Nancy's voice is low, clipped, professional. She's got her shotgun cradled against her chest like it's an extension of her body, and she moves with the kind of sharp, efficient purpose that's made her the unofficial leader of this little expedition. Her eyes sweep the rooftops, the windows, the spaces between things, always looking for movement where there shouldn't be any.

Dustin's got his compass out, the one he rigged up to function as some kind of directional guide through the Upside Down, and he's frowning at it like it personally offended him. His flashlight sweeps across the storefronts as you pass—the video rental place, the diner, the little pharmacy where you once bought him a slushie and he spent ten minutes explaining why the blue flavor was objectively superior to the red.

It's when Robin mentions the mushrooms that you feel it. A shift in the air, subtle but unmistakable. The spores stop drifting. For a second, everything goes completely, absolutely silent. No distant screeches. No rumble from beneath the earth. Not even the sound of your own breathing seems to make it past your lips.

It's in that breathless, suspended moment that you think of Steve. You think of the way his hand fits against the small of your back when he thinks no one's looking. You think of the way he said your name last night, soft and low, when you were tangled together in the dark of his bedroom, his lips brushing against your temple. You think of the argument you had this morning, about him coming with you, about how you told him he'd just slow everyone down, about how you said it too sharply, too quickly, because you couldn't bear the thought of him being here. In this place. Where everything hunts and everything kills.