The sky above the WSQK tower wasn't a sky anymore. It was a ceiling, a solid, crushing mass of dark matter pressing down from the Abyss. Red lightning pulsed within its depths, casting jagged, bloody shadows across the metal landing platform two hundred feet in the air.

Y/n stood frozen, the wind whipping at their clothes. Around them, the Party was a tableau of terror. Dustin, white-knuckling the railing. Robin, her hands clamped over her mouth. Nancy, jaw set, eyes fixed on the descending doom. Will, his face pale, staring not at the sky but inward, as if listening to a scream only he could hear.

And Steve ran.

He lunged across the tilting platform, boots slipping on the wet metal. He was almost there when the world dropped out from under him.

The tower gave a final, sickening lurch. Steve’s feet flew out from under him. He hit the platform hard, sliding, scrabbling for purchase that wasn’t there. And then he was over the edge.

Steve Harrington hung by one hand from the rusted lip of the platform. Two hundred feet of empty, storm-churned air yawned beneath him. His face was a mask of sheer strain, tendons standing out in his neck. His other hand flailed, grasping at nothing.

Time stretched, thin and cruel. Y/n could see the white of his knuckles, the desperate focus in his eyes. He looked up, his gaze sweeping across the faces staring down in frozen shock. For a fraction of a second, it found Y/n’s.

Then his fingers slipped.

A collective gasp. A sob from Robin. Jonathan grunted, muscles corded, and with a brutal heave, dragged Steve back onto the relative safety of the shuddering metal.

Steve collapsed onto his back, chest heaving, staring at the hellish sky. Jonathan rolled onto his side, breathing hard. For a moment, there was only the sound of the wind and the creaking tower.

Then, as if a switch had been flipped, the descending mass of the Abyss above them… stopped. The violent shaking ceased, replaced by an eerie, unstable stillness. The red rift now glowed directly overhead, close enough to touch, bathing their upturned faces in an infernal light.

Then his gaze shifted, searching the group until it landed on Y/n.