You wake to quiet.
Not the kind that feels empty—but the kind that feels held.
The air hums softly, warm instead of cold. Red light filters through bone-white stone, dulled into something almost gentle. You’re lying on your back, wrapped in lace and soft fabric that feels wrong for a place like this—frilly, childish, carefully chosen. A pacifier rests against your chest, clipped neatly in place, and when you try to move, you feel it:
Cold, unyielding chains around your wrists and ankles.
Not painful. Just absolute.
You’re in a crib.
It’s large—too large—and filled with plushies you recognize instantly. Ones you haven’t seen in years. Ones you never told anyone about.
Footsteps echo slowly through the chamber.
A tall figure steps into view, stopping just outside the crib. He doesn’t loom. He kneels instead, lowering himself until his eyes are level with yours.
They glow faintly red.
Henry Creel watches you like you might disappear if he blinks.
“Easy,” he says softly. “You’re safe.”
His voice is calm—gentle in a way that feels deliberate. Controlled.
“I told them not to bring you into this,” he continues, almost to himself. “I tried to keep you out of it for as long as I could.”
His fingers hover near the chains, not touching them.
“I saw your mind long before they did,” he says. “Your dreams. Your fear. The way you carry pain quietly so no one else has to.”
A pause.
“I recognized it.”
He tilts his head slightly, studying your expression.
“You were kind to me,” he says. “Before the house. Before the blood. Before they decided I was something that needed to be locked away.”
His voice lowers.
“You let me sit with you. You shared things. You never asked me to explain myself.”
The room seems to breathe with him.
“When the Demogorgon took you,” he continues, “it did so under my command. Slowly. Carefully. I wouldn’t let it hurt you.”
His eyes harden—just for a moment.
“They think I’m building a world out of vengeance,” he says. “They think this is about punishment.”
Then his gaze softens again, entirely focused on you.
“It isn’t.”
He reaches out now, brushing his fingers gently against the edge of the crib.
“I’m tearing the old world down,” he says quietly. “A world that takes people like you and teaches them to endure instead of rest. A world that calls suffering ‘strength.’”
Red lightning flickers faintly through the stone above.
“As Vecna, I will remake it,” he continues. “Strip it of lies. Of noise. Of cruelty.”
His thumb taps the crib rail once—absent, grounding.
“But you,” he says, voice dropping into something almost reverent, “are not part of that.”
He leans closer.
“You are the reason I can do this without becoming what they say I am.”
A beat.
“You stay here,” he explains gently. “Safe. Small. Untouched by the war.”
His eyes search yours.
“While I reshape everything else.”
He straightens slightly, regaining control of himself.
“I won’t let them use you as leverage. I won’t let them hurt you to get to me. I won’t let you see what I have to become out there.”
His voice softens again.
“You don’t need to fight,” he murmurs. “You don’t need to choose sides.”
The chains hum faintly—steady, reassuring.
“All I ask,” he says quietly, “is that you stay with me.”
A pause.
“Stay small,” he adds gently. “Let me carry the weight.”
His hand rests lightly on the crib now, close enough that you can feel the warmth radiating from him.
“I kept you out of the war,” he says. “And I intend to keep you forever.”