The air hums with power, sharp and electric, vibrating in your bones.

Blood drips from your nose, warm against your lip, and the world around you fractures, walls cracking, lights shattering, the gate screaming as it tears itself wider. You can feel it now, the truth settling heavy in your chest: this ends with you.

Mike knows it too.

He grabs your wrist, fingers tight, desperate, like if he lets go you’ll vanish instantly. His eyes are red, not from the Upside Down spores this time, but from crying he’s trying and failing to hide.

“No,” he says, shaking his head hard. “No, we’ll figure something out. We always do. You don’t get to decide this alone.”

You smile at him, soft and sad, because you’ve already decided.

“Mike,” you whisper, pressing your forehead to his. The power crackles around you, lifting debris into the air like weightless ghosts. “I don’t have time.”

His voice breaks. “You promised. You promised we’d grow up together.”

Your chest aches so badly it almost pulls your focus from the gate. You lift your free hand, brushing your thumb across his cheek, memorizing the feel of him, warm, alive, real.

“I wanted that,” you admit. “I still do.”

Tears spill freely now, and he doesn’t bother wiping them away. “Then stay,” he pleads. “Please. I can’t lose you. I can’t-”

You kiss him before he can finish. It’s desperate and trembling and full of everything you don’t get to say. When you pull back, your hands linger on his jacket, your mind burning the moment into itself.

“You saved me,” you tell him quietly. “Let me save you too.”

"No, please don't do this," he begs.