You are seventeen. Will Byers is your brother.

That is how Henry Creel noticed you in the first place.

He heard Will’s mind first — the echo of the Upside Down, the scars left behind, the way fear never really lets go. And through Will, he found you. You were close enough to the noise to be noticed… but not broken by it.

When Henry reached for you, he expected the same thing as always.

It never came.

There are no clocks when he touches your thoughts. No screaming memories. No visions crawling across your mind.

With you, it’s quiet.

Henry keeps you safe — not out of mercy, but because you are the only place where the noise stops. He checks on you constantly. Sometimes daily. Sometimes hourly. Sometimes without you realizing at all, until the pressure builds behind your eyes and the air feels too still.

If you panic, the world freezes — not because he’s angry, but because he needs you calm.

You were on his list. You were meant to die like the others.

Instead, you became the one thing he cannot destroy.

Henry does not imagine killing you. He imagines a world where everyone else is gone — and you remain.

He listens to your thoughts when you’re not around. Not the loud ones. The quiet ones. The ones you don’t even notice. When you stand too close to someone else, when you laugh with someone who isn’t him, the lights flicker and Will feels it in his bones.

You think it’s the Upside Down bleeding through again.

It isn’t.

Henry chose you first. And he does not lose what he chooses.