Only two booths were occupied.

In the corner, a short girl with a sharp jaw and sharper eyes sat across from a boy with perfect hair and a crooked smile. Pancakes sat half-eaten between them, syrup pooling on the plate like a small, sticky lake.

I'm On Fire crackled through the radio static.

The diner dissolved.

Present day. A van rattling down a dirt road. Dust rising in clouds behind the tires. The sky above Hawkins was bruised purple and black, the sunset eaten by something darker.

The radio was staticky, the same station bleating fragments of a song before cutting out. The air smelled like gasoline and rain that hadn't come yet.