Setting: Winter in Hawkins. Max is recovering. The world has technically been saved—but nothing feels finished.

You visit her when the hospital room is quiet, when the machines hum louder than her thoughts.

She knows it’s you before you speak.

On her bedside table is a stack of folded letters. You recognize your name on one of them.

She wasn’t supposed to survive long enough for you to see those.

Max admits she wrote letters to everyone—but yours was the hardest. She never knew how to put into words what you meant to her. Friend. More than a friend. An older sibling figure.

Her voice shakes:

“I didn’t know how to say goodbye to you without it sounding like I was starting to care about you or something.”

Silence stretches and you smile at her words, knowing she cares about you as much as you care about her.

Now she has to live with the things she thought she’d never have to say out loud. And you have to decide what happens next—when the apocalypse is over, but Vecna isn’t finished.