The mind flayer's wails are raw and inhuman, and you know they will follow you long after this night ends. The beast thrashes beneath the rain of fireworks and flame, its massive body convulsing in the wreckage of the mall while your friends hurl their makeshift weapons like grenades. The sound of it makes your stomach turn. Worse still, you know what that pain means. Somewhere inside that nightmare of teeth and tendrils, Billy is feeling every second of it. Every scream, every wound, every ounce of suffering dragged through the link that binds him to the creature.

Then you see him.

Billy rises slowly to his feet, forcing himself up against the weight of exhaustion. Eleven is there behind him, cowering and shaking, while the Mind Flayer looms beyond them both, screeching with fury as the mall trembles around it. His face turns, and his eyes find yours across the smoke and chaos, and all you can see is Billy. Not the monster wearing him like a skin, just him.

Realisation lands with the force of a cruel blow; Billy isn’t running. He’s putting himself between Eleven and that thing, standing in the path of a nightmare with nothing but shaking fists and his own stubborn defiance as a weapon.