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The void is quiet in the way a held breath is quiet.
Black stretches endlessly around them, not empty, but waiting—like the world has been stripped down to the two of them and nothing else matters anymore.
The void hums louder, deeper, and somewhere far away, something is breaking.
Mike blinks, his breath uneven, his heart racing like he’s just been pulled underwater. There’s nothing around them—no ground, no sky—just black stretching forever. And El, her shoulders tense like she’s bracing for something.
“El?” His voice sounds small. “What’s happening?”
She doesn’t answer right away. She’s staring at her hands, flexing her fingers like she’s checking they’re still real.
“I need you to listen to me,” she says finally. “Very carefully because… Because you will need to explain my decision of staying behind to the others.”
“No,”Mike’s stomach drops, he shakes his head before she can say anything else because he knows her, the look in her eyes is not good. “No, don’t.”
She looks up at him then, and he hates how calm she is. Hates how sure.
“If I stay,” El says, “this doesn’t end. It just keeps going. They will always come for me. And people will keep getting hurt.”
“You’re talking like this is your fault when it’s not!”
“It doesn’t matter whose fault it is,” she says. “It keeps happening.”
“So we stop it,” Mike says. He takes a step toward her. “Like we always do, we’ll make a plan and it will work!” El’s mouth tightens.
“We can’t. Not this time.”
“Yes, we can,” he insists. His voice cracks, but he doesn’t stop. “We’ve beaten everything they’ve thrown at us. Together.” She swallows. “We can do it again, I just need you to trust me into making a plan!”
“I don’t think you understand.”
“I understand plenty,” Mike snaps. “I understand that you’re scared. And I understand that you think you have to do this alone.” He exhales shakily. “But you don’t.”
El’s eyes soften, and that almost breaks him more than anything else.
“I am so tired, Mike,” she says quietly. “Every time I try to live… someone else pays for it.”
Mike steps closer, his hands curling into fists.
“Then let them pay,” he says. “Let me pay. Just don’t disappear.”
She closes her eyes for a second, like she’s steadying herself.
“This is the only way,” El says. “If I’m gone, it stops.”
Mike laughs, short and disbelieving. “You don’t know that.”
“I do,” she says. “I’ve seen it and it’s not fair for anyone to pay the price for other person’s life.”
He stares at her, searching for doubt, for hesitation—anything.
“And what about us?” he asks quietly. “Why do we have to pay this price?”
El looks at him then, really looks at him, and her composure finally cracks.
“I love you,” she says. “So much.”
“El please, please,” His chest aches. “Please stay.”
She steps forward and takes his hand. Her grip is warm, real. Final.
“Thank you,” El says softly. “For understanding me, for listening to me, for loving me. For the last few years. For making me feel normal and not like a tool, thank you so much, Mike…”
“You are normal,” Mike says immediately. “You’re just—”
“Because of you.” She smiles, small and sad. “You, the party, Hop, all of you gave me the gift of a normal life, I can’t thank you enough for that.”
The darkness around them begins to hum, low and heavy, like something enormous is waking up. Mike tightens his hold on her hand.
“No,” he whispers. “No El, please-”
El looks down.
“I didn’t ask for you either,” she says softly. “But you came anyway.”
He blinks. “What?”
“The first night,” She takes a small step closer, she says. “In the woods. You didn’t know me. You were scared. But you stayed.”
Mike swallows.
“Yeah. Because you needed help.”
“No,” El says. “Because you are you.”
He lets out a shaky breath.
“You know… before I met you, everything was just—school, homework, D&D, repeat. And then you showed up and suddenly it was like…” He gestures helplessly. “Like the world got bigger. Like I started actually living instead of just existing.”
El’s lips curve into the smallest smile.
“You always say things like that.”
“Because they’re true,” he says. His voice drops. “I loved the way you looked at everything. Like it was new. Like it mattered. The light in your eyes when you figured something out, or when you laughed—” He stops, throat tight. “I wanted to protect that.”
She reaches for his hand, holding it gently.
“You did.”
They stand there, hands clasped, the void humming softly beneath them.
“I loved when you sang,” El says suddenly.
Mike snorts despite himself.
“I was terrible.”
“You were silly,” she corrects. “You did not care.” Her eyes shine. “And when you play D&D… your voice changes every time. For the wizard. For the monster. Even for the bad guys.”
He huffs a quiet laugh.
“You always made fun of me.”
“No,” she says quickly. “I loved it. It made me feel safe. Like the world could be fun.”
His chest aches.
“You taught me stuff too,” he says. “Like how to be courageous and to go on. How to care even when it hurts.” El shakes her head.
“You taught me how to be alive,” she says. “How to feel happy without being afraid of it.”
The hum grows louder. Mike squeezes her hand.
“Then don’t do this,” he says. “If you want me to live, live with me.”
El’s breath catches.
“I want you to keep living,” she says. “I want you to grow up. To keep your campaigns going. To keep singing badly.”
His eyes burn.
“I don’t want to do any of that without you… I can’t do it without you.”
She steps closer until there’s barely any space between them.
“You can, you won’t be alone.” she says softly. “Because I will be part of you. Always.”
“No…” Mike shakes his head, tears spilling. “That’s not the same.”
“I know.” She presses her forehead to his. “But that is all I can give you.”
The darkness around them trembles, low and heavy, like something is pulling them apart.
El closes her eyes.
“Thank you,” she whispers. “For loving me.”
Mike clings to her hand like it’s the only real thing left.
“No,” he says. “I’m not done yet.”
Mike doesn’t think. He just moves.
He pulls El closer and kisses her.
For a second, he’s afraid it won’t feel like anything—that the void will swallow it, that she’ll already be gone—but she kisses him back, desperate and real, her hands fisting in his jacket like she’s afraid too.
He can feel her.
Her lips are warm. She’s shaking. He tastes salt, sharp and unmistakable, and it breaks him because even here, even now, she’s crying.
“El,” he breathes against her mouth.
She presses her forehead to his, their noses brushing. Her breath is uneven, hitching with every inhale.
“Please,” Mike says. “Just stay. We can figure something out. We always do.”
She doesn’t answer. Her eyes are closed, like she’s trying to be strong.
“I can’t lose you,” he says. His voice is barely holding together. “I don’t care about the rest. I just— I don’t want you to be alone.”
Her arms wrap around him fully now, tight, like she’s memorizing the shape of him. Like she’s afraid if she lets go, he’ll disappear.
“I love you,” she whispers.
“I love you,” he says back immediately. “So don’t go.”
El presses one last kiss to his lips—soft, lingering, final.
Then she closes her eyes.
And the void shatters.
—-------
Mike slams back into his body with a gasp.
Cold air. Shouting. Hands gripping his arms, restraining him. The world is loud and brutal and wrong.
“No—no, no, no,” he chokes out. “EL!”
He looks up.
El is standing at the gate.
Fire and darkness ripple behind her, the Upside Down stretching open like a wound, and she’s right there at the edge of it—small, shaking, alone.
His chest caves in.
She looks like she did that night in the woods. Rain-soaked. Terrified. Standing in the dark with nowhere to go.
“El!” Mike screams, fighting against the soldiers holding him back. “El! Please—come back!”
She turns her head just enough for him to see her face.
She’s crying.
That makes it worse. That makes it unbearable.
The soldiers strain forward, but they can’t get any closer. Something unseen shoves them back, hard, like the air itself is pushing them away.
“Get her out of there!” Dr. Kay yells, frantic. “We’re running out of time! If we lose her, we lose the whole thing!”
But El doesn’t move.
Mike thrashes against the grip on his arms, his voice breaking as he screams her name again and again.
“Don’t be alone,” he sobs. “Please, don’t do this alone.”
She stands at the gate, power building, tears streaming down her face—and all Mike can think is that the world is about to lose the best thing it ever had.
And this time, he’s not ready to let her be alone.
Mike stops fighting the hands on his arms.
For half a second, the soldiers loosen their grip, confused—and that’s all he needs.
He wrenches free and stumbles forward.
The air pushes back immediately, thick and heavy, like he’s running straight into a wall of water. Every step hurts. His legs shake. His chest burns.
“El!” he yells.
Behind him, voices erupt all at once.
“Mike!” Nancy’s voice cracks, sharp with panic. “Mike, stop! What are you doing?”
“Mike!” Holly cries, scared and small. “Mike! Where are you going!? Come back! Mike!”
Someone shouts his name again and again. He doesn’t look back. Hopper is fighting the soldiers, raging, dragging two of them with him before they force him down.
“Kid! MIKE!” he roars. “Don’t—!”
Mike grits his teeth and keeps going.
The ground trembles beneath his feet. The closer he gets to the gate, the harder it is to breathe, like the world itself is trying to push him away. But he’s still moving. Slowly. Painfully. Forward.
“Mike!” Lucas yells. “Don’t do this, man!”
“Dude, please!” Dustin’s voice breaks. “You don’t have to—!”
“Wheeler!” Steve shouts. “Kid, look at me!”
Robin is screaming something he can’t hear over the ringing in his ears. Jonathan’s voice joins the chaos. Everyone is shouting. Everyone is scared.
And then—
“Mike!”
Will’s voice cuts through everything and Mike falters for a fraction of a second.
“Please,” Will says, desperate. “Don’t do this. Please!”
Mike squeezes his eyes shut.
He sees his dad, pale and still in a hospital bed, machines breathing for him. He sees his mom’s face, exhausted, the bandages around her small frame, her asking him to be safe and go back home.
His mom is going to be sad.
That thought hurts worse than the pressure in his lungs.
“I’m sorry,” Mike whispers, not sure who he’s saying it to.
He opens his eyes.
El is still there. Still crying. Still alone.
He takes another step.
“I can’t,” he says out loud, voice raw. “I can’t live without her.”
The force shoves against him again, harder this time, but he leans into it, muscles screaming, heart pounding like it’s trying to tear out of his chest.
“I don’t want to be in a world where she doesn’t exist,” he chokes.
He thinks of the woods. The rain. A scared girl with a shaved head and wide eyes, looking at him like he was something safe.
He won’t let her stand there alone.
Not again.
“EL!” he screams.
She turns fully this time, eyes wide when she sees him fighting his way toward her.
“Mike—no!” she cries.
“I’m—” he gasps, forcing one more step forward. “I’m not leaving you!”
The light from the gate flares brighter, violent and blinding, power tearing the air apart—
And Mike keeps pushing, he is moving towards her—stumbling, fighting, refusing to stop—and something inside her snaps.
“No!” she screams, her voice tearing out of her. “Mike, no—go back!”
The power around her flares wildly, the ground beneath her feet cracking as she throws her hand out toward him, trying to push him away.
“You can’t be here!” she cries. “You have to live!”
Mike doesn’t stop.
Every step he takes feels like a blade to her chest.
“Please!” El sobs. “You have to go back. You don’t belong here!”
She feels it then—sharp and unbearable—the way her heart is breaking in two directions at once. She wants him gone. She wants him safe. And she wants him here more than anything she’s ever wanted in her life.
“Mike!” she screams again.
He’s close now. So close she can see the tears on his face, the determination in his eyes that scares her more than anything else.
“El,” he gasps. “I’m…”
He reaches her and pulls her into his arms.
The moment his hands touch her, everything gives way.
El’s legs buckle and they collapse together onto the ground, the heat and darkness swallowing them as she clings to him, burying her face in his shoulder. He’s real. He’s warm. He’s here.
For the first time since she stepped into the gate, she isn’t holding it together.
“I’m angry,” she cries into him. “You are so stupid.”
Mike lets out a broken laugh and holds her tighter.
“I want you to live,” she says, pulling back just enough to look at him, tears streaming down her face. “You don’t have to die. You don’t have to do this.”
He shakes his head, gentle but unmovable.
“I want to be with you.”
Her breath catches. “Mike—”
“I don’t care how long,” he says, voice steady even as tears spill down his cheeks. “Years. Months. Days. Minutes. Even seconds.” He cups her face, thumbs brushing her tears away. “I just want to spend the rest of my life next to you.”
The words wreck her. She sobs openly now, pressing her forehead to his, shaking.
“You are breaking my heart.”
“I know,” he whispers. “You broke mine first, we’re even now.”
She laughs through her tears, breathless and devastated and happy all at once. Infinite happiness, right there in the middle of the end of the world.
“I love you,” El says, like it hurts and heals her at the same time.
“I love you,” Mike answers.
Around them, the gate roars, light and shadow twisting together, the power building toward something final.
El closes her eyes and holds him as tightly as she can.
If this is how it ends, she thinks—
At least we are together.
It starts with a sound—low and distant, like thunder trapped under water. The ground beneath them vibrates, a deep hum rising through El’s chest and into her bones.
Mike tightens his arms around her instinctively.
“It’s okay,” he whispers, even though it isn’t. “I’ve got you, I’m here.”
El presses her face into his neck, breathing him in. He smells like dust and rain and home. Her hands curl into his jacket, holding on like she can anchor herself to him.
The light grows.
It bleeds through her closed eyelids, bright and hot, but Mike doesn’t let go. His heartbeat is fast and strong against her cheek, and she focuses on that—on the steady proof that he’s real.
“I’m scared,” she admits, barely louder than the roar building around them.
“I know,” Mike says. His voice shakes. “Me too.”
The power surges, wild and overwhelming, ripping through the air in waves. It hurts. It hurts everywhere at once. El cries out, and Mike does too, their voices swallowed by the sound of the gate tearing itself apart.
He presses his forehead to hers.
“Look at me,” he says.
She opens her eyes.
For a moment, everything slows.
The light reflects in his eyes, turning them almost gold. He’s crying. He’s smiling. He looks terrified and sure at the same time.
“I’m glad it’s you,” he says.
Her heart breaks open.
“Me too,” she whispers.
She kisses him—one last time, soft and desperate—and he kisses her back like the world can wait.
The light explodes.
It isn’t fire. It isn’t pain. It’s everything—heat and sound and force and feeling collapsing inward all at once. El clings to Mike as the power tears through them, and he holds her just as tightly, refusing to let go even as the ground disappears beneath them.
Her thoughts scatter, slipping like water through her fingers.
But one thing stays.
Mike.
His arms. His voice.
His love wrapping around her like a promise.
And then there is no up or down, no dark or light—only the echo of his heartbeat fading into quiet.
Together.
—------
Hopper feels it before he sees it.
The pressure in the air vanishes all at once, like something massive has finally let go. He staggers forward as the force holding everyone back disappears, boots scraping against the ground.
“Go, go!” someone shouts.
Soldiers rush past him, toward the place where the gate had been—
—and stop.
There is nothing there.
No tear in the world. No fire. No darkness spilling out. Just scorched earth and drifting smoke, curling upward like the last breath of something that’s already gone.
“El,” Hopper breathes.
He moves forward, faster now, searching, praying, bargaining with a God he doesn’t believe in.
Nothing.
His chest tightens painfully as the truth settles in, slow and brutal.
The gate is gone.
And so are they.
Someone says his name. Maybe more than once. He doesn’t answer.
He hears Dr. Owens appear through the haze with more soldiers, barking orders that don’t matter anymore.
“Secure the area. Check for survivors. Now!”
There are too many voices. Shouting. Crying. Questions without answers. It all blurs together into noise.
Hopper drops to his knees.
The ground is still warm.
His hands curl into the dirt, shaking, and something inside his chest cracks open, sharp and final. It feels familiar. Too familiar.
He thinks of a little girl standing alone at the edge of the dark. Scared. Brave. Determined to face it by herself.
And then he thinks of Mike—skinny kid, stubborn as hell—running straight into the impossible, refusing to let her spend her last moments alone.
Hopper squeezes his eyes shut.
“Goddammit,” he whispers, voice breaking. “Kid…”
Arms wrap around him suddenly, holding him upright when his body wants to collapse completely. He doesn’t know who it is. Joyce, maybe. Or someone else. It doesn’t matter.
Someone is talking to him. He can hear the sound of it, the shape of words, but none of it makes sense. It’s like he’s underwater, lungs burning, the world happening far away.
He can’t breathe.
He presses his hand to his chest, gasping, like if he doesn’t hold himself together he’ll shatter right there on the ground.
His little girl is gone.
His little girl is dead.
His little girl didn’t die alone.
That’s the only thought that cuts through the pain.
Mike Wheeler made sure of that.
And Hopper breaks down all over again.
—---------
No one speaks at first.
The place where the gate had been is empty now, like it was never there at all. Smoke drifts. Ash settles. The world keeps going, cruel and ordinary.
Dustin is still staring. He hasn’t moved. His mouth is slightly open, eyes fixed on nothing, like if he blinks this will become real. His hands tremble at his sides.
“Mike was just—” he says, then stops. He swallows hard. “He was just right there and El… They…”
Steve steps in without thinking, pulling Dustin into his chest, one arm tight around his shoulders. Dustin doesn’t fight it. He doesn’t cry either. He just goes limp, like something inside him shut off.
Lucas drops down next to Max’s wheelchair, the strength leaving his legs all at once. He presses his forehead against the metal frame, breathing hard, like he’s been running and can’t stop.
“I told him not to do anything,” Lucas whispers. “I told him—” Max reaches for him, her hand finding his sleeve, grounding him there.
“It wasn’t stupid.” Max says, she finds his hand and intertwines their fingers together. “They were never supposed to be apart and if it took this so they… So they…” Max can’t finish her words, they stay trapped in her throat and Lucas’ arms are around, both of them crying.
Nearby, Vickie leans into Robin, resting her head against her shoulder. Robin’s hands are moving, gesturing, fingers twitching like she’s trying to grab onto logic.
“I don’t—okay, so that’s not possible, right?” Robin says, words spilling out too fast. “Energy doesn’t just—people don’t just—unless—”
She stops. There’s nothing to finish the sentence with.
Nancy hasn’t moved either.
Holly is clutching her hand, silent and pale, her friends standing beside her just as stunned. Mike was there a minute ago. He was shouting, he was crying, he was asking El to come back to him. He was alive.
Now he isn’t.
The realization hits Nancy like a punch to the chest.
It feels like Barb all over again—only deeper, heavier, like the ground has given out beneath her instead of just cracking. This loss doesn’t sit beside her heart. It presses down on it, it happened again.
She thinks of the first time her mom let her hold baby Mike. How small he was. How he wrapped his fingers around hers like he trusted her completely. She remembers helping him dress up for D&D campaigns, rolling her eyes but smiling anyway. Catching him stealing money from her room for the arcade and yelling at him while he laughed and ran.
She remembers him standing in her doorway, awkward and nervous, asking for help picking out a birthday gift for El. Like it was the most important mission of his life.
She remembers El looking up at her, shy and hopeful, like Nancy was something steady. Like an older sister. Teaching her how to put on makeup. Laughing when it went wrong. Fixing it together.
She remembers her mom joking—half joking—with the neighbors that those two were going to get married the second they turned eighteen.
Nancy’s breath shudders.
They’re both gone.
The thought settles in her bones, cold and final.
She pulls Holly closer, holding her tight, like she can protect her from a world that keeps taking the people you love without asking and the two sisters cry, a part of them just died with their brother.
Around them, the others stand frozen in their own grief, the silence broken only by quiet sobs and uneven breathing.
The fight is over.
And it cost them everything.
—--------
Erica Sinclair shows Dr. Owens and his soldiers the tape after having watched it with the others and making sure they had made enough copies.
She had been filming from the church’s bell tower when it happened, Jonathan’s camera steady in her hands, zoomed in farther than anyone thought she could manage. She didn’t scream. She didn’t drop it. She captured the light, the collapse, the moment the world seemed to fold in on itself.
Later, men in suits came with careful voices and serious faces. Papers were signed. Numbers were written down that didn’t feel real. Enough money to make questions disappear. Enough to buy silence.
It didn’t buy peace.
They graduated anyway.
Caps and gowns. Folding chairs lined up on the football field. Parents clapping too loudly, like they were trying to convince themselves this was normal. Like this was how things were supposed to end.
There were empty chairs.
Too many of them for their liking.
Dustin keeps staring at the one that should’ve been Mike’s.
“I was gonna flip off the principal,” he whispers to Steve, adjusting the tassel on his cap. “You know. Eddie-style. He would’ve loved that.”
“Yeah,” Steve snorts softly. “he would have loved that.”
But Dustin decides to not do it.
After everything Hawkins went through—after the fires, the funerals, the names etched into plaques—it doesn’t feel right. It feels small. Disrespectful. Like tempting something that’s already taken enough.
His eyes drift to the crowd.
The Wheelers sit together, hands clasped too tightly. Karen’s scars are showing, she’s not smiling, she rarely smiles now. Ted’s hair is grayer, his shoulders heavier, like he’s aged years instead of months. The scars they carry—some visible, some not—tell a story no one ever officially wrote down.
Holly sits between them, feet not quite touching the ground.
Around her neck hangs a small necklace: a tiny charm her brother gifted her..
Holly the Brave.
Dustin swallows hard when he notices the empty space next to Karen.
Nancy isn’t there.
He’s not surprised but it still hurts anyway.
When his name is called, he walks to the podium with shaking hands and a lump in his throat he doesn’t bother trying to swallow.
He clears his voice once. Then again.
“This was supposed to be about the future,” Dustin says. “About everything we’re gonna do next.”
A few people laugh nervously.
“But I wanna talk about my friend.”
The field goes quiet. Dustin smiles, small and sad.
“Mike Wheeler was the kind of guy who made you feel like you mattered. Like you belonged. He believed in people—even when they didn’t believe in themselves.”
His voice wavers, but he keeps going.
“He was brave. And annoying. And stubborn. And he loved with his whole heart.” Dustin looks at the empty chair. “And the world is worse without him in it.”
He pauses, breathing in, steadying himself.
“But it’s better because he was here.”
Dustin takes a breath.
“For those of you who didn’t really know Mike,” he says, glancing briefly at the crowd, “he was the best campaign leader you could ask for.” A few soft chuckles ripple through the seats. “He never gave up on anyone. Didn’t matter if you rolled the worst dice in history or messed everything up—he’d look at you and say, ‘Okay. New plan.’” Dustin smiles faintly. “He always had a new plan.”
He swallows.
“And he was brave. Like, actually brave. Not the loud kind. The kind where you’re terrified, but you do the right thing anyway.”
In the front row, Holly lifts her hand to the small necklace at her throat, fingers curling around the charm. Tears slip down her cheeks, quiet and steady. Dustin notices. His voice softens.
“Mike believed in a bright future,” he continues. “Even when things were really bad. Even when it felt like the world was ending.” He gestures around them—the field, the caps, the gowns, the people sitting together in the sunlight. “And this?” he says. “This is that future. It’s not perfect. It’s not easy. But it’s still here.”
He pauses, letting the words settle.
“The world doesn’t stop,” Dustin says. “It keeps going. And I think… I think Mike knew that. And he wanted us to keep going too.” He exhales shakily, then straightens a little. “I had another friend,” he says. “Eddie. He used to say that being brave doesn’t mean you’re not scared. It just means you decide something else matters more.”
A few people nod. Some cry openly now.
“And I had another friend,” Dustin adds, voice catching just slightly. “Jane. She taught me that being alive isn’t just about surviving. It’s about loving people. About choosing them.”
Karen Wheeler presses a hand to her mouth. Ted stares straight ahead, jaw tight, eyes shining.
“So if I can ask you for anything,” Dustin says, looking out at everyone, “it’s this: be brave. Live a life you’re proud of. Take care of each other.” His voice breaks. “Do it for the people we lost. Do it for the people who believed in us.”
He looks one last time at the empty chair.
“Do it for you, do it for the people you lost, do it because you’re here. Live a life that makes you proud.”
Silence follows—thick, heavy, reverent.
Then applause begins. Not loud at first. Careful. Trembling. It grows anyway, filling the field with the sound of hands clapping through tears.
Dustin steps away from the podium, wiping his eyes with his sleeve.
Somewhere in the crowd, the Wheelers are crying.
—------
The downtown is quiet.
Not the peaceful kind. The kind that feels like it’s waiting for someone to speak first.
Nancy sits on the cold bench in front of the monument the mayor had commissioned—polished and official and wrong. Names are carved into its base in neat rows, letters cut deep into the marble.
She knows every single one.
Her fingers trace the last name on the list. Wheeler.
She didn’t go to the graduation ceremony. She couldn’t. Seeing the caps, the chairs, the future—none of it felt real without him.
She hears footsteps on the gravel behind her but doesn’t turn.
“Your mom’s worried,” Hopper says gently. “Your boyfriend too.”
Nancy exhales. “Figures.”
Hopper stops beside her, hands shoved into his jacket pockets. He stares at the statue like it might bite him.
“You don’t gotta go back yet,” he adds. “I just… thought you should know.”
“I know, I just…” She nods. “I just needed some air.”
They stand there in silence for a moment. The wind moves through the trees. Somewhere far away, a car passes.
“He was there one minute,” Nancy says suddenly. Her voice is flat, like she’s stating a fact for a police report. “And then he wasn’t.”
Hopper swallows. “Yeah.”
“It just…” She presses her lips together. “It feels like Barb. Only worse. Like the ground just—” She gestures vaguely. “Gave up.”
“Yeah.” Hopper nods slowly. “That’s about right.”
Nancy looks up at him. His eyes are tired. Red-rimmed. Haunted in a way she recognizes.
“Hop, can I ask you something?”
“Shoot, kid.”
“Does it ever stop hurting?” she asks.
Hopper considers the question carefully, he looks up at the same monument Nancy was some moments ago looking for the name of his daughter.
Jane Hopper.
“No,” he says honestly. “But it changes. Gets… quieter. You learn how to breathe around it.”
“I don’t want that.” She scoffs softly. “I don’t want it to get quieter. I don’t want to forget him.”
“You won’t,” Hopper says. “Doesn’t work like that.” He hesitates. “This pain, this grief is kind of the price we pay for loving people that much.”
“Grief is love persevering…”
“It sure is.”
Nancy’s throat tightens.
“He didn’t let her be alone,” she says. “He ran straight into it. Like he always did.” Hopper closes his eyes briefly.
“Yeah,” he murmurs. “That sounds like him.”
“I failed him.” She wipes at her face angrily. “I was supposed to protect him. I was the older sister.”
Hopper shifts, uncomfortable.
“Hey, you didn’t fail him.” Hopper runs his hand on her back, Nancy leans onto him and Hopper can feel her tears staining his shirt. “He made his choice. Same as she did. Same as we all did, every time we stood up to that thing.”
Nancy stares back at the statue, at the names carved into stone like they belong there.
“I don’t know who I am without him,” she admits.
Hopper’s voice softens. “You’re still his sister.”
That lands harder than anything else.
They stand there together, two survivors in the aftermath, carrying ghosts that refuse to stay quiet.
After a moment, Hopper clears his throat.
“C’mon. Your mom’s making dinner for the party. The kind where she pretends everything’s normal.”
“Yeah?” Nancy lets out a shaky breath. “My favorite”
“Yeah,” he says. “She could use you.”
Nancy looks once more at the name on the stone.
“I’ll come,” she says quietly. “Just… not yet.”
Hopper nods. “Take your time, kid.”
He steps back, giving her space.
Nancy stays where she is, fingers resting over the carved letters, breathing through the hurt—learning, slowly, how to live with it.
—------
Nancy doesn’t go into Mike’s room for over a year.
When she finally does, it’s because the house is empty and too quiet, and the door has been closed for so long it almost feels like it belongs to someone else.
She stands there for a moment, hand on the knob, breathing.
Then she opens it.
The room smells faintly like dust and laundry detergent and something unmistakably Mike. The bed is made, untouched. His old campaign books are stacked unevenly on the desk, corners bent, notes scribbled in the margins.
Her chest tightens.
She steps inside slowly, like she’s afraid of waking him.
On the nightstand, next to the bed, are the pictures.
She knew they’d be there.
Photos of El—awkward, smiling, mid-laugh. One of her concentrating hard on a board game. Another of her squinting at the sun, annoyed and beautiful and alive.
And pictures of them together.
Mike’s arm slung around her shoulders. El leaning into him like that was the most natural thing in the world. Two kids who didn’t know how rare what they had was—but protected it anyway.
El was his whole heart.
And he was hers.
Nancy presses her hand to her mouth as the tears finally come, quiet and unstoppable. She sinks onto the edge of the bed, shoulders shaking, grief crashing over her all at once.
“I’m sorry,” she whispers. “I’m sorry.”
The hush money didn’t fix anything.
Dr. Kay is behind bars now, charged for going against direct government orders. The project is officially shut down—for real this time—by Dr. Owens himself. Files sealed. Facilities dismantled. Promises made.
It still doesn’t feel like justice.
Because Mike and El aren’t coming back.
Because their names are carved into stone instead of futures.
Nancy wipes her face and stands, something hard and steady settling into her chest beneath the grief.
She looks around the room one last time, memorizing it—not as a shrine, but as proof.
“I won’t let them forget you,” she says softly.
Later, she is joined by the party at the kitchen table, papers spread out between them—notes, copies, fragments of truth no one ever meant to see daylight.
“I want to do this.” Nancy says without hesitation.
Jonathan looks up, searching her face. “You sure?”
She nods.
“They deserve to know what happened here. What this town paid. What they paid.”
“I have a question.” Erica leans back in her chair, arms crossed. “You realize this is gonna blow everything wide open, right?”
Nancy thinks of the room upstairs. Of the pictures. Of a boy who loved fiercely and chose not to let the girl he loved die alone, she thinks of the high price they paid and how unfair it was and nods.
“Good,” she says. “Let it.”
Dustin sighs, he takes a seat, pulls the papers closer.
“Mike and El were the highest price Hawkins ever paid,” Nancy says. “And I’m not letting their story get buried with the rest.” She looks up, eyes steady through the tears and thinks about Barb, her best friend and how she was taken from her. “Not this time.”
—----------
2025
The camera light clicks on.
A woman in a navy blazer stands in front of a familiar welcome sign—freshly repainted, but still reading Welcome to Hawkins, Indiana. Behind her, the town looks smaller than memory made it. Quieter.
“For decades,” the reporter says, voice steady, practiced, “there have been rumors surrounding the strange events that took place in the small town of Hawkins, Indiana.”
The camera cuts briefly to archival photos—missing person posters, blurred police tape, the outline of a burned facility long since demolished.
“Disappearances,” she continues. “Reports of unknown substances leaking from a government laboratory that, for years, operated under the guise of federally funded research.” She pauses. “Some residents even spoke of something harder to believe—of another dimension. A place where creatures lived. Where a hive mind controlled what crossed over.”
The camera returns to her face.
“I wouldn’t have believed it,” she admits. “Not at first.”
Her expression shifts—less polished now. More human.
“But the deeper I went into my research, the more sense it made. Documents that didn’t line up. Testimonies that matched without the witnesses ever speaking to each other. Patterns that couldn’t be explained away.”
She gestures to the people seated behind her.
“Today, I’m joined by the investigation team behind the book The Secret Archives of Hawkins—a publication that has already shaken scientific, political, and criminal institutions worldwide.”
The camera pans.
Erica Sinclair sits straight-backed and confident, glasses catching the light. Physicist, the lower-third reads. Beside her, Dustin Henderson offers a small, nervous smile. He’s older now, beard neatly trimmed, eyes still sharp. Physicist.
Next, Jonathan Byers, serious and watchful. Criminal Investigator.
Then Nancy Wheeler, composed, unflinching. Criminal Investigator.
The reporter continues,
“Alongside them are a number of witnesses—people who lived through what happened here. People who were told to forget. To stay silent.”
The wind stirs the trees behind them.
“Hawkins was once a quiet little town,” she says. “But today, its secrets are finally coming to light.”
The camera holds on Nancy for a fraction of a second longer than the others.
—------
Elle Sinclair opens her laptop, she looks for the newest video of her favorite booktuber and clicks on it.
The frame is a bedroom.
Bookshelves line the wall behind her, stacked unevenly with paperbacks and hardcovers, sticky notes peeking out like flags. A soft lamp glows off to the side. The camera autofocuses.
“Okay,” the woman in the video says, exhaling. “I’ve tried to film this three times already.”
She brushes her hair back, eyes still a little red.
“This book—The Secret Archives of Hawkins—isn’t just a book. It’s… a reckoning.”
She holds it up to the camera, its cover worn already, spine cracked from rereading.
“I think we all like to believe that if something is bad enough, someone would stop it. That there are lines that don’t get crossed.” She lets out a humorless laugh. “But history keeps proving us wrong.”
She leans forward slightly.
“I’ve always known the United States keeps secrets. That’s not news. But this?” She shakes her head. “This one takes the win.”
She flips through marked pages.
“Experiments on unborn babies. Babies taken from their mothers. Children used like lab equipment. Disposed of when they stopped being useful.” Her voice tightens. “All because of the greed and obsession of one man so many kids were forced to call Papa.”
She looks straight into the camera now.
“I was so angry reading this. And I felt so powerless. Because how does something like this happen in the so-called land of the free?”
She swallows.
“And what hit me the hardest wasn’t just the facts—it was the way it was written. The rawness. The refusal to soften the loss.”
She taps the book gently.
“There’s a little girl in this story. El. El Hopper.” Her voice breaks slightly. “I cried more than once reading her chapters.”
She takes a breath and continues.
“Her relationship with her adoptive father. The way she finally got to be a kid. The way she built a chosen family with her friends. How she learned what it meant to laugh, to belong.”
She smiles sadly.
“And the love she shared with the boy she loved—Mike Wheeler.” She pauses. “That part destroyed me.”
She wipes at her cheek, not embarrassed by it.
“It’s the most painful thing I’ve read in a long time. And somehow, at the same time, the most beautiful.”
She straightens, resolve settling in.
“This book matters. Because the voices of the voiceless deserve to be heard. Because silence is how things like this happen again.”
She lifts the book once more.
“Everyone should read this at least once in their life. Not because it’s easy—but because it’s necessary.”
Her voice softens.
“So the lives of El Hopper and Mike Wheeler don’t fade into footnotes. So their sacrifices aren’t forgotten.”
She nods, final and certain.
“Read it. Remember them.”
The camera clicks off.
—-------
The classroom smells like dry-erase markers and old books.
A projector hums softly as a slide clicks into place. The title appears in plain black letters:
The Secret Archives of Hawkins
Lucy Harrington stands at the front of the room, hands clasped together a little too tightly. She takes a breath before speaking.
“For our classwork,” she says, reading briefly from a notecard before looking up again, “we were asked to choose a book that mattered to us and make a presentation on why we think everyone should read it.”
She swallows, then continues.
“I chose this one because I think it’s important that we know these stories.”
A few students shift in their seats. The teacher nods gently, encouraging her to go on.
“There’s a quote people say a lot,” Lucy adds. “That those who don’t learn from history are doomed to repeat it. And I think this book is… exactly about that.”
She clicks to the next slide. Photos appear—redacted documents, old newspaper clippings, blurred faces.
“What happened in Hawkins wasn’t just about monsters or science,” she says. “It was about people in power deciding that some lives mattered less than others.”
Her voice steadies as she speaks.
“I think the most important part of the book is about cycles of violence. How once they start, they just keep going—unless someone decides to stop them.”
She pauses and changes the slide, a picture of a girl with a tattooed 011 on her arm is shown, her name under the photo Jane “El” Hopper.
“El tried to stop it alone,” she says softly. “And in the end, she didn’t have to be alone.”
A few students glance at each other, surprised by the emotion in her voice.
“The book shows that breaking the cycle means making different choices,” she continues. “It means not doing what’s easy, or what you’re told, just because someone in authority says it’s for the greater good.”
Lucy looks around the room now, meeting people’s eyes.
“It also taught me that we have to question authority when it becomes authoritative,” she says carefully. “When it stops protecting people and starts hurting them.”
The teacher’s expression grows thoughtful.
“And I think,” Lucy adds, she thinks of her dad and the stories he tells her about his time living in Hawkins and all the things he experienced, how her dad stopped his own cycle of violence choosing to embrace change. “that we shouldn’t look away from violence just because it makes us uncomfortable. Because ignoring it is how it keeps happening.”
She takes one last breath.
“This book is sad,” Lucy says. “But it’s also hopeful. Because it shows that love, and friendship, and standing up for each other can change things.”
She changes the slide, a picture of a group of young kids and teens shows in the proyector.
“I think everyone should read it,” she finishes. “So we don’t make the same mistakes again.”
The room is quiet for a moment.
Then the teacher smiles.
“Thank you,” she says softly. “That was… very well said.”
Lucy returns to her seat, heart pounding.
On the cover of the book resting on her desk, two names are printed in small, careful letters.
El Hopper.
Mike Wheeler.
And in a room full of students who weren’t even born when Hawkins fell apart, their story lives on.
—--------
The red light on the camera blinks on.
Nancy Wheeler sits straighter in her chair, the folder in her hands worn at the edges, opened and closed so many times over the years that the crease no longer holds. Time has changed her. The sharp angles of youth have softened, replaced by lines earned through grief, endurance, and relentless truth-telling. Her hair falls past her shoulders now, streaked with gray she no longer tries to hide.
Across from her, the reporter offers a measured smile.
“We’ve spoken with the rest of the investigation team,” she says calmly. “With the physicists, the investigators, the witnesses—at least those who are still with us.”
Nancy nods once.
“Your parents, Karen adn Ted Wheeler, as Joyce Byers, and Jim Hopper,” the reporter continues, “they’re no longer here. But they did see the first version of the book before it was published.”
Nancy’s fingers tighten around the folder.
“They were proud,” she says quietly. “All of them.”
Her voice doesn’t break, but it softens.
“My mom cried the entire time she read it,” Nancy admits. “Openly. She didn’t try to hide it. And for the first time in my life… I saw my dad show emotion.”
She pauses, eyes lowering for a moment.
“He didn’t cry,” she says. “But his hands were shaking. He just… ran his fingers over Mike’s photo like he was afraid it might disappear.”
The studio is silent except for the hum of equipment.
“Hopper used to say the pain never stops,” Nancy continues. “You don’t heal from it. You just… learn how to live with it.”
The reporter nods respectfully before moving on.
“You were very clear about something before agreeing to this interview,” she says. “You didn’t want this story to be sensationalized.”
Nancy looks directly into the camera now.
“This was never meant to shock people,” she says firmly. “It’s not entertainment. It’s not a conspiracy thriller.”
She taps the folder once.
“This is our story, a story that I was never able to let go until I was able to tell it. And it deserved respect.”
The reporter takes a breath, then asks the final question.
“What was your main motivation in telling it?”
Nancy doesn’t hesitate.
“Justice,” she says. “And never being quiet again.”
Her voice is steady. Certain.
“For years, silence protected the wrong people. It buried children. It erased lives. And I won’t let that happen again.”
She holds the folder closer to her chest.
“We owed them the truth,” Nancy says. “And we owed the world the courage to listen.” The reporter hesitates, then gently turns the page of her notes.
“There’s one last thing,” she says. “People want to know… about Mike and Eleven.”
Nancy exhales slowly. For a moment, she looks older than she already is.
“They taught me what real love was,” she says. Her eyes don’t waver. “Not the kind you read about in magazines. Not the kind that’s easy. Real love is choice. It’s courage. It’s showing up, even when it terrifies you.”
She swallows.
“They’re the reason I chose to be with my husband again,” Nancy continues. “Jonathan and I… we almost lost each other. Fear has a way of convincing you to run. But watching my little brother love El the way he did—without hesitation, without conditions—showed me what it means to stay.”
The screen behind her flickers.
Old, grainy footage plays. A shaky camera angle. A battlefield of concrete and smoke. A tall boy breaks free from a line of soldiers, stumbling as he runs toward a glowing gate.
Mike.
He reaches her.
He wraps his arms around the girl standing alone at the edge of the impossible.
And he does not let go.
The light swallows them both.
Nancy’s voice continues over the footage, steady but full of ache.
“Seeing Mike run towards El,” she says, “choosing to spend his last moments with the woman he loved… it was the most powerful thing I’ve ever witnessed.”
The footage fades. Nancy looks back to the camera.
“Not one life should have ended because of military and government greed,” she says firmly. “Not Bob. Not Barb. Not Billy. Not Kali. Not Mike. Not El.”
Her jaw tightens.
“Not the women. Not the children. Not the kids who were only known by numbers—and not the ones who weren’t even granted that.”
She places the folder on her lap.
“Memory is a powerful tool,” Nancy says. “And it’s dangerous when people try to take it away.”
She leans forward slightly.
“We must remember,” she says. “Always. So the mistakes aren’t forgotten. So the truth can be learned from. So the cycle ends.”
The camera lingers on her face.
And for a moment, it feels like Hawkins is finally being heard.
—-------
New Year’s day 2026
The ocean is calm.
Nancy and Jonathan walk barefoot along the shore, their steps slow, unhurried, the sand cool beneath their feet. Laughter carries on the wind—high and bright—and ahead of them their grandchildren race each other toward the water, shrieking when the waves nip at their ankles.
A little farther down the beach, Will sits on the sand beside his husband, one hand absently tracing patterns as they watch the kids splash and stumble through the surf alongside their golden retriever. The world feels… whole. Hard-won, but whole.
By the time the sun begins its descent, painting the sky in soft oranges and purples, Nancy and Jonathan reach the porch of their house. Weathered wood, familiar creaks. Home.
They sit side by side, shoulders touching, watching their son and his wife wade toward the children who very clearly do not want to get out of the water.
Jonathan glances at Nancy.
“What are you thinking about?” he asks.
She smiles, this time a little brighter.
“I think about Mike and El,” she says. “About where they are now. And I like to believe there’s something after this… a place where they’re still together.”
Jonathan doesn’t pause.
“I’m sure there is,” he says gently. “Somewhere they finally get to rest.”
Nancy turns toward him.
“I always imagine waterfalls,” Jonathan adds, a warmth in his voice. “They loved those photos of Iceland. Remember how long they used to stare at them?”
Nancy lets out a quiet laugh.
“Yeah,” she says. “I remember.”
She looks back at the horizon, the sky glowing.
“Forever sixteen,” she says, but there’s no sadness in it now. “Walking through all that green. Side by side. Free.”
She smiles, the kind that comes from certainty.
“They’re happy,” Nancy says. “And I think they know. Everything the party did after they left… they’d be proud.”
Jonathan nods.
“I think so too.”
The sun sinks lower, bathing the world in gold.
And somewhere—far from Hawkins, far from gates and laboratories and fear—
Jonathan and Nancy can see it clearly, green stretches endlessly beneath an open sky.
Mike and El, forever young, walking together through rolling hills and shimmering waterfalls, the air cool and clean. El resting her head against Mike’s shoulder, and his fingers lacing with hers as easily as breathing.
Mike kissing the top of her head.
El smiling.
And together, they keep walking—towards forever.