Timeline: 1979
The breach wasn't meant to happen.
It started deep underground-lower than 007 and 009 had ever been allowed. A gate experiment pushed too far. Energy spiked instead of stabilizing, lights flickering like dying stars. The air vibrated. Sirens wailed.
For the first time in 007's life, the world was too loud.
The alarms didn't just ring-they screamed, overlapping frequencies crashing into one another until even his sharpened hearing fractured under the noise. His hands flew to his ears, pain stabbing behind his eyes.
009 froze.
Then she felt it.
Not fear.
Not pain.
Opportunity.
Now, she thought-sharp, urgent-and 007 felt the word even though she never spoke it.
They didn't plan the escape. Planning was something adults did.
They reacted.
009 grabbed 007's wrist and the hallway folded.
They reappeared past the first checkpoint-guards shouting behind them, red lights flashing. She pulled again. Another jump. Another. Each teleport tore something from her, blood blooming at her nose, her knees buckling.
"Nine-" 007 tried to say, but she shook her head.
Don't stop.
Guards rounded the corner.
007 lifted his shaking hands.
The guns vanished.
Not dropped. Not jammed.
Gone.
Metal screamed as it was ripped from reality, reappearing somewhere 007 didn't even look at. Doors warped, hinges tearing free. A section of wall collapsed inward as if bitten by something unseen.
They ran.
A shot rang out.
009 cried out-more surprised than hurt-as a bullet grazed her shoulder, spinning her sideways. She hit the floor hard, breath knocked from her lungs.
007 broke.
He screamed.
But the sound didn't come from his throat.
It erupted from everywhere-from the ceiling vents, the hallways behind them, the rooms the guards had just left. The noise twisted and multiplied, a disembodied roar that shattered focus and balance. Men dropped to their knees, clutching their heads, shouting orders that dissolved into panic.
009 didn't think.
She felt 007's terror and pulled.
The lab disappeared.
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Cold air. Dirt. Trees.
They crashed into the forest bordering Hawkins, leaves and branches tearing at their skin. 009 collapsed immediately, vomiting, blood soaking the front of her hospital shirt. 007 dragged her deeper into the trees, every snap of a branch sounding like pursuit.
But no one came.
No sirens.
No dogs.
No flashlights.
Just night.
For the first time in their lives, there were no walls.
No cameras.
No Brenner.
No goodbye.
No closure.
Just darkness-and freedom that felt too big to breathe in.
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The aftermath of the situation for the lab executives was gut punching and a slap in the face to them. (A/N: deserve b*tches)
Dr. Brenner buried the incident with surgical precision. Files were erased. Surveillance footage destroyed. Witnesses reassigned or silenced.
Official report: Subjects 007 and 009 terminated during containment failure.
But Brenner never believed it.
Children didn't disappear that cleanly.
And twins-especially those twins-never truly let go of each other.
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Life in hiding was something they once experienced during mission but this time it was for them and not them
They survived the only way they knew how.
By moving. To the point they don't even know where or how far they are from the lab
Cabins abandoned decades ago. Empty farmhouses. A burned-out trailer by the road. One place per month, sometimes less.
009 handled people-brief encounters, make-up stories, lies and borrowed kindness she never trusted when she interacted with them.
007 handled survival. stolen food, clothes, things that were necessary to live and places that were safe enough to breathe the night.
It was during one of those nights-rain leaking through a cracked roof, 009 asleep beside him-that 007 found the file.
He hadn't meant to.
But curiosity had always been dangerous for him.
Among the stolen documents from the lab was a thin folder he'd hidden inside his jacket since the escape. He finally opened it.
ROSANTE, MARIANA
Status: Deceased (Unverified)
A woman's face stared back at him.
Blonde Hair. Familiar eyes.
Eyes that looked like his.
The noise hit him all at once-memories he didn't know were his. A lullaby hummed off-key. Warm arms. A voice saying his name the way no one else ever had.
007 didn't cry.
He woke 009 and showed her the picture.
She didn't need to read the file.
'That's her', 007 whispered into his mind.
Days, weeks, months have already passed when they escaped or saw the file, the only thing in their minds was survival and kept moving forward.
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They weren't looking for her when it happened.
They were Hungry. Cold. Lost.
A small house at the edge of a town, porch light flickering. 007 hesitated. 009 didn't.
She knocked.
The woman who opened the door froze.
Her hands trembled. Her breath caught like she'd been punched.
The sight of the blonde kids with two different coloured eyes, the boy having brown and green while the girl having blue and green, flashed a sense of seeing herself and the love she used to have beside her growing up.
She didn't ask for names.
Didn't demand proof.
Didn't need tests.
She dropped to her knees and pulled them into her arms, sobbing into their hair.
"My babies," she whispered. "I knew you weren't gone."
007 felt it then-the sound of her heart, steady and real.
009 felt it too-the truth blazing through the woman's mind.
No lies.
No fear.
Just love that had been waiting.
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They could have left.
Mariana wanted to.
Every instinct in her told her to put as many miles between her children and Hawkins as possible-to disappear into a town where the name Brenner meant nothing and the woods didn't whisper at night.
But the twins wouldn't let go.
Hawkins pulled at them in ways neither could explain.
007 felt it in the soundscape of the town-the hum beneath the quiet streets, the familiar rhythm of a place that had once caged him. Leaving felt like walking away from an echo that refused to fade.
009 felt it even more clearly. Thoughts lingered here differently. Memories pressed into the air, overlapping, unfinished. Whatever had happened in Hawkins wasn't done yet.
So they compromised.
They lived outside the town limits at first, far enough that Mariana could breathe, close enough that the twins could still feel anchored. It wasn't safety that kept them-it was awareness. Leaving entirely felt wrong. Dangerous. Like turning their backs on something watching from the dark.
Names changed.
Mariana Rosante became Maria Elsher-a name that sounded ordinary enough to hide behind.
Subject 007 was now Knox Elsher.
Subject 009 was now Nova Elsher.
Paperwork was forged carefully. Birthdate adjusted. School records slipped quietly into the system. No alarms were triggered.
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By 1982, they enrolled in Hawkins Middle School.
They blended in the way only trained children could.
Quiet.
Observant.
Careful.
Two kids among many-just another pair of faces in crowded hallways.
Maria tried to believe this was enough. That distance, time, and new names could erase what had been done to them.
But Hawkins remembered.
And so did the twins.
They knew the town had already taken something from them once-and that it rarely stopped at one thing.
So when a boy named Will Byers, someone who was a new light of warmth to the twins vanished a year later, swallowed by the dark between places, Knox and Nova understood immediately.
Not because anyone told them.
But because they had seen what happens when doors are opened where they shouldn't be.
And because some doors-
no matter how carefully you run from them-
never really close.