The air in Hawkins tasted like rust and wet ash. It was October 1987, and the sky had been the color of a bruise for seven weeks. The military called it a "containment zone." The kids who'd survived called it the end of the world with a zip code.

Y/n was running. Not from a Demogorgon this time. From a patrol. Two jeeps and a spotlight cutting through the skeletal trees off Cherry Oak Drive. The soldiers didn't ask questions anymore. They just shot.

The radio squawked again, but the voice was breaking up. Behind Y/n, a searchlight swept across the underbrush, close enough to make the shadows jump. The fence surrounding downtown Hawkins loomed ahead, chain-link and razor wire, patched in places with corrugated metal. Beyond it, the faint red glow of the rifts pulsed like a heartbeat.

A figure in a dusty jacket and cracked goggles crouched near the fence's east corner, frantically waving Y/n over. It was Robin.

The bus stop was half-collapsed, swallowed by creeping black vines that had no business growing in October. Robin grabbed Y/n's sleeve and pulled them into the shadows.