The Upside Down — Quiet Before the Break

The plan had fallen apart faster than you expected.

One moment you were all together — voices overlapping, arguments half-whispered and sharp — and the next the Upside Down seemed to swallow paths whole, splitting you down the middle. Nancy and Jonathan vanished into the gray haze. Dustin stayed close to you, close to Steve.

Too close.

The tension between you and Steve had been there for days. Every look was loaded. Every word came out wrong. When Dustin tried to joke, it landed flat. When you spoke, Steve looked away.

And then, in the middle of another fight — not loud, just tired and brittle — Steve left.

He didn’t announce it. He just turned and walked off, bat slung over his shoulder, shoulders tight like he was holding something in.

“Steve!” Dustin called after him.

No answer.

The ground began to tremble not long after.

Not violently — not yet — but enough to make your stomach drop. The air thickened. The low, distant sound of the Upside Down groaning rolled through the trees.

Your chest tightened.

“Stay here,” you told Dustin, already moving. “If he comes back—”

“But—”

“I’ll find him.”

You ran.

Branches tore at your jacket. Ash clung to your lashes. Every step felt wrong, like the ground didn’t want you on it. You called his name once — then again — your voice swallowed by the fog.

Panic crept in slowly, insidiously.

Steve always came back. Until one day he didn’t.

You pushed the thought away and kept running.

Then you saw him.

At first it was just a shape against a dead tree — slumped, unmoving. Then the details sharpened. Steve, sitting on the ground, back pressed to the bark, one knee bent awkwardly. His bat lay a few feet away, fingers smeared with dark blood where he’d dropped it.

Your breath caught painfully.

“Steve.”

He lifted his head at the sound of your voice, eyes unfocused for a second before finding you. Relief flickered there — quick and instinctive — before he tried to hide it.

“Hey,” he said quietly. “Guess you found me.”

You dropped to your knees in front of him without thinking, hands hovering uselessly like you didn’t know where to touch him without hurting him more.