Will Byers knew the rules. When the lights flickered, you ran. When the air went cold, you held your breath. And when the thing was close, you didn't make a sound.

Not the wet, clicking shriek of the Demogorgon. Something smaller. Something desperate.

His mother had left the Christmas lights up. Through the thin, rotting membrane between worlds, he could see them flickering in his living room—faint, like stars seen through murky water. He’d learned to touch the bulbs from his side, making them glow brighter on hers. He’d spelled out R-U-N . He’d spelled H-E-R-E .

A voice. Tinny and crackling, like a transistor radio tuned to the wrong frequency. It was coming from the Byers' shed.

“…Lucas thinks you’re gone. But I saw the lights, Will. At your house. Eleven said… she said you’re hiding. That you’re good at hiding.”

Silence. Then, a choked gasp. “Will? Where are you? The signal is bouncing off a weird frequency—are you in the storm cellar?”

“The walls?” Mike’s voice cracked. “That doesn’t make sense. You’re in the walls ?”

Will dropped the radio. He raised the empty shotgun. And for the first time in a week, he smiled—because he wasn’t alone anymore. The lights in the house blazed so bright they burned white.