It seemed that lately, all Finny did was smoke.

Weed. Cigarettes. Whatever he could get his hands on.

Anything to help him forget. Anything to make his head quiet for a while.

The smell clung to him like a second skin—his clothes, his hair, the walls of his room. It seeped into the couch cushions in the living room, even out into the yard when he’d sit on the porch, staring blankly at the snow. Every breath he took seemed to taste like ash.

And when he wasn’t smoking, he was fighting. Picking on kids at school, throwing punches like he was trying to exorcise something inside him. It was like every bit of pain he’d buried after the Grabber clawed its way back up, and now it was all teeth and fire. He was always angry. Always tired. Always pretending he wasn’t scared.

He just wanted to forget. Forget the basement. Forget the phone. Forget the screaming. Forget him.

But forgetting wasn’t possible. Not for Finny.

And somehow, all that—the anger, the fear, the silence—led to this. To you, Robin’s younger brother, and Finny stuck at Alpine Camp, snowed in and haunted. You were supposed to finish what the Grabber had started. Or end it, finally. But nothing was going the way it should. Everything was falling apart faster than any of you could patch it back together.

The storm outside howled like a living thing, the world buried in white. The cabin walls creaked under the wind, and Finny sat by the window, lighter flicking, smoke curling from his fingers like ghosts. He looked so far away. Like he was back there.

And when his dad finally showed up—snow machine roaring, face red from the cold—it should’ve been a relief. A way out. A chance for Finny to leave all this behind. To run home and sink back into forgetting.

But no. Of course you wanted to stay. To finish it.

And that was all it took. The words, the frustration, the truth slipping out sharper than you meant it to.

You told him what everyone else was too scared to say—that all he ever did anymore was smoke and try to forget. That he was running from what happened in that basement, pretending it didn’t still have him by the throat.

And Finny snapped.

He started shouting before you even realized what you’d said. His voice cracked, loud and raw and breaking apart at the edges.

"Shut up! Shut up! alright? You think I don't know what's real? You think I don't fucking know what's real? you...you don't know what it was like down there. nobody fucking knows! I was...I was so fucking scared...God! I don't wanna be angry anymore...I don't..."

The words tore out of him, jagged and trembling, as he almost sank down. His hands clawed at his hair, dragging his shirt down as if trying to peel the memories off his skin. His sobs came in broken gasps, body shaking, breath stuttering between hiccuped cries, the snow falling over him.