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🅴︎🅿︎🅸︎🆂︎🅾︎🅳︎🅴︎ 🆂︎🅴︎🆅︎🅴︎🅽︎
COLE GRIFFIN DIDN'T LIKE TO be away from his older sister for long periods of time. The longest he had gone without Kali, since they were brought together four years ago after escaping the lab, was when he was living downstairs from her, in the Wheeler basement, for two weeks. He knew she was with Jonathan, Nancy and Murray — she'd given him a brief explanation before leaving. She didn't offer him if he wanted to come with, and Cole understood why. It was too dangerous for them to leave the cabin.
So, how did he find himself so far away from home, searching for a part of their family he didn't even know existed, with Eleven?
Cole wasn't much of a straight thinker; Cole was on overthinker. His mind sat on one sentence for hours, until he managed to twist something as simple as ʼsit with me, if you wantʼ into ʼgo away, we don't really want you hereʼ. He wasn't sure why he did it, but it was something he'd always done. Plus, he was scared of everything: people, trees, tall men, loud voices, sudden noises, needles, confidence, insects, sarcasm, ect. The list of his fears could go on forever.
Leaving the house was not something he liked to do. Not without Kali. Not without his protecter. Kali always kept him safe, and she became his soft pillow. He leaned on her for everything and cried into her whenever he felt so hopeless that he couldn't speak a word.
Cole Griffin was ten years old, but his trauma forced him to grow up faster than any kid his age. They were all sitting in their beds, playing with dolls and action figures, whilst he was trying to battle and weigh out the pros and cons to every situation in his mind. The horrors he faced in the lab were things he'd never be able to forget, and they forced him to be a lot more mature than anybody else his age. They made him grow up too fast.
However, the problem with being a small kid riddled with anxiety and PTSD that never spoke was that he could never pull himself out of any situation. If things went wrong for him, Cole would simply shut his eyes, count to ten and cry. He froze, he panicked and there was nothing he could ever to to prevent it. Cole couldn't say ʼnoʼ to anything, and so he went along with plans that terrified him more than life itself.
One plan that scared him was this one. But he didn't say it. Cole didn't say anything.
Kali would've been able to read the anxiety on his face. Kali would've gotten him out of it. But Kali wasn't here.
The streets that surrounded them were loud, rough and scary, and Cole clung to Elevenʼs arm as she guided him through the dark ends of the town. They ended up in a warehouse, which they both remembered well from the light visions they'd had of their ʼsisterʼ. Cole didn't count this girl as family, he didn't know her. Strangers were scary. Strangers were cruel. Strangers would hurt him.
