tomorrow and my mom finds out you four are responsible. She's gonna hunt you down, one by one, slit your throat."

      Steve seemed to hit his limit as his face turned red as a clenched his hands together, "I don't care about Tina! Or Uncle Jacks party! Your mom's not gonna be able to find us if we're dead in a Russian Elevator!"

      Aurora rolled her eyes, tilting her head back to look at the ceiling in despair. It took only a few moments for an idea to click into place. "What if we climbed out?"

      "Huh?" Steve scoffed, a small vein popping out from the side of his neck.

      "I mean," Aurora walked over to two walls, "we climb out using the top hatch? There's only two walls that connect the floor and the ceiling, which also means that theres a very high chance that we could a ladder on the side or something to climb up to the top with."

      Steve paused for a moment, before he and Dustin rushed to grab the step-stool, each of the fighting to climb up before Steve eventually overpowered the younger boy and began climbing first. Steve pushed the hatch open as he and Dustin climbed to the roof, after a few seconds Dustin's head popped back into the elevator.

      "Your very high chance of there being a ladder was wrong," Dustin tilted his head to the side and Aurora stumbled to climb the ladder to understand.

      The breath was stolen from her lungs when she saw how far down they were. Her short breath echoing around them as she glanced around wide-eyed. "Oh shit."

      She ducked back into the elevator, as Robin fussed over her head once more. Seeing as blood had already begun to seep through the bandage, Robin changed it as quickly as she could as Erica explored what she could. She made sure that Aurora was just sitting on the table as she began to help Erica explore.

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IN THE BASEMENT OF the Wheeler home, the almost complete party debriefed the event from the night before. Max and Eleven were cleaning up in the bathroom as Mike paced the length of the room. A sense of déjà vu washed over him as he glanced over to the couch, expecting Aurora to be lying in his sweater with a grin, only to find the abandoned sweater.

Mike paused in front of his friends, "I mean, it's weird right? Hopper doesn't leave me alone about Rory all summer long, and now he's off hiking in the woods of Illinois with Will's mom. Rory's not answering any of my calls, her aunts don't know where she is and Dustin's MIA too? This all can't just be a coincidence!"

"What does it matter?" Lucas scoffed, though some part of him was insanely worried for his friends. "They're not here, so it's up to us!"

"And," Max started as she and Eleven entered the room again, "it is a coincidence, Mike. Come on, you were an asshole to Dustin the day he came back, and then got mad at Aurora for wanting to support him and be with him for his first day back. And then you say that she's too much for you, and now you're mad she didn't answering you? She dumped you! Get over it."

      Some part of Max's mind knew that something else was the cause of Aurora ignoring them, but the rational part of her wanted to ignore her gut feeling.

Max scoffed, stepping closer to the boy, "be happy she even spoke to you after that. She was heartbroken, and it's your fault. I don't see you doing anything to fix it. So focus."

"We need to find Billy," Eleven added, "and stop him."

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AURORA WAS SITTING ON the table in the middle of the room, her favorite baby blue skirt and white halter top now didn't seem like the best outfit choice. ( To be fair, if she was going to get arrested for breaking and entering — twice — and stealing she at least wanted to look cute. Which was also why she wore her favorite blue and white shoes, and curled her hair — totally not because she was stressed and that was what calmed her down. )

      She seemed to be in a daze as she listened to Robin shout at Steve before making sure Erica didn't kill anyone with the mysterious green bottle. Her mind was away, thinking about every single thing that Mike had said to her now almost three days ago. She kept thinking back to how her aunt reacted to him — they were excited and she would swear Aunt Flora gave Aunt Mary a ten — and then how Hopper was joking about how he was going to talk to him about treating her right. Every single thing she could think of.

      She was thinking about her actions, and maybe at some points she was a bit clingy and much; like that time when she called him four times in one day when he was sick because she wanted to make sure he was okay, and then she brought him soup — why did she have to bring him soup? He said he was fine! — and made sure he ate enough. Or that time when she kept correcting his homework when he was supposed to be help her. Or that time —

"AURORA!"

Robin shouted at her, grabbing at her arm to pull her up that ladder as fast as she could. She glanced around, trying to find the other three only to not find any of them until she was pushed to the roof. The five of them crouched down, watching through the grates of the ceiling as two workers opened the door and began to unload all of the boxes from the elevator.

Steve glanced at the four of them, pressing a shaky finger to his lips as the men continued to work. He narrowed his eyes at the bottle of green liquid in Erica's head before choosing to ignore it as they all waited silently. Aurora barely wanted to breathe in fear of making a sound and having them all be caught and killed.

Eventually, the man grabbed the final box from the elevator and the five of them had their plan ready. Hearing the cart drive off, Steve was the first to jump down from the hatch, the green bottle in his hand as he slid to stick it under. Then he slid Erica's bag out of the elevator, before ushering the youngest out first.

"Henderson," Steve whispered as he helped the boy slid through the crack. Aurora was next, keeping her hands at her skirt to make sure nothing flipped up, as Steve helped her through before pushing Robin next.

"Steve, fucking move!" It was Robin who whisper-shouted as she heard the glass of the bottle crack even more. He paused under the door for a moment, before rolling out and watching as the glass cracked and the green liquid spilled everywhere with a loud, "THUNK!"

Steve cursed as the group stood up, Erica helping to brush a bit of dirt off of Auroras skirt before the five of them stood and watched as the liquid glowed before sizzling into the ground.

"You still want to drink that?" Robin smirked, glancing that Erica smugly. The girl simply rolled her eyes with a shrug.

"Holy mother of god..." Dustin spoke up, glancing down the long hallway in front of them. Light illuminated it the entire way, seemingly going on for miles until they could no longer see an end.

"Hope you guys are in good shape," Steve scoffed, placing his hands on his hips for a moment before stepping forward and patting Dustin's stomach, "looking at you roast beef."

Aurora scoffed for the boy, and thought better of kicking at his knee. Robin place a hand on her shoulder, pushing them forward, into the unknown.

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( LET ME SPEAK : )

we love max sticking up for aurora whenever
and wherever. but i also didn't really know
what to write for this, so it's kinda filler???
but also super hate this chapter!

ANYWAYS IM NOT DEAD just overworked :(
enjoyyyyy...

credit goes to fivehxrgreeves