Hawkins — Monday
Will couldn't stop thinking about the kiss.
It wasn't just a kiss. It was warmth. Real. Alive. A moment of silence in a world that never stopped screaming. But as he walked down the halls of Hawkins High that morning, the warmth began to fade, replaced by the familiar weight pressing on his chest.
Something was wrong again.
He could feel it.
Lena hadn't answered his calls. She wasn't at her locker. She wasn't in class. Not even the whisper mill that usually lit up at the arrival of "the weird new girl" had a word about her today.
He found himself staring out the window, chewing the cap of his pen.
Where was she?
---
Elsewhere in Hawkins…
Lena sat in the abandoned basement of her house, back pressed against the cold cement wall.
Her sketchbook was on the ground beside her, pages fluttering like restless spirits. She had barely slept. The voice in the mirror haunted her, its words still echoing:
> "Will is the key."
It didn't make sense. Will was a victim—someone hurt by the same forces that twisted her life. He wasn't the enemy.
But what if…
What if they made him too?
She looked at her hands—steady, pale, knuckles scratched from punching her bedroom mirror after it shattered. She didn't know if she was protecting Will or hiding from him.
She didn't even know if she could tell the difference anymore.
---
Will knocked on her front door that afternoon.
No answer.
He tried the windows. Dark.
He walked around the side of the house and found the basement hatch—unlocked.
That wasn't right.
He climbed down slowly. The air was musty, cold. The only sound was the flutter of paper.
And then he saw her.
Sitting there like a ghost.
"Lena," he breathed.
She didn't look at him.
"You should go," she said quietly.
"I'm not leaving."
"I mean it."
He walked forward anyway, kneeling in front of her.
"What happened?"
She finally looked up. Her eyes were red, but not from crying. From lack of sleep. Fear. Something deeper.
"I saw the mirror again," she said. "It talked to me."
Will nodded slowly. "Mine did too."
She blinked. "What?"
He pulled up his sleeve.
There, on his forearm, was a mark—dark, shaped like a twisted spiral. It hadn't been there yesterday.
Lena touched it. The moment her skin met his, the basement hummed. A quiet vibration filled the air.
Will winced. "You feel that?"
Lena nodded. "They weren't lying. We're connected. It's like… we're the same frequency. Like glass and light."
She swallowed.
"I think I was made. But you, Will… you were changed. And they need both of us."
"For what?"
She met his gaze.
"To open something."
---
Meanwhile…
In the deep black tunnels beneath Hawkins Lab ruins, the boy with black eyes—known to some as Subject V—stood before a wall of cracked televisions.
Each screen showed a moment.
Lena sketching in her room.
Will sleeping fitfully.
The two of them walking hand-in-hand into the woods.
The kiss.
Subject V raised his hand.
The screens shifted.
Now they showed the gate. Still dormant. Cracked, but sealed.
He smiled.
> "Soon, the key will turn. The lock will break. And the door will open."
Behind him, machines long thought destroyed powered back on—flashing red.
---
Back in Lena's basement…
Will sat beside her, the hum between them slowly fading.
"Why us?" he whispered.
"Because we're broken," Lena said softly. "And broken things make good weapons."
He looked at her. "You're not a weapon."
"I wasn't supposed to be anything."
"You're wrong," he said, voice shaking. "You were supposed to find me."
She stared at him. "Why do you believe in me so much?"
"Because…" he hesitated. "Because the day I came back from the Upside Down, I wished I hadn't. I felt like something inside me stayed behind. Like I was empty. But since I met you, it's the first time I've felt whole again."
Lena's eyes stung.
Then, very softly: "Me too."
---
They walked through the woods again that evening.
Not searching.
Just needing space. Quiet.
The sun bled gold between the trees, casting long shadows. Will kept glancing sideways at Lena, wondering how it was possible to feel this close to someone he barely knew—and yet, it felt like he'd known her forever.
As they reached a clearing, Lena stopped.
"It's here again," she said.
Will frowned. "What is?"
"The echo."
She pointed.
In the grass was a shard of mirror—just one, perfectly smooth.
It hadn't been there before.
She picked it up. The second her fingers touched the glass, it flickered to life.
Inside it, an image:
Will—eyes black. Floating. Screaming.
She dropped it like it burned her.
"No!" she shouted.
Will stepped forward, grabbing her. "What did you see?"
"You—you're going to change!"
He didn't understand. "What do you mean?"
"You become one of them. That's what they're planning. You're the door, Will! They've marked you to be their vessel!"
He stepped back, shaking his head. "No. No, I'm not—"
"They'll use you," she said, tears in her eyes. "To break through."
He looked down at his arm, the spiral mark glowing faintly now. "Then we stop them."
She met his gaze. "How?"
He reached for her hand.
And this time, when they touched, it didn't hum.
It burned.
The spiral on his arm glowed brighter.
And then…
They were no longer in the forest.
---
They stood in a place between worlds.
Glass floated around them like stars.
Mirrors. Dozens of them. All showing variations of Hawkins.
A version where Will never returned.
A version where Lena was in a test tube.
A version where the world was upside down permanently.
Will gasped.
Lena's voice shook. "This is the place between reflections. The Echoverse."
Then the black-eyed boy appeared again.
"You're learning faster than the others," he said with a grin.
Will stepped forward. "Why us?"
The boy tilted his head. "You were touched by darkness. You survived it. And she—" he gestured at Lena "—was born from it."
"You won't win," Lena said coldly.
The boy's smile widened. "I don't need to win. I just need you… to choose."
The mirrors cracked.
Light exploded.
---
They woke on the forest floor, gasping.
It was night.
The moon above them was blood-red.
And in the distance… Hawkins' power grid flickered.
Will looked at Lena.
"We don't have much time."
---
End of Chapter 5