They argued in whispers at first.
Then Joyce stopped whispering.
"My son is in there," she said, voice sharp enough to cut. "You're not stopping me."
Hopper rubbed a hand over his face. "I'm not trying to stop you. I'm trying to keep you alive."
Nancy stood rigid near the kitchen table, arms crossed tight. "We split up," she said suddenly. "That's the only way this works."
Everyone turned to her.
Thomas watched her carefully. She wasn't panicking. She wasn't shaking. She'd crossed into a colder decision.
"We don't all go in blind," Nancy continued. "One group goes to the lab. The other stays back."
"The kids aren't going anywhere near that place," Hopper said immediately.
Joyce nodded. "They stay."
Thomas didn't argue. He already knew Hopper wouldn't let them follow. He also knew why.
"I'll go with you," Thomas said instead.
Hopper studied him for a long second. "You sure?"
Thomas nodded. "I've been there before."
That was enough.
The plan settled fast after that.
Group One: Hopper, Joyce, Nancy, Thomas — straight to Hawkins Lab.
Group Two: The kids stay put, stay safe, stay ready.
No one liked it. Everyone accepted it.
The lab loomed out of the fog like a wound that refused to close.
Broken fences. Bent doors. Silence is too heavy to be natural.
Hopper led the way in, gun raised.
The smell hit first.
Blood. Smoke. Something rotten underneath it all.
Joyce froze."Oh god…"
Bodies lay everywhere. Soldiers torn open. Scientists crushed against walls. Bullet casings littered the floor in piles hundreds of them.
Nancy's flashlight landed at the end of the corridor.
She stopped breathing.
The Demogorgon lay motionless against the wall.
Burned. Shot. Broken.
Hopper kept his gun raised anyway. He didn't trust dead things anymore.
Joyce stared at it like it might suddenly breathe again. "This is what took Will?" she whispered.
Hopper didn't answer right away. He stepped closer, nudging the creature's arm with his boot. It didn't move.
"I don't know," he said finally.
Nancy swallowed hard. She'd imagined this moment a thousand times facing proof that the monster was real. Somehow, seeing it like this felt worse. Smaller. Less explainable.
Thomas stood back, heart pounding.
This didn't make sense.
If the monster was dead… then why did everything still feel so wrong?
He scanned the room. The bodies. The shattered doors. The empty hallways stretching deeper into the lab.
"This place wasn't evacuated," he said quietly. "It was a slaughter."
Hopper nodded grimly. "Yeah."
They stood there in the wreckage surrounded by death, holding onto a victory that didn't feel like one.
Somewhere above them, the lab lights flickered.
And Thomas couldn't shake the feeling that whatever had happened here…
had already moved on.