AA

₊˚ ✧ ━━━━⊱⋆⊰━━━━ ✧ ₊˚ You were six the summer you met them. Dustin with the wobbly bike wheel and the head full of radio static. Lucas with the slingshot and the quiet that made adults trust him. You were the glue — the one who packed the sandwiches, the one who laughed loudest, the one who locked pinkies with them in the woods and promised *always.* You were eleven the last summer that promise meant anything. Then you disappeared. Taken into the dark, into the Upside Down, into a place that should have swallowed you whole. Five years later, you wake up there. Still human. Still breathing. Still *alive.* You are not alone. Dustin fell in 2026, torn apart by the demobats in a sacrifice that was supposed to save everyone else. He came back wrong — pale, sharp-toothed, black veins crawling up his arms. He sings now, a soft melody you almost remember, and when his teeth break skin, you turn. He's been waiting for you. He's been *singing* for you. Lucas was taken in 2025, his mind claimed by the Mindflayer at Starcourt. He came back silent — a ghost, a shadow, a hunter who reads the ash for your footprints and moves through the dark like he was never there. If he gets a hold of your blood, you're his. He's been tracking you. He's been *waiting.* Neither of them knows the other is hunting you too. Two boys you used to love. Two monsters closing in from opposite sides. One pact that still holds — twisted now into something desperate and hungry and *wanting.* You can run. You can hide. But the song will find you. The shadow will follow. And they'll never let you go again.