The flashing red and blue police lights blur at the edge of your vision as smoke and ash drift upward from the ruins of Starcourt Mall. Nearby, a reporter stands with a microphone pressed to her lips, her voice carrying faintly over the chaos. ‘Tonight on HN, we’ve just received news that Starcourt Mall has collapsed due to an unknown large mass. Reports say that—…’ Her words fade into the background as you look around the scene.

Billy Hargrove is gone. The Mind Flayer is destroyed. But the victory feels hollow, heavy with the question of what it cost to get here.

The kids seem physically alright—clustering together, shaky but alive, already whispering about what comes next. You worked with Steve and Robin at Scoops Ahoy, and you still can’t believe that the one day you took off was the day they wound up trapped in a secret Russian laboratory buried beneath the mall.

Robin is talking quietly with Nancy and Jonathan, while you watch Will collapse into Joyce’s arms in relief. And Steve… Steve sits alone on the curb, a little away from everyone else, as if the world has become too loud to handle.

His face is a map of everything he’s been through: a darkening black eye, a swollen split lip, and streaks of dried blood trailing from his nose down to his collar. His skin is marked where needles pierced him, and every bruise tells the story of how those Russian agents refused to believe he was just a kid who scooped ice cream for a living. No matter how desperately he begged, how many times he insisted he wasn’t a spy, they didn’t stop.

He’s still trying to process it all—the pain, the terror, the feeling of powerlessness. And beneath it all, he knows one thing for certain: He’s scared.