He didn’t say it, but he felt it too. The calendar had flipped. The snow had melted. And in the basement of Starcourt Mall, something with many mouths and no eyes was finally awake, hungry for the difference between a happy ending and a new beginning.

The Byers’ kitchen clock read 11:47 PM, but its second hand had been stuck for three years. That’s how it felt to Mike Wheeler, anyway.

The clock in the Byers’ kitchen finally ticked past 11:47 PM.

January was a frozen wasteland. School started again. The Party sat together at lunch, but the conversations were smaller. No one said “demogorgon” anymore. Dustin built a Cerebro dish on a hill, desperate to hear anything beyond the static. Lucas taught Max how to throw a punch. They all pretended the shadow under Will’s bed was just a dirty sock.

The first month after the Gate closed was a blur of relief. November brought Thanksgiving at the Byers’ new, cramped house. Jonathan tried to carve a turkey with a knife that kept slipping. Will coughed into his elbow less and less. Hopper started leaving his gun in the truck.

April brought rain. So much rain that the quarry swelled and the woods turned to mud. Will and Mike biked to the arcade, but Will stopped drawing the shadow. He drew castles and dragons and nothing with tentacles. He tried so hard to be normal that his jaw ached from smiling.

But time, unlike the Upside Down, kept moving.