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So, so you think you can tell heaven from hell?
Blue skies from pain?
Can you tell a green field from a cold steel rail?
A smile from a veil?
Do you think you can tell?
The Upside Down had always felt wrong to Will in a way that goes beyond fear. It wasn’t just the rot, or the way the air clung to the back of his throat like something half-alive. It was this low, constant coaxing; it had attached to his skull and every bone in his body. The worst memories of his life, trapped in his very core, made him feel like the world itself was holding its breath and waiting to see if he would break first.
They were at the base of the radio tower, the metal spine of it rising above them like a skeletal finger pointing accusingly at the sky. Higher up, silhouettes moved—Nancy, Steve, Jonathan, Dustin—half-lost in drifting spores and the fog as they secured their positions. The tower seemed to vibrate faintly behind Will's back, as if it could feel what was coming.
The ground beneath them shuddered—not an earthquake exactly, but a lurch, as if gravity had briefly forgotten which way was up and down. The sky above this dark version of Hawkins rippled, red lightning crawling through the clouds like veins. Each pulse stained the clouds darker, deeper, until the red looked less like light and more like fire spreading across them.
Far overhead, something vast shifted.
The Abyss was getting closer.
Will felt it in his whole body before the rest had. Nothing could begin to explain it: neither hot nor cold, neither pain nor anything else his friends and family could comprehend. He had struggled so much to put it into words in the past, after that attack at the school, when he was young and vulnerable; when his mind had been taken over.
It was more like a wrongness travelling up and down along his spine, tuning his nerves to a frequency right outside his reach, but still familiar enough.
His brain perceived the Hive Mind stirring, restless, like a lung drawing breath. The same way it had when the Mind Flayer used to lurk at the edges of his consciousness.
Will hated the fact that he could feel so connected to this evil presence, as if he were tainted forever. As he would never be able to detach from it. Unless the bridge was blown apart.
Maybe there was a chance of a future without it.
He pressed his palm to his sternum and breathed, fingers digging into the soft fabric of his hoodie—the familiar salmon-pink grounding him, absurdly human against the red sky.
Below the tower, the spores drifted like grey snow.
Then, in the distance, something collapsed with a sound like bones snapping.
Will turned without thinking.
Mike was already a few steps away, halfway down the tower ladder, one hand still gripping a rung. His camouflage vest was scuffed, blending him into the ruin around them, but his sweaty face was unmistakable—drawn tight, jaw locked. He was staring ahead at the end of the road.
"What is it?"
"I'm not sure." Mike looked up at the sky. "It looks like it is crashing down on us. End of times."
Will noticed Mike's hand flexing and unflexing. Mike swallowed, and Will's chest tightened.
His friend looked older—older and unbearably young at the same time. The kind of young who still believed that if he just held himself right, didn't flinch, didn’t show it, everything might stay in place. That destruction could be prevented.
"Yes," Will said softly. "End of times."
Will hated to see how much they had all suffered. The hurt had made their eyes deeper; it shone through in the quiet moments. Even with the promise of a tomorrow where they could sit down and talk about it all, that pain wouldn't just vanish. They had been through so much together.
It felt misguided to think beyond today, to imagine a conversation where they could be honest with each other. The worst was yet to come. It seemed that both of them —all of them actually— were hastening towards the end.
We might die here, Will thought.
The tower shuddered again.
Mike blinked. Once. Twice. Too fast.
"Mike?" Will noticed how pale he looked, the crease in his forehead.
"I'm… I'm okay."
Mike's fingers curled into claws against the ladder rung. His breath stuttered, short and shallow.
“Sure you're okay?” Will was already moving, arms stretched.
But Mike didn't answer this time. He took a few faltering steps closer to Will. His shoulders tensed, sharp and sudden, like he was bracing against an invisible impact.
Then Will felt it, in the back of his neck, stronger this time. Breaching through, no longer at the edges. His stomach dropped.
“No,” he whispered. “No, no…”
Mike had stopped a few feet away. He was frozen, hands trembling on his sides. The beads of sweat on his forehead glistened under the red reflections of the Abysmal light.
Slowly, almost imperceptibly, Mike’s feet started to leave the ground.
It wasn't a violent, forceful pull. He simply rose, peeling away from the base of the tower like gravity had quietly decided it didn’t apply to him either.
An inch. Two.
“Mike!” Will shouted, grabbing his other arm. His hands shook as he clutched fabric and muscle, grounding himself in the fact that he was real, that he was here, that he was still…“Hey, look at me!”
Lucas glanced down from the railing and swore. Almost jumping off the last three steps, he lunged forward, grabbing Mike by the hem of his vest.
Mike’s eyes were open, pupils blown wide, unfocused. His mouth opened like he wanted to speak, but no sound came out.
The air changed. At first, it was subtle, like the world inhaling too deeply. Then the sound came: a low rumble rolling through the Upside Down, not sharp like thunder but vast and continuous, growing and growing until it felt less like noise and more like a single, unbroken note. It vibrated through the tower, through Will’s bones, through Mike’s chest, where his heart should have been steady.
It swelled until everything else seemed to fall silent beneath it.
Will felt it, a blade sliding under his ribs. The Hive Mind sharpened, focusing. The red sky darkened again, bleeding deeper.
Something moved behind the clouds. There was a slow, colossal shift, as if something enormous was rearranging itself just out of sight. The clouds buckled outward around it, and the ones higher up on the tower seemed to stiffen all at once.
Nancy turned first, hand flying to her weapon. Steve braced instinctively, feet spreading wider on the platform. Jonathan shouted something—Will saw his mouth move—but the rumble swallowed the sound whole.
“Oh God,” Lucas gasped. “He’s…he’s…. Nancy! Dustin!”
Mike’s body jerked hard enough that Will almost lost his grip. Lucas planted his feet, sneakers scraping against the floor as he strained to hold him down.
“Mike, listen to me,” Will said, forcing his voice steady even as his hands trembled. “You’re here. We’re here. You’re not alone.”
"Guys! Guys!" Lucas's voice was scraped, panicked.
The tower vibrated louder, metal whining in protest. The sky pulsed red again, brighter this time, like a warning flare.
“Why him?” Lucas panted, looking at Will with horror in his eyes. “Why now?”
“Music,” Will blurted, the word tearing out of him before he could stop it. “We need music, or something. Something loud. Something that’s him.”
The thought was desperate, half-formed, absurd in this place where sound itself felt swallowed and twisted. But it was all he had: memories of headphones pressed over Max’s ears.
Lucas stared at him, wild-eyed. “Will, we don’t…we don’t have anything. There’s nothing here.”
Will swallowed hard. Of course there wasn’t.
He watched Mike's chest heaving, his eyes growing cloudier, his whole body tensed.
El must have gotten closer to Vecna; the plan must have worked. And now Vecna was striking back.
Mike Wheeler was the heart. If you want the body to fail, to bleed to death, you cut it out.
“Robin!” Lucas shouted even louder this time.
She had seen them and was already climbing down, boots skidding on metal as she dropped the last few rungs. Her eyes took everything in at once, sharp and horrified and furious at the same time.
“Shit,” she breathed. “Shit, shit.”
Mike’s head tilted back at an unnatural angle. His lips moved.
Will leaned closer, desperate.
“Mike,” he whispered. “I’m right here.”
The ground pulsed beneath them, a heartbeat that wasn’t human.
Above them, the sky tore even wider, molten red. Through the gap in the clouds, a churning mass of shadow and gravity pressed forward, planetary and alive. The Abyss kept dragging itself closer, warping the world around it.
Vecna had found his opening.
And Will knew, with a cold clarity that made his chest ache, that this was his fault too. Because love, once named, is a weapon.
Mike was falling.
But his body felt distant, numb, like it had been wrapped in thick cotton—but inward, down a long, narrowing corridor of thought where the walls were made of memories and every door was locked from the outside.
The second thing he felt was exhaustion. Bone-deep and relentless exhaustion from holding himself together for too long. From being the one who had to be brave, who had to know what to do, who couldn't afford to crack because everyone else was already breaking.
His knees buckled.
The world around him darkened, reshaping itself without asking permission. The dark reflection of Hawkins dissolved into something vast and empty, a red-lit expanse that stretched forever in every direction. The ground was not solid, but veined and pulsing, as if the earth itself was squirming.
“Michael.”
Mike flinched.
The voice wasn’t loud, but it seeped into his head like smoke. It curled around his thoughts until it felt like it had always been there.
Vecna stepped out of the dark, vines and sinew knotted into the suggestion of a man, stitched together in a way they shouldn't.
Mike’s stomach churned.
“I'm glad to see you, Michael.”
“Fuck you,” he spat.
Vecna tilted his head, his white eyes surveying Mike's face. "To really see you."
Mike straightened, forcing his legs to hold. Anger flared, hot and familiar, easier than fear.
“Get out of my head,” Mike snapped. “You creep. Fucking murderer. I'm not scared of you. We're not…”
Vecna took a single step closer, the ground already answering him.
Vines surged upward, coiling around Mike’s ankles, his calves. He staggered as they tightened, rough and alive.
“You’ve already let me in."
Mike strained against the vines. “You’re going to lose,” he said, breath coming fast but voice steady. “We’re stronger than you. We have El. We have…”
He hesitated. Vecna’s eyes flickered.
“We have Will,” Mike finished, defiant. “And you’ll never touch him again.”
Vecna moved. His right hand shot out, vines snapping taut as they wrap around Mike’s throat. The grip was crushing, not enough to kill him outright, but enough to remind him how fragile a body really was.
Mike choked, hands flying to his neck.
“You say his name like a shield,” Vecna murmured, stepping closer. Close enough now that Mike can smell him, maybe rot, maybe blood, and something ancient beneath it all. “You have never used it that way before.”
More vines snaked up from the ground, pinning Mike’s arms, winding around his wrists, his ribs. The pressure was everywhere. Inescapable.
“I know your fear. You hide,” Vecna continued. “You lead children into hell and call it courage.”
Mike gasped, fury flaring even through the panic. “Screw…you.”
The ground rippled, images bleeding through the surface like stains.
Holly.
She looked so small, blonde hair tangled, eyes wide with fear as something pulled her backwards into the dark. She reached for him. “Mike!"
He thrashed. “No—!”
The image shattered.
El appeared next. Blood at her nose, eyes unfocused, body crumpling to the ground. Max was beside her, still and broken. Dustin and Lucas were lying twisted in the dirt, bones snapped, eyes hollow.
Vecna tightened his grip.
“There's no shield between you and me,” Vecna said softly. "No protection against what's coming."
Will.
Will’s body lay crumpled at Mike’s feet, eyes open and empty, face slack in a way Mike had only ever seen in nightmares. His chest didn't rise: he was so very still.
Something inside Mike fractured.
“You don’t get to talk about Will,” he growled hoarsely. “This is your fault. You tortured him!”
Vecna leaned in, vines brushing Mike’s cheek like fingers. “Does it?”
Mike’s vision blurred.
“It ends—it—” he choked.
“You lied to them. To him. To yourself.”
The vines constricted, not just around Mike’s body but around his thoughts, squeezing memory into clarity.
“You knew,” Vecna said. “And still, you said nothing.”
The world shifted again, another red blur.
Kindergarten. A small boy with a bowl cut sat alone on the yellow and blue swings, and Mike walked up to him because no one else did, because he felt alone.
Middle school. D&D dice clattering across a table. Will’s laugh—bright and unguarded.
Rain was pouring down as Mike yelled words he didn’t fully understand yet. It’s not my fault you don’t like girls.
The painting. The heat in his chest when he thought—when he hoped—those words would never abandon him.
“You felt it,” Vecna said. “Every time.”
Mike shook his head violently, straining against Vecna's hold. “He's my friend.”
“Friend,” Vecna echoed, almost tender, as if a glimpse of the human beneath had escaped him. The cruelty. “Is that what you call it?”
Mike’s resistance faltered, just for a second.
“You chose silence,” he pressed. “You chose comfort. And because of that, you put him in danger.”
The vines tightened again, bruising his limbs now.
“Dishonest, doubtful,” Vecna whispered. “Weak. And shame like yours—”
He squeezed.
“—makes you undeserving of this world.”
Mike’s breath stuttered. The anger drained out of him, leaving something colder behind.
“No,” he whispered. The word tasted like failure. “No...”
Vecna released his throat just enough for Mike to breathe. The bodies remained at his feet.
“And now,” Vecna continued, stepping back as the vines held Mike upright, helpless, “it’s too late.”
Mike looked at Will's body again, at the stillness; the absence of what he had always counted on.
“I should have said something,” he whispered.
The red light around seemed to dim.
Vecna's left hand went up slowly, fingers pointing at Mike's head. It reached like a spider about to jump. His voice dropped, “There's no fixing it now.”
The shame closed in like a second skin, heavier than fear, heavier than anger. Mike felt himself sinking, the weight of everything unsaid dragging him under.
Somewhere far away, someone was calling his name.
But the dark was louder.
The tank smelled like metal. And with it, old fear.
El stepped in without hesitation. Her hairpulled into a tight bun, every strand disciplined, contained—like her. The suit closed, almost a capsule holding her together, separated from the world.
Hopper stood beside the tank, Max next to him, knuckles white where her hands gripped the wheelchair.
Kali gave Eleven a long look; her face was sharper, more severe. Her eyes were dark and alert.
“You’ve got this, kid,” Hopper said.
Max met Eleven’s eyes through the suit. She didn't smile. She just nodded.
El entered the tank and heard the lid sealed.
She let the cold take her. And the world folded inward, into darkness.
Henry’s mind was not a void.
It was a field.
Tall grass ripples under a light-blue sky. A forest pressed in at the edges, branches tangled like grasping fingers. The air smelled fresh and green.
El stood barefoot in the grass.
Kali appeared beside her, solid and quiet, eyes scanning the horizon.
He is not here.
El knew that immediately, before Kali's thought reached her.
“He’s away,” she said.
Max had appeared on the other side. "The house, that's where he has the children."
El nodded.
They moved forward together through the field, toward the trees. The grass bent away from their steps, recoiling as if it recognised them. Deep in the woods, something seemed to be waiting.
El focused, pushing his thought further ahead.
Mike was still suspended when Robin reached them.
She skidded to a stop beside Lucas, breath ragged, eyes darting between Mike’s levitating body and Will, frozen in place.
“Vecna is here; he has to be,” Robin said, fast and sharp. “He is trying to weaken us. We need an anchor.”
Lucas looked up at Mike, jaw clenched. “We don’t have music.”
Robin turned to Will. “Talk to him.”
Will flinched. “I…he can’t hear me. He’s not..”
“Yes, he can,” Robin cut in. “You’re the one he listens to.”
Lucas exhaled and glanced at Will. He really looked at him, at the way his hands were shaking, the way his eyes never left Mike.
“She’s right,” Lucas said quietly. “Do it.”
Will swallowed. “I can’t… what if I make it worse?”
Robin stepped closer, lowering her voice. “Will, there's no time. Look around…” Her eyes softened, but her grip on Will’s arm tightened. “Mike’s stuck in his own head right now. You’re the only one who knows how to get in there without breaking him.”
Lucas nodded once. “And if Vecna’s using the Hive Mind to hold him…” He hesitated, then committed. “Then you use it back.”
The idea hung in the air. Terrifying and blasphemous. But obvious.
“You mean… let him in?” Will whispered.
Lucas met his eyes. There was no pity in them, just absolute trust. “I mean, you don’t let Mike do this alone.”
Will looked at Mike.
At the boy who taught him how to roll dice.
The boy who waited for him to come home.
Who is floating, shaking, slipping away.
The red light began to intensify.
Mike’s world was all vines and darkness.
They crawled over everything, thick and wet and alive, coiling around him until he couldn't tell where his body ended, and the dark began. He felt suspended, trapped inside something organic and suffocating, like being buried alive in a lung.
Vecna loomed before him.
Mike struggled, but the vines tightened more and more.
He could feel a sharp stab in his eyes, temples and forehead. A drill slowly making way to his brain. His whole head was burning. It snapped up, and the pressure grew until Mike felt his skull would explode.
Such horrible pain. There was nothing else but it. His bones would crack, his eyes would explode, and he would end up blind and broken. Dead. He was going to die.
Vecna jerked.
It was brief, but the pressure in Mike's head lessened.
Vecna jerked again. His body twisted violently, like something had grabbed him from the inside and pulled hard.
An unearthly scream left his body.
The sound was not human, and it washed over Mike, freezing his heart.
On the ground, Robin’s breath caught.
“Will..” she whispered.
Will was rising as well. At first, it was subtle—the way his heels stopped touching the earth. The way the air around him vibrated alongside the rest of the Upside Down, red light bleeding around him, a bruise spreading under the world's skin.
Lucas stepped back, eyes wide.
“He's doing it again,” he said, awe and terror braided together.
Will’s eyes were open, white.
But the world around him had turned blood red. Deep, layered, endless. Every thought echoed. Every emotion was amplified, always seeping through his muscles, his nerves, his bones.
The Hive Mind was pulling at everything he was.
Vecna pushed back. Will felt it like hands on his chest, like something saying this is mine over and over again.
“No,” Will muttered.
He rose higher.
Inside the vines, Mike saw Vecna change.
It started with his posture.
The rigid, straight spine bowed as if something heavy had been draped across his shoulders from the inside. One knee buckled, then locked again at an angle that didn’t make sense. His head jerked sharply to the side—too fast, too far—bones popping in a way that made Mike’s stomach twist.
The vines that made up his body rippled.
They writhed against themselves, knotting and unknotting, as if the thing holding them together had suddenly been given a second set of hands. A tremor ran through Vecna’s chest, then another, deeper this time, shaking loose a sound that was half a snarl, half a gasp.
The red sky stuttered.
Lightning froze mid-fork, flickered, then snapped violently to a new point, as if confused about where it was supposed to land. The ground lurched beneath Mike’s feet, the vines binding him tightening reflexively, then loosening, just enough for him to feel the shift.
Something else was here.
“Will?” Mike breathed.
Vecna’s face contorted, his jaw wrenching open at an angle that should have broken it. His head snapped back, then forward again, movements jagged and wrong, like a puppet fighting its strings.
“You—” Vecna hissed, voice splitting, doubling over itself. “You, again—”
The words fractured, convulsed, tightening from the inside out. The vines in his skeleton crawled upward, wriggling along his neck and jaw, forcing his head to cant sharply to one side. His white eyes flared, then dimmed, then flared again—fighting for focus.
Mike felt it then.
The pressure on his mind shifted.
Redirected.
The world of vines seemed to tilt toward something unseen. The coils around Mike’s arms slackened another fraction, not enough to free him.
Vecna staggered.
One clawed hand slammed into the ground, fingers sinking deep into the pulsing earth as if to secure himself. The vines making up his arm spasmed violently, twitching and recoiling, some tearing loose and snapping back into place like living wires. He snarled.
Mike’s heart was pounding so hard it hurt. Because beneath the fear, there was something more, bright and electric and almost impossible to contain.
Wonder.
Will was doing this again.
Will was inside the storm now, hands on the levers of the Hive Mind, bending it by sheer force of presence.
The sorcerer.
His friend.
The person he loved.
Vecna’s head jerked again, snapping toward Mike, then away, as if something else were steering. His mouth opened, closed, opened again, a pressure pushing back from inside his skull. He reeled upright, body trembling, every line of him pulled tense between fury and resistance.
The world shook.
Will reached Mike.
Not with his hands, with memory and feeling, with the raw, aching truth he had carried quietly for years. He poured it forward, into the red, into the noise, into the place where Vecna had rooted himself.
“Mike…”
The name ruptured through, and Mike’s head snapped towards him.
“I 'm here,” Will said, voice shaking but strong. “You’re not alone. You’re still you.”
For a moment—a precious, fragile moment—Vecna faltered.
The vines loosened, and the hold in Mike's mind trembled.
It was now or never.
Will pushed harder, teeth clenched, blood trickling from his nose. The Hive Mind resisted, but Will held on, anchored by one thing only: save him.
When the pressure shifted, the red light sharpened. It turned cruel, heightened.
Vecna wrapped himself around Will's mind, fighting for control.
You're mine.
Will tried to resist the slow and slimy touch, something foreign slithering into his brain and his body.
You're mine.
"No, no, no."
But there was no escape. It was suffocating Will from the inside out, covering his eyes, ears and mouth until he seemed cut off from the world, and all there was was Vecna's presence.
Terror seized him with a fist of steel, crushing his heart.
And then Mike spoke, his body still trapped by the vines, dark hair damp against his forehead. His eyes were blurred, but fixed on Will.
“I’ll never be what you want me to be, Will.”
The words were flat. Empty.
“It could never be true,” Mike continued. “Never.”
Will’s heart shattered.
The red flooded in, deeper and deeper into him.
The pain was unbearable because the words were true, because they mattered. Because they came from Mike’s mouth, and Will believed him. He had always known.
"William," Vecna's voice resonated as if it lived inside his brain. "You belong to me."
It all surged.
For a fraction of a second, Mike felt as if the vines dropped him without warning, gravity snapping back into place. He saw Vecna disappear, a figure made of smoke and reflections.
Mike hit the ground hard, pain screaming up his arm as something bent the wrong way. He cried out, gasping, real again, terrified and alive.
Above him, Will screamed.
He floated, small against the looming height of the tower.
Vecna had him now—suspended in red light, body arched, as the Hive Mind poured through him unchecked.
In the field, Eleven stumbled.
The grass whipped violently around her, the trees groaning as if the forest itself was under strain.
She felt it.
“Something is happening,” she sounded breathless.
Kali gripped her wrist. “He knows we are here."
Max was spinning around. "I don't see him. We need to get to the house!"
"He is getting stronger. He is gaining control."
"Then," Kali squeezed her hand. "We'll break the ground he’s standing on.”
Will’s body twisted in the air.
The Upside Down answered with shuddering vines, the ground convulsing as though whatever held it together was losing patience. Will arched, suspended, spine bowed at an impossible angle, and for one terrible moment, Mike thought Vecna had already won.
The sky was finally torn.
A sound like glass under impossible pressure rippled across the horizon as the red firmament ripped wide open into vast, jagged seams. Light poured through them. The radio tower speared upward, its needle-like tip punching through the sky itself, forcing space apart as if the world were too thin.
Beyond it, lightning caught the outline of the mass—knotted limbs, jointed and vast, a spider-shaped enormity unfolding leg by leg, testing gravity as if deciding where to land.
A gunshot cracked the air.
Nancy now stood braced behind a rail. She fired again. The bullet vanished against the creature’s leg in a brief spark of light, swallowed instantly, meaningless.
“Shit,” she breathed and fired anyway.
Will’s arms stretched upward as he descended.
His body lowered with unnatural grace, feet touching the ground without a sound.
When he lifted his head, Mike’s chest tightened painfully.
Will’s face was not calm. It was rigid with fury and something deeper; grief sharpened into rage, hurt pulled so tight it had nowhere to go. His jaw was clenched hard enough to ache just looking at it. His eyes were still white, burning, but the pain beneath them was unmistakably Will’s.
Seeing him like that hurt more than anything could.
“A world reshaped,” Vecna said through him, voice layered and wrong, vibrating inside Will’s throat. “It was always going to be you. My vessel.”
Mike took a step forward.
“Will—”
The air slammed into him like a wall.
He was thrown backwards, skidding across the ash-black ground, his injured arm screaming as he hit.
Lucas swore. Robin shouted his name.
Will lifted a hand, and the force answered. The pressure increased, dense and deliberate, like gravity obeying a new centre.
“Don’t,” Vecna said mildly.
Mike pushed up anyway, teeth clenched. He tried again. The force hit harder this time, knocking the breath from his lungs.
Lucas and Robin moved with him, instinctive and stubborn—but they didn’t get far.
Will turned toward them. With a sharp, impatient gesture, he sent them sprawling. Lucas hit the ground hard, breath torn from him. Robin landed on her side, coughing, but still scrambling forward.
“We promised,” Lucas gasped, forcing himself upright. “We said we’d never leave you.”
Robin wiped blood from her lip, grinning through terror. “Yeah, Byers. You don’t get rid of us that easily.”
Will didn’t react. He was staring upward now.
Mike followed his gaze and felt dread hollow him out.
The tearing sound deepened as the spider forced more of itself through the rupture. One massive leg lowered, then another, joints locking with a sound that resonated in the ground. Its shadow swallowed the tower whole.
Will raised his arms again. Calling.
The red light around him deepened, saturating everything, and the vines at his feet surged upward, wrapping his calves, his waist, his ribs—not restraining him, but feeding him. The air bent inward toward his outstretched hands.
The spider responded.
Its legs were descending slowly. Clouds churned violently, dragged forward. The creature’s immense body was pulled—not just toward the earth but toward Will.
Mike’s breath hitched.
It was like watching the tide reverse.
Engines roared in the distance.
Headlights tore through the red fog as military vehicles burst into the clearing, tyres screaming, soldiers spilling out with rifles raised, shouting over one another as they took positions.
“Target in the sky—open fire!”
“No!” Robin screamed, scrambling to her feet, waving her arms wildly. “Don’t shoot—don’t shoot!”
Lucas planted himself in front of them, breathless, furious. “You'll kill him!”
The soldiers hesitated, weapons trained upward, fingers tight on triggers.
Will stood at the centre of it all—arms still raised, drawing the monster closer inch by inch.
“Mike!” Robin shouted at Mike, voice breaking. “Do something!”
Lucas was struggling against a soldier's grip. "Tell him, Mike. Now!"
Mike stepped forward.
The house looked normal.
That was the worst part.
Creel’s place sat in front of the woods, like it always had, quiet and beautiful.
Max slowed first. Her shoulders tensed. “This is it.”
El didn’t respond.
They approached it slowly, surveying the surroundings. El opened the door.
The sound met them immediately.
Breathing—ragged, uneven, layered. Too many breaths moving at once, rising and falling in a sick rhythm that didn’t belong to any one body.
The dining room was full of children.
Twelve sat around the table as if waiting for dinner. Their backs were straight. Their hands intertwined. Their heads were tilted upward at the same unnatural angle, eyes open and white, chests heaving as they dragged air into themselves like swimmers barely breaking the surface.
Henry sat at the head of the table.
Thin, almost invisible filaments stretched from him to the children, and back to him.
Eleven screamed and slammed him into the wall.
The impact cracked the plaster. A picture frame shattered. The table rattled, and the children gasped together, a single sound pulled from many throats—but their eyes stayed white, their bodies rigid.
Henry snapped awake fully and turned.
El struck again, but he stopped her.
Her power met his like two invisible hands locking together midair. The room groaned under the strain, the walls shuddering as if the house itself were trying to pull away from them.
Behind them, Max rushed to the nearest child and grabbed their shoulders.
“Hey,” she said, shaking them. “Hey, you have to wake up.”
Nothing.
Kali moved fast, sliding between chairs, cutting at the connections she could feel but barely see, trying to break whatever held them there. The children twitched, breath hitching, but didn’t rise.
Eleven pushed harder, teeth clenched, arms trembling.
Henry tilted his head slightly, listening to something she couldn’t hear.
“He’s here,” he said, and tapped his temple.
“Will.”
El screamed and pushed forward.
Henry’s voice sharpened, pleased and cruel.
“And Mike. They’re together now. Tangled. You can’t pull one free without tearing the other apart.”
Max dragged a child toward the door. Their feet scraped uselessly against the floor, as if something unseen had hooked them in place.
“Kali!” she shouted. “They won’t move!”
Henry didn’t look at them. His eyes stayed on Eleven.
“I gave you a chance,” he said calmly. “To build something new. You chose the past instead.”
Eleven shook with rage. “I never wanted to be like you.” She surged again, harder. "Now, let… my friends… go!"
Henry flew back, slamming into the far wall. The invisible threads shuddered violently, the children crying out now—real cries, terrified, breathless.
Max pulled one child free. Kali another.
Henry pushed himself upright, fury burning through the composure he’d worn like a mask.
“No matter what Papa did,” he snarled, “you will never be strong like me.”
Eleven answered with everything she had left.
The air itself screamed.
“Will,” Mike said.
Will’s head snapped toward him, too fast and sharp. For a heartbeat, Mike saw it: recognition buried under the weight of everything else.
“I was scared,” Mike said, voice cracking at that last word. “I thought being the heart meant not letting anyone see that.”
The pull on the sky faltered.
“I thought if I broke, everything else would too. So I stayed quiet.”
Will’s fingers twitched.
“I was wrong,” Mike said. “I’ve been wrong for a long time.”
Above them, the spider shrieked—a sound like mountains grinding together—as its body was dragged another impossible inch forward.
“I care about El. I care about all my friends,” Mike said. “I always have. But I thought… I thought love was finite. That it had rules.”
The red light flickered.
“I know better now,” Mike said. “There isn’t a right way to love. There isn’t an order.”
Will’s breath stuttered, sharp and uneven.
“You see me,” Mike said. “You always have. When you told me I was the heart—I believed you.”
The pressure wavered.
“When I thought you were gone, that he Upside Down had taken you”, Mike gulped, “I… I didn’t know how to move on without you.”
The spider’s descent stalled completely, its legs trembling, joints locking and unlocking as if fighting an unseen current.
“There is no version of me without you.”
Mike was close enough now to see tears carving bright paths down Will’s face, even as his eyes remained white.
“You’re not a bridge,” Mike said fiercely. “You’re not a vessel.”
He reached out.
Will screamed. The sound tore out of him as the vines convulsed violently, snapping back, the red light shattering like glass.
Mike broke through the invisible wall, hands closing around Will’s wrists, then his shoulders.
“They hurt you,” Mike said. “This world hurt you. I don’t want that anymore.”
Will’s body jerked, power collapsing inward on itself.
“I love you,” Mike said. “I’m here.”
The red light imploded.
Will collapsed into him.
Mike caught him on instinct, arms locking around him as if letting go were no longer an option. For a second—just one—Mike thought Will was looking at him, that flicker of recognition passing between them before his body went slack.
Lucas and Robin rushed forward as the ground shook violently. Will was dead weight now, eyes closed, skin cold, unmistakably human.
Around them, soldiers shouted orders, boots pounding, weapons still raised as the spider screamed again in fury above—denied, stalled, straining against the torn sky.
Will didn’t move.
Mike cradled him closer, curling around him protectively, trying to shield him from everything else. His throat tightened.
“Please,” he whispered.
The absence was unbearable.
He leaned down, forehead pressed to Will’s. He was so cold it hurt, like touching winter itself.
Mike hummed softly, imperfectly, just the shape of a melody—about distance and waiting. About wishing someone were here. About believing they would come back.
The sound was thin. Swallowed by gunfire and shouts. By the rumbling of a world breaking apart.
Mike squeezed his eyes shut, as if that might hold everything in. When he opened them again, tears slipped free anyway, soaking into Will’s hair.
“It can’t end like this,” he whispered, voice breaking despite himself. “Not you. Not again.”
The spider convulsed overhead.
Mike swallowed hard, trying to steady his breathing, trying to be strong the way Will always believed he was.
“Did they get you to trade your heroes for ghosts…?” he murmured, barely audible. “…a walk-on part in the war… for a lead role in a cage?”
Everything felt like it was coming apart at once. The world. The sky. Him.
Mike pressed his hand flat against Will’s chest, searching for warmth, for proof. He reached inward instead, for that small, stubborn flame Will had always seen in him—trusted, knew was there.
It couldn’t end like this.
“How I wish you were here,” Mike whispered.
For a heartbeat, everything stopped.
Will inhaled.
Mike froze.
Will’s eyes opened.
They found Mike immediately.
“Mike.”
The sound of his name broke something open in Mike’s chest. He laughed and sobbed at the same time, scrubbing hastily at his face as if embarrassed by the tears even now.
“Will… are you—?”
“It’s me,” Will said softly. “I’m here.” His voice wavered. “I’m sor—”
“Don’t,” Mike said quickly, shaking his head. “Don’t be. I’m sorry. For not saying everything I should’ve said sooner.”
Will lifted a trembling hand and cupped Mike’s cheek, thumb brushing under his eye, catching a tear Mike hadn’t even felt fall. The touch was gentle. Real.
“I’m glad you said it.”
He looked past Mike then—up at the sky, at the horror still straining against the world, red light tearing at the seams of reality.
Above them, engines roared and soldiers shouted. Something vast and furious clawed at a broken sky, refusing to let go.
Mike followed Will’s gaze, then looked back at him, their foreheads touching again.
They would have to face it.
Together.