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⊱ The Distance Between Us ⊰ E.M. ,, S.H.
In a canon divergence where Jonathan doesn't catch Steve when he falls off the radio tower, the Party loses both Steve and Eddie — Eddie to the Demobats, and Steve eighteen months later to the fall. Dustin, grieving two friends in under five years, finds solace in a mutual friend: the reader, who knew both boys back in middle school, before Steve got popular, Eddie got weirder, and the reader got quieter. But the Upside Down doesn't let go of people easily. Vecna has reshaped the dead into weapons. Steve is now Vocar — blind, red-eyed, carrying a staff with a floating eye, and holding a secret that could kill his master. Eddie is now Kas — winged, fanged, clawed, with pale eyes — meant to be Vecna's servant, but the betrayal goes very wrong. Vecna made them his henchmen, and they turned on him instead. When the Party splits up to find Hopper and Eleven, the reader insists on going alone — the only one who isn't on their radar, the one who knew them before. They find Steve and Eddie fully transformed, in bloodlust: a hunger that makes them eat anything alive. But it's not in full effect. The reader has a choice: **RUN OR FIGHT.** This is a story about grief and friendship more than defeating Vecna. About three broken people — a blind seer, a winged monster, and the quiet friend who knew them when — learning that love isn't about being whole. It's about being broken in the same shape and fitting together anyway.
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