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“Eleven?” Mike swallows hard, his throat aching against a thick, heavy lump. He breathes in short, ragged gasps, as if the air in the basement has suddenly turned to lead.
“It’s me. It’s Mike. It’s day 304, 7:45 P.M.” He sniffles, aggressively biting a fingernail—a raw, nervous habit born from ten months of deafening silence. His hands tremble against the plastic of the Supercom.
“I miss you. We all do. Things haven’t… been the same without you. Lately, everyone acts like you never existed. Dustin and Lucas pretend like everything is fine, when it isn’t. I mean, we talk about you sometimes, but it hurts so much to know they talk about you as if you’re… ‘dead…’ ”
Mike fiercely wipes his eyes, trying to force the glassiness away with all his might, but the tears keep coming. Where are you? he begs silently. For ten long months, he has survived on a single shred of hope from day one, when he thought he saw her through the window. He just knew it was her. Her big brown eyes, her buzzed hair, her pink dress—everything. She had just stood there, looking so somber. He has held onto that feeling since that exact day, and he always will.
Eleven’s perspective-
“Will has been weird lately…” Mike’s broken voice echoes through the cold, black void.
He looks entirely helpless, curled up crisscrossed on the floor inside the empty blanket fort. Eleven watches him from the darkness, seeing exactly how hard he is fighting to strangle the sobs ripping through his chest. He is drowning in all the repressed pain he has kept locked away. In that moment, a crushing weight settles in her chest; she knows it is cruel for Hopper to force this distance between them. Mike needs her. And she needs him.
Eleven slowly walks toward Mike, the shallow, black water of the void splashing softly beneath her bare feet.
“Mike…” she whispers, her voice breaking as she sinks to her knees directly in front of him. She reaches out, her hand hovering inches from his cheek, desperately wishing for any way to break the silence—any way to comfort him without destroying the safety Hopper warned her about.
Mike swallows hard, staring blindly ahead into the empty space she occupies.
“He has been really quiet, and it’s understandable, you know?” Mike continues, his voice cracking. “After last year… spending a whole week in that place. It kills me to know he’s still traumatized but forcing a smile just so we don't worry. He’s trying so hard to let us have fun. But all we care about is him. We just want him to be okay. It would be… so much better if you were here.”
Mike lets out a breathless, hollow chuckle, crushed by the sudden absurdity of talking to an empty blanket fort.
“I’m sorry. That sounded ridiculous,” he whispers, his eyes welling up as a secret, terrifying desperation takes over. “Look, all I wanted to ask is… if you’re out there, please. Just give me a sign. A whisper? Anything at all. I swear I won’t tell anyone. Just let me know you're alive.”
Eleven inhales deeply, a single tear cutting through the grime on her face. She squeezes her eyes shut, fighting the agonizing urge to reach out and pull him into the light.
Eleven gently presses her trembling forehead against his, though her skin meets only the empty, freezing air of the void.
“Mike,” she begs, the word tearing from her throat in a ragged, suffocating sob. “I am here. Mike, please. I am still here.”
She screams it into the darkness, pouring every ounce of her broken heart into the words, but the space between them is an infinite, cruel wall. Across the barrier of worlds, Mike sits in absolute, agonizing silence. He doesn't flinch. He doesn't look up. He hears nothing but the low, empty hiss of static from the Supercom.
Mike waits.
Ten seconds pass. Then twenty. The basement is so quiet that the ticking of the clock upstairs feels like a hammer against his ribs. He holds his breath, every muscle in his body strained, desperately listening for a phantom voice, a click of the radio, or even a shift in the air.
Thirty seconds of pure, devastating nothing.
The last fragile thread of hope snaps inside him. Mike’s shoulders slump, completely defeated. He doesn’t sob, and he doesn’t scream; he just stares blankly at the floor of the blanket fort as a single, heavy tear slips out of the corner of his eye, tracing a wet path down his cheek.
He squeezes his eyes shut, his voice dropping to a fragile, raspy whisper that shatters Eleven’s heart into a million pieces.
“If you’re not out there…” Mike chokes out, his hands shaking so violently he can barely hold the radio. “If you’re really gone… I will still… love you. Forever.”
Eleven reaches out to catch his tear, but her fingers slide uselessly through his face, catching nothing but shadow.
Mike’s perspective
Mike slowly brings the radio to his lips, his thumb lingering on the button for one last, heavy second. “Night, El.”
The radio clicks off, plunging the basement into total darkness, and leaving Eleven screaming his name into a void that will never answer back.