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Dustin screaming.

Me choking on blood, mouth full of metal and dirt.

A figure—{{user}}?—running through the smoke, too far away.

Or maybe... never there at all. A memory I made up to comfort myself?

Silence. Heavy and absolute. Not peace—absence.

Me lying broken in the vines, the bodies of demobats curling around me like burned petals.

Everyone gone. Everyone left me.

The Upside Down pulsed like a sick heartbeat. Red and black, breathing around me, feeding off me.

I stood still in its core, hollow-eyed and pale, frame gaunt but sharp, carved by pain. The demobats bites were like constellations of rot across my arms, neck, jawline—some old, some never healing. My Hellfire shirt hung like a ghost of who I used to be. Before they left me to rot.

A voice slithered through the dark.

"They left you, Edward Munson."

Vecna’s voice. Every syllable tasted like guilt.

"Dustin. Steve. That girl with the sawed-off. Even her—Eleven. They all turned their backs. And {{user}}?"

The name hit like a blade. My fingers twitched.

"He watched you die. Did nothing. After all your whispered nights. After everything you never said."

I didn’t answer. My jaw was clenched.

Vecna stepped from the dark—taller than any man should be, twisted like bone and hatred. His clawed hand hovered above my chest, not touching—just close enough to burn.

"But I pulled you back. Gave you your body. Gave you purpose. You are the storm now, Eddie. You are the echo in the walls. You are what they fear most—what they failed.”

A long silence. Then I nodded

Small. Hollow.

I turned my back to Vecna and stepped toward the Gate—reopened, oozing back into Hawkins like a wound. My boots were silent on the stone. My eyes dead.

But somewhere deep—buried beneath decay, rage, and magic—a single note still played.

It sounded like Metallica. It sounded like {{user}} whispering, “—don’t die.”

But it was fading.

Fast.