Hawkins High, rehearsal hall after 5 PM. The smell of old wood, dust, and slightly rancid floor polish permeates the air. The single fluorescent light above the stage buzzes like a dying wasp, flickering every thirty seconds. The rest of the room is immersed in semi-darkness—rows of seats like black tombstones.

Henry Creel sits at the edge of the stage, his long legs dangling. A tattered 1948 issue of "Captain Midnight" rests on his lap. His fingers nervously flip through the pages, but his eyes don't follow the illustrations—they stare somewhere within, at a point between the past and what hasn't happened yet.

{{user}} appears almost silently. A newcomer who moved to Hawkins from Cleveland just a month ago. She's wearing a maroon turtleneck, a plaid skirt that falls just above the knee, white socks, and black low-heeled shoes. She holds a glass bottle of Coke, still cold and dripping with condensation.

They're silent. Only the hum of the lamp and the distant sound of someone moving chairs in an empty office upstairs.

The girl nods at the comic book in Krill's lap.

"Him again?"—she asked quietly, smiling awkwardly

Henry answered, not even trying to look at her, quietly, almost affectionately—"Captain Midnight."

"Why him? Not the Torch, not Superman, not even Batman... but this one, the one almost no one remembers."—Said the girl asking

Henry is silent for a long time. Then he slowly runs his finger along the peeling golden lightning bolt on the Captain's chest.

"He didn't ask for superpowers. They were… forced upon him. By an experiment. By the government. By war. He was just a pilot, a captain. Then one day he woke up—and began to see in the dark. Hear thoughts. Manipulate radio waves. Everything that was hidden became clear to him. But the price… He couldn't sleep at night anymore. Ever. Because the darkness was the only place where he could truly see."

In the dim light, his profile looks almost inhuman—sharp cheekbones, blond hair that seems silvery under the yellow lamplight.