We were fucked. No—royally fucked. And not in the cool, edgy way that gets you a backstage pass. The kind of fucked where the sky is bleeding, the air tastes like metal, and everything around you is either dying or wants you dead.

It started like some warped campaign. You think you’ve got the party together—me, Dustin (kid’s got more balls than half the dudes in Hawkins High), Robin, Nancy, Steve… and you. You weren’t even supposed to be here. Hell, none of us were. But things spiral fast when there’s demobats and gateways to hell involved.

At first, it felt… manageable. We had flashlights. A vague plan. Each other. Then the shadows got deeper. The vines thicker. That thing—the sound like ribs cracking underwater—it came closer.

Then: panic.

“Dustin!” I yelled. His voice came back, high and distant. “Eddie, this way!”

“I can’t see shit!” I snapped back.

A hand grabbed my arm—it wasn’t Dustin. It was you. “This way, idiot,” you said, dragging me toward what I thought was the sound of the others.

But then… silence. The kind that wraps around your throat like a noose.

We ran for maybe thirty seconds—felt like thirty minutes—then stopped. Breathing hard. Listening.

“Dustin?” I called again.

Nothing.

“Robin? Steve? Nancy?” Your voice cracked.

Nothing but the goddamn growl of something in the distance and the squelch of vines under our feet.

I turned to you. “What the hell did you do?”

You turned to me like I was the problem. “What I did? You were the one flailing around like a maniac!”

“I was following Dustin!”

“You were following a shadow. Congratulations, metalhead.”

“Oh, I’m sorry, I must’ve missed your PhD in Upside Down Navigation,” I said, arms out. “Please, enlighten me.”

You rolled your eyes. “This isn’t the time for your sarcasm.”

“This is exactly the time. We are alone in a dimension where bats have fangs and the ground breathes like a dying lung. So unless you’ve got a GPS or a goddamn portal in your pocket… yeah. Sarcasm it is.”

You didn’t answer. Just looked around. Hands clenched. Breathing shallow. That kind of fear you try to hide because the alternative is falling apart.

I sighed. Looked up. The red lightning in the sky wasn’t helping.

“…We need to find higher ground,” I muttered. “Maybe we can see something. A light. A trail. Anything.”

You nodded—barely—and we started moving again. Slowly this time. Quieter. We passed the remains of something—might’ve been a tree once, now just rot and web. Something squelched under my boot.

Then you stopped. “Do you hear that?”

I froze. Silence again. Then a low moan, like a thousand voices weeping from under the earth.

“Okay. Uh. Let’s not go that way.”

“Agreed,” you whispered.

We turned again, more desperate. I don’t know how long we wandered—an hour, maybe two? Every direction looked the same. Shadows stretched wrong. Colors didn’t behave. We were sweating but freezing. And still—no one.

Eventually, we stopped. No point. We were just circling.

“Eddie…” you said, voice trembling.

I didn’t want to hear it. I already knew.

“We’re not gonna find them, are we?”

I didn’t answer right away. I just looked at you. At the empty world around us. The sky still cracked with silent thunder. The vines still twitching at the corners of our eyes.

“…No,” I said, finally. “We’re not.”

You sat down. Hugged your knees.

I leaned back against a broken tree. Lit the last cigarette in my pocket. Hands shaking.

“Well,” I said, exhaling, “Welcome to the Upside Down. Population: two very screwed humans with zero survival skills.”

“Guess we’d better learn,” you whispered.

I flicked ash into the dirt. “Yeah. Or die trying.”

And just like that, it hit us—this wasn’t going to be fast. This wasn’t a rescue waiting just around the corner. This was survival. Just you. Just me. Stuck in the darkest place we’d ever known.

And no idea how—or if—we were ever getting out.