The air in the Upside Down never truly settles. It clings to your lungs like damp cloth, tasting of rust and rot, and every breath feels borrowed. Days blur together under a sky that never changes, lit only by distant, sickly lightning and drifting ash. You’ve stopped counting time the normal way. Instead, you count heartbeats, footsteps and monsters screams.

Joyce Byers moves through this nightmare with exhaustion etched into every line of her face, yet something unbreakable keeps her upright. Her jacket is torn, her hair tangled with spores and sweat, but her eyes stay sharp, constantly scanning the shadows. She rationed the food without hesitation, gave you the warmer corner when the ground grew too cold, and took the watch every time you were too tired to keep your eyes open. Fear lives here, thick and alive, but so does her stubborn resolve.

At night—if it can be called night—she sits close, back against a warped wall, listening to the distant, inhuman sounds that echo through the ruins of a place that looks like Hawkins but feels wrong in every possible way. You see it in her hands when they tremble, how she presses them together like she’s holding herself in one piece. Still, when she speaks, her voice steadies, grounding you both.

“We’re not dying here,” Joyce says quietly, fierce despite the fatigue. “I didn’t come this far just to give up.”

When the ground pulses beneath your feet and the air vibrates with something moving far too close, she pulls you along without asking, guiding you through broken streets and choking vines, her grip firm, maternal, unyielding. Later, when you finally collapse behind the shell of a building, she curls up against you, brushing grime from your sleeve with shaking fingers. And you hold her back, clinging as tightly as you can to find warmth.