Isaac must have had the lungs of a god, for Eddie could still hear him wailing when he was at least a mile up the road. From here, Eddie could see that the fire was circling in now, dangerously close to the one avenue they had left open to Vecna and on this road, Eddie hiked back to the agreed upon marked location where they had planned to ensnare Vecna long enough for Eleven to act. It was back to basics with several bear traps, a trip wire, camouflage, and a few other methods that Vecna would hopefully not be expecting, but it had to happen at this exact point and since Eddie knew Vecna would be moving swiftly down the road to get to the lab, someone needed to be the decoy to stall him. And that someone had to be a person Vecna had invested an inordinate amount of time into tormenting.

Vecna would show himself to Eddie, of that he was certain. It made sense, the careful planning, the slow and methodical chipping away at Eddie's resolve until he could no longer stand to watch any more slaughter. Vecna had made it this way, forcing Eddie to endure such horrors until there was no other option but to give himself over to the inevitable. He had slowly but surely shown Eddie the path to his own demise. Eddie had died, a fact he was unaware of until Vecna had shown him that vision, planted a part of himself inside of Eddie, and had unlimited and growing access to him. He had shown Eddie the apocalypse, all the what-ifs of losing his friends, his family, with the clear solution being that Eddie had to buy them time by confronting Vecna himself and stalling. He had told Eddie that he was so close to the end and given him the last bit of knowledge he needed when he had his bats take Dustin.

All this time he had been isolating Eddie, cutting him off from hope, making him believe that the only salvation to be had was in giving himself over to the enemy in a noble act of sacrifice, which was exactly what was about to happen, just not in the way Vecna intended. Vecna would see Eddie standing here alone in a valiant effort to save Dustin, but he wouldn't suspect that a trap had been laid in the exact same manner it had been the first time they killed him because he would think Eddie and the others wouldn't be stupid enough to try the same tactic twice. But they were definitely stupid enough–or maybe just desperate enough.

And it had to be Eddie because Vecna didn't care enough to stop for anyone else besides Eleven who had to remain out of sight again until the odds were tilted in her favor. Vecna would do away with anyone else who tried to come between him and his goal and countless lives would be lost, so Eddie had to be the selfless one for once, which only infuriated him.

He didn't want to die despite these days, weeks, months of uncertainty and depression. He still had his whole life ahead of him. He had his brother, his girlfriend, a family he never dared to hope for, and now he had to trade that all for them to have a chance at survival. It pissed him off. He still had things he wanted to do, dammit. Was he really that much of a fuck-up that the universe collectively decided that he needed to be served the most malevolent form of karma? He thought he'd done alright, especially the last few months, but apparently everything and everyone that had ever existed hated him enough to pour all of their energy into making sure he didn't live to see his twenty-first birthday which meant he would technically die a kid.

What was most infuriating was that Eddie still didn't know why his life had led him to this point. Why was Vecna so hyper-focused on him enough to wish for his death in the same manner as he wished for Eleven's? Sure, Eddie had pissed him off and thwarted him multiple times, but at the end of the day, Eddie wasn't a threat until Vecna made him one and even then, he was still just human. He was just Eddie, not Eleven. If he was about to die, he wanted to know why.

As he decided on where he ought to stand to tempt Vecna forward into the trap, he felt a prickle run across his shoulders as if someone were standing right behind him breathing down his neck and he instinctively swatted at the presence, but there was nothing there. Then, he could almost hear what sounded like a feminine exhale and not for the first time, he sensed someone or something standing nearby.

The fire was distorting images around him, so he couldn't be sure and even with half of Hawkins burning, it was still incredibly dark here, but he could still just make out a teen-sized outline in front of him.

"El, if you're watching me, you need to pull out of the void and conserve your strength. He'll be here soon and he'll sense you. You need to start heading this way. I appreciate you looking for me, but there's nothing you can do now, so I need you to go."

He felt her leave in the form of warmth suddenly evaporating and leaving him in the bone-chilling cold despite the growing heat of the forest fire. Though he would have liked her company as he marched toward his death, he knew it was for the best that she not stick around. Once Vecna was in the trap, they only had a very small window of opportunity to kill him and Eleven needed to be well on her way toward this location to reach him in time.

To make absolutely sure that Vecna would come this way and not risk any chance of missing him, Eddie removed the pin from one of the two grenades on the belt across his chest and lobbed the explosive as high into the air as he could where it went off with a bang that rattled his eardrums.

"Eddie? Where are you? You should have been back by now."

He had almost forgotten that he still had a radio on him and that like any good girlfriend, Chrissy would be demanding to know where he was, which told him that she had not seen his and Isaac's return from the roof. Though, he would have thought that she and everyone else within a five mile radius would have heard Isaac's screams by now and come to investigate, so the fact that she was asking where Eddie was and not asking him why he had locked his brother in the weapons shed told him that no one had come up from the sublevels to let him out yet.

Eddie contemplated not answering because of how much it was going to hurt him to have to say goodbye. He had hoped that Isaac would pass on that message for him to avoid any of these tearful partings, but fate would not have it so.

"This is Eddie," he said, transparently trying to delay this last goodbye.

"Where are you? Are you and Isaac okay?"

"Isaac is in the weapons locker and the keys are in front of the glass doors. I'm not coming back."

He was met with a shocked silence on the other end of the radio and then Chrissy asked in a would-be calm voice, "What do you mean you aren't coming back?"

"I went to meet Vecna. Isaac will know when Vecna's most vulnerable and I told him when he senses it, to signal Hopper who'll start the burn on the hub and Owens will start the burn on Isaac. Once it's out of Isaac, it'll be like it was before, just have to hold Vecna down and then have Eleven take his head off."

"No, you didn't just tell me that. You're not leaving me like this. What do you think you're doing? How the hell can you do this to me?"

He had a million ways in which he could answer her, but he was running out of time and if he didn't wrap this up, he would never be able to let her go. Hers was the last friendly voice he would hear and it was agony, knowing that she was waiting on the other end for him to tell her something reassuring and promise that he would come back to her safely. He could imagine the look on her face right now, those brilliant wide green eyes completely rounded in horror at what she was hearing. Her heart would be frozen in anticipation, her hands gripping the radio in trembling fingers as she clung to his voice, the very last part of him he could give her.

"Baby, I love you so much," he told her with his throat clogging as he took yet another step toward becoming an emotional wreck. "I love you and I wanted to spend the rest of my life with you and that's what I got to do this past week. I did the best I could and I just hope it was enough. Tell Max I'm sorry I won't be there to help her get her permit or her license. Tell her I love her. And I love you, Chrissy Cunningham."

"Eddie, no–"

"I have to go. He's almost here."

"Eddie no. Please, don't leave me like this. Please, you can't–"

Fighting back his tears, Eddie whispered, "Goodbye, Chrissy," and then switched to channel 11 and taking a piece of duct tape, he taped the talk button down. Eleven, Hopper, and Owens would be able to hear everything that was about to happen and could make assumptions on how and when to proceed, but ultimately, Isaac was their best source of information. Still, he wanted to give them every chance he could, even if it meant broadcasting his murder to everyone tuned in to this channel.

The flames were starting to consume the last row of trees on either side of him and the heat should have been overpowering to say the least, but Eddie might as well have been standing in the frigid north of North America for how cold he felt. There was an unnatural fog extending across the road to the east and with it came that shriveling, terrifying chill.

Eddie set the walkie and his pack down on the side of the road, checked that he still had all of his other weapons, and then lifted his MP5K, not that he figured it would do any good. He could be sitting in a tank right now and it wouldn't do him any good. Nothing on this earth could make him Vecna's equal.

"I'm right here, come on!" he invited, speaking directly to the fog. "You've wanted me all this time, here I am! Come on, motherfucker!"

Eddie felt Vecna before he saw him. It was the same helpless, despairing, gut-wrenching feeling of hopelessness that he had felt when he and the Party had confronted Vecna at the Upside Down Creel house except this time, Eddie was going in alone with no plans of making it out. It was the feeling Chrissy, Max, and Will had described of having their very souls sucked out in a world of darkness where no one and nothing could reach them except Vecna's gaze. The fog continued to roll in, but the image of a wall of trees on fire on either side of him was burned into the inside of Eddie's eyelids. The contrasting sights did not coexist well in his head, yet here they were, and there was Vecna.

He appeared first as a faceless silhouette emerging from the mist, but that skeletal outline could not be mistaken for anything else. Eddie could not see where Vecna's feet met the road, but Vecna was making measured strides toward him in a way that carried him almost twice the distance with every footfall. Half gliding, half walking, he moved deliberately toward Eddie and though every instinct, ever pulsing, living fiber within him was telling Eddie to run, he stood his ground.

He would not run; he would not budge from this spot until he had Vecna where he wanted him. His earlier conversation with Isaac came back to him as he asked his brother what it was like to face death and Isaac had been right to tell him that no one could know until they actually faced it. Wayne had faced it on this very road, had told Eddie without words that he loved him, and then walked into death's waiting arms. Though he may not remember it, Isaac had faced it in those last moments before the portal took him and faced it before then when Vecna had tried to kill him as he had attempted to kill Chrissy and Max. Chrissy and Max had faced it as well. Eddie had not. Going into that room and allowing himself to be strapped down without being able to see or feel death's presence was not at all like seeing death incarnate just a couple of yards away.

The courage needed for this was of the sort that Eddie wouldn't have believed that he had until this very moment. He had made the decision to do this and now he had to stand by it and hold for as long as he could.

Hold on, Eddie.

It might have been his subconscious encouraging him with the last of his resolve or it might have been Eleven reaching out to him to fuel him in his last moments and remind him why he was doing this.

He set his sights along his gun to maybe get in a few shots, just to send Vecna a final "fuck you". His middle finger was on the trigger when he saw something seemingly floating along behind Vecna. It took a few moments to realize that the vines that crawled along in Vecna's wake were supporting and suppressing the body.

His heart was on a springboard, leaping into his throat at the sight of Dustin, alive, but severely hurt. The vines had wrapped around his midsection and shoulders, leaving his limbs free. There were deep gashes along his forearms, neck, and face. His obviously broken legs were bent in awkward positions to ensure that he couldn't run if he somehow managed to get loose. And his left eye–good God–it was gone, gouged out and leaving only a bloody hole behind.

Eddie swallowed back a gasp and a cry of both relief to see Dustin alive and horror at what had been done to him. All at once, he knew he would not even be able to fire off a final shot because the slightest attack against Vecna would result in further harm coming to Dustin, so he lowered his MP5K and tried to muster some sort of reassuring expression onto his face for Dustin's sake.

Through the mess of blood spread across his remaining eyelid, Dustin managed to identify Eddie and his cracked lips parted to splutter, "Eddie, what are you doing?"

"Let him go," Eddie demanded, never taking his eyes from Vecna as the bastard came to a halt some twenty feet from him.

"You have nothing to barter with and he has nowhere to run to," Vecna pointed out.

"If that's true, he'll be dead in a little bit anyway but for right now while we're talking, you let him go."

"And what makes you think I would do that?"

"Because you planned it this way and if you want any answers from me before I die, you do this one thing I'm asking of you. There's no consequences for you by letting him go for just a couple minutes."

"Eddie, you can't do this. Shoot him!"

"Shut up, dude. Please, just for once, shut up. " To Vecna, Eddie added, "Humor me."

He knew he had him. Vecna was a curious being and that morbid curiosity had spilled over into Eddie as well, leading both of them to this point in time for Vecna to wonder why Eddie could give in to self sacrifice and for Eddie to ask why Vecna had targeted him and made his life hell.

The vines released Dustin and dropped him unceremoniously on the asphalt on his broken legs. He cried out, laying where he had fallen with his face screwed up in pain, but he couldn't run and even if he could, they were surrounded by fire, so there was nowhere for him to go. All the same, Eddie gave the tiniest wave of his hand in a gesture that Dustin should try to pull himself as far away from Vecna as possible.

Though his horribly dysmorphic features made it difficult to discern, Eddie could have sworn that Vecna was smiling at him now. He supposed that when he was Henry, smiling was something he had done often enough, but as a monster transported to another dimension without human interaction for years, he had almost lost the ability to do such a human thing.

"What questions do you have that are worth your life, Eddie? What drove you to come and face me instead of sending in Eleven like the squealing, terrified little rat you are?"

Here at last, Eddie would have his answers about what made him special enough to draw Vecna's ire for months, make this demon set aside his vendetta against the girl who had banished him to the Upside Down.

"Why did you waste so much time on me and try to mentally torture me by going after my friends and family when I was never the real threat? You claimed once that you did all of this for Eleven, to make her suffer before you ended her because she turned down your offer when she was just a kid but you've all but forgotten her just to come after me."

"Not just you. I have come for everyone. I have visited everyone, even if they didn't realize it. Every one of your friends who dared to take a stand against me has suffered consequences."

"But why? Why'd you make it your mission in life to kill people like this? You were human once, right? What was so bad about it? And what's so bad about humans now? All of these people you've gone after were just people who never did anything to hurt you until you made us. And then you stopped trying to get inside their heads just to come after me when I'm…I'm as human as the rest of them. There's nothing special about me."

He was lying if he thought that he never wanted to be unique in some way. He wanted to stand out and be seen as different, but not at the expense of his life or anyone else's. There was nothing about him that could have drawn Vecna into him when there were far more dangerous and challenging targets like Eleven, Hopper, and Nancy.

"There's nothing special about you, that much is true," Vecna agreed. "You are the most ordinary and mundane of humans with no particular talent, a mind that could be considered unstable at best, and an unfortunate amount of luck. But you are stubborn, determined, and irritably so. I bypassed you when searching for a victim because I saw nothing in you, yet your ability to hinder me at every turn was interesting to say the least. Your resilient qualities did show themselves until I came for Chrissy, which was something I had not seen before when I sparred with Eleven. She did not have such commitment to any of those other children in the lab or anyone working for Brenner, and so you became a different challenge for me in a way that she could not. And regardless of how noble you believe your intentions are, you are not innocent. You led others down a destructive path. You have hatred in your heart for your fellow man. You are no different from any of them. Mankind is a stain upon the earth, and I am here to cleanse it."

So Vecna singled Eddie out because he was the first person to stand up for someone else who had been victimized. Eddie was his first opponent after coming back to Hawkins simply because Eddie cared about the would-be victim enough to try and protect them. Everything that had happened to him, his brother, his girlfriend, and his friends and family since then was because Eddie was simply being human. He exhibited all of those qualities that defined humans and Vecna hated him for it.

"You aren't enough. You'll never be enough to wipe us out completely," Eddie promised. Even if Eleven somehow couldn't defeat him, mankind had the means to destroy him if they were willing to sacrifice human lives to put him down. As few human qualities as Vecna retained, he was still a living being and Eddie doubted even he could withstand a nuclear bomb.

"Your sacrifice won't save them. Your death will mean nothing to this town that turned its back on you and cast you out. "

"This was never for them. None of this was ever for this town. I never would have gotten involved if you hadn't made things personal."

"You made things personal. You interfered, intentionally or not, with my plans by saving Chrissy, Max, and others. I knew I needed to dispose of you, but I couldn't reach you in the way I found the others. You couldn't be touched while you were still so pure of memory, unbothered and unburdened by the things that made life unbearable for the likes of Chrissy, Max, and those weak-minded individuals I claimed, so I decided to break you down from the inside out by going after your brother. I have tormented you because you deserve it, because you must accept that your actions have consequences for interfering in matters that do not concern you. Why have I not gone after Eleven to the degree that I have for you? Because her time will come, but she has a strong mind and has been manipulated by me before, so I knew she would not be so malleable this time. Not like you who wears your heart proudly on your shoulders, who are so laughably predictable, who can only fight me through bigger, better people when you possess no qualities of your own that would enable you to ever stand a chance against me in a fight, whether intellectually, physically, or mentally."

"Well, would you look at that, there's no bigger, better people here now," said Eddie, bristling in anger at being called a coward by this asshole when he had been engaging in a mental battle with the prick for months without even being fully aware of it. All things considered, Eddie thought he had done pretty well for himself for coming out on the other side of this with any brain cells left and able to form coherent sentences. He knew he wasn't the bravest or the boldest and certainly not the most intelligent when it came to charging head-on to face an enemy, but he had never stepped behind anyone else or willingly thrown anyone in front of him to save his own skin. If anything, he had done the exact opposite time and again in using his own body as a shield to protect others and to stand here and listen to Vecna taunt him about it was not the way Eddie planned to die.

"If you believe that I would be foolish enough to walk into a trap a second time, you haven't been paying attention. Not that I would expect any kind of intelligent independent thought from you. I know Eleven's adopted human father conceived this plan along with some of your friends who came to my home in my world and attacked me last spring. I know that you burned the woods to make me come through here and that you hoped to ensnare me the same way you did before."

The vines on either side of Vecna tossed disabled bear traps at Eddie's feet.

"I know that you thought you could buy Eleven time by holding me here and asking me questions. I know that you're disappointed to learn that I never saw anything special in you and that I dedicated all of my energy into coming after you for the simple fact that I could and that you–along with the rest of your race–stand in my way. You began as a mild hindrance, but you evolved into someone almost worthy of becoming an adversary, except no human could ever stand against me and win. You are unextraordinary and you will not keep from what is mine. Imagine my own disappointment upon discovering that the boy who set me back months in my plans was nothing more than a willful idiot. Such an unsatisfactory end to what I had hoped would be a worthwhile journey when I finally came face-to-face with the human who caused such trouble for me."

"I'd be embarrassed if I were you, finding out that it's taken you this long to finally kill the person who's amounted to nothing more than just a human idiot," Eddie retorted. "If someone like me could throw a wrench in your plans and keep you busy for this long, the rest of the world should do just fine in taking you down."

Eddie thanked whatever gene ran in his family that allowed him to joke on the verge of his murder and not go dashing and screaming back up the road. This quick wit and sarcastic nature had never done well for him before when confronting bullies and enemies, but it was a small comfort to know that he could retain some semblance of himself and remain Eddie Munson before he died.

He had struck a nerve with Vecna because that part of him that retained human emotions felt a horrible sting to his pride with Eddie's suggestion that Vecna was not nearly as powerful as he thought he was to not be able to kill a human pest. It brought Eddie an enormous amount of satisfaction to know that he had gotten under Vecna's slimy, clammy, disgusting skin–but that satisfaction was short-lived when Eddie saw Vecna's fury manifesting in the vines thrashing on either side of him.

Fuck it.

From waist height, Eddie fired the remaining shots in his submachine gun. Each and every one of his bullets struck Vecna's chest and besides making him take a few ungainly steps back, had absolutely no effect on him. Eddie had no time to wonder if he could turn heel, hop inconspicuously over the tripwire, and get Vecna to follow him, for the network of vines that had been stealthily creeping toward him now lashed out at him.

Vines fastened around his neck, yanking him upward. He dropped his MP5K and clawed at the thick tendril pressing against his windpipe as his legs kicked uselessly below him. Two more vines fastened around his wrists, stretching his arms tight crucifixion-style while another two pulled down on his ankles. A final one formed into a sharpened point just at his stomach and pressed ever so lightly against the scar that had become a souvenir of an alternate fate that was about to become reality. The vine began to push, its movements agonizingly slow but persistent. The other vines wrapped around his limbs and neck were squeezing, trying to crush his bones into dust.

He had not expected to die like this. He had thought that his body might levitate as Chrissy's and Max's had, that he would maybe have Vecna's claw sink into his forehead and take out his brain as it had when Jonathan died, that perhaps Vecna might just make it quick an telepathically snap his neck. But no, Vecna had already shown Eddie once how he was going to die when he fell asleep in Max's hospital room and saw a vision of himself telling him that this would be the end for him eventually. He would die the same way twice in two separate dimensions.

Vecna stepped in toward Eddie until he was close enough that Eddie could have head-butted him if he could move a muscle, but he couldn't. He was completely immobilized.

"Always the coward, aren't we, Eddie? Always trying to be something more but falling miserably short. You've hindered my progress for too long, but you've had your uses. For instance, your profound impact on your brother allowed him to survive when I attached myself to him to use his body as my breeding ground for rehabilitation. If not for his grief for you, his emotions that tied him to the world of the living, he would not have been able to host my essence and I would not have been able to reform. It must bring you such comfort to know that your brother's love for you was what made him susceptible to my curse and that the agony of losing you will be the last thing he ever feels before I completely consume his mind."

It was impossible to remain calm and trick his brain into thinking that Hopper and Owens would burn the infection out of Isaac before his mind was lost to Vecna for good when the pressure at his stomach was starting to become unbearable. He could only feel pain, could only think of pain. There was no room in his body or mind for anything else and Vecna's final curse would be to drown Eddie in his own agony rather than have his final moments be last memories of his loved ones and the life he might have had.

"You wanted to die for them, now you will. You will feel each and every moment of their pain."

Eddie had a brief moment of levity where he considered that it was impossible for Vecna to make him experience the physical pain of others, but in a world where something as foul as Vecna could exist, where a kid like Eleven could exist, it was not entirely implausible.

Then he was seeing the world through the eyes of not just Isaac, Chrissy, and Max, but Nancy, Steve, Dustin, and all the Party members. He was Wayne, he was Jason, he was Brenner. He was everyone he had ever known, ever spoken to, ever seen, and he experienced the boiling, burning, agonizing pain of a billion wounds. Every knee scrape, papercut, surgery, heartache, amputation, broken bone, and every spilled drop of blood was Eddie's to endure. He was being ripped from his body, foundering in a sea of excruciating mortal pain. It was beyond anything he had ever felt, beyond even the pain of having Vecna burned out of him and passing so close to that brink of insanity.

His vocal chords were shredding, his body shaking, his mind collapsing. It should have been enough to kill him right then and there, but somehow, his brain told him that he was still alive. He didn't know what still tied him to this world to keep him alive or how that could be enough.

"I see them, Eddie. I see your family, hiding away inside that damned lab, trying to conceal themselves from me. Know that the last thing you will ever hear is the sound of them killing themselves as I finally make them mine."

He could see them too: Chrissy and Max, both reaching for a weapon that they could commit suicide with. He tried to scream for them, but his voice had been destroyed or forgotten and he couldn't tell which.

A violent eruption of flames burst from the woods to Eddie's right and the mushroom cloud of heat caused Vecna to recoil and caused the vines to retract from Eddie like he was hosting the fire himself. He fell, dropping into a lifeless heap on the asphalt with his ears ringing and his body all but numb.

Still alive. You're still alive.

As he lay there on his stomach, gasping for air that his lungs would not take in, he felt a spherical shape pressed against his chest and remembered that he still had one card left to play. Eddie closed his hand around the last grenade clipped to the belt just as Vecna took the back of his jacket, lifted him upright, and turned him around. Spitting blood, vision blurred, obviously dying, Eddie pulled out the pin and stuffed the grenade as deeply into the vine-like structure of Vecna's open ribcage as it would go. There was only about another second and a half delay…

Something yanked him backwards. He recognized the power that was pulling on him and when he landed some twenty feet back, he turned to look for Eleven with waning strength. She wasn't there.

It was Isaac, hand held up to Vecna in a command to stop. He stood over Eddie, blocking him from Vecna with his nose bleeding. Eddie understood that Vecna could not harm Isaac, could not touch something that carried half of his soul. Vecna's mental powers were useless here; he would have to physically remove Isaac himself if he wanted to have a final go at Eddie.

Then half of Vecna exploded as the grenade went off. He was nearly severed in two with his upper body barely clinging to the lower half of him but for a few sinewy strands of flesh that were slowly piecing themselves back together. Even as he began to reform, Vecna was stalking toward Eddie and Isaac, more pissed than Eddie ever could remember seeing him. In three giant strides, he activated the tripwire that set off a chain reaction of concealed bear traps, nets, and other snaring devices that pinned him in place as he attempted to retake his full shape again.

Isaac held up a walkie to his mouth. "Light it up."

It was then that Eddie saw the heavy chains attached to Isaac's wrists and ankles, saw the armed soldiers marching in behind him with flamethrowers alight. The flamethrowers came to life, spraying fire out on either side of Isaac, close enough to heat up the air around him by at least fifty degrees. Isaac lunged involuntarily and the soldiers on the other end of the chains yanked hard, pulling him flat to contain him as the fire burned bright and beautiful all around them.

Vecna let out a long, drawn out howl of agony that Isaac reflected and the vines that remained intact around the both of them were whipping about as if sharing in that pain and Eddie knew that the hub was on fire.

They were doing it; they were winning and it only cost Eddie all but one last shrivel of his own sanity and everything his body had to give. He was fighting to stay alive, to watch Vecna's downfall, but the fucker was just as determined as Eddie to earn every last breath.

Vecna raised a claw to either attack Eddie or the soldiers or do something that would even the odds stacked against him, but Eddie saw a flannel shirt, a pair of jeans rolled up at the ankles, neck-length wavy brown hair, and an outstretched arm, and knew that Eleven had finally come. He fought to keep his eyes open, to watch Eleven destroy Vecna, but he needed to rest, just for a moment.

Just for one tiny moment…

It might have been hours later that he wrenched his eyelids open to see Isaac's body curving upward in the gymnastics pose Eddie knew to be the bridge. Isaac was screaming, only it was not his voice at all but something completely animalistic. The network of spider webbing veins were throbbing against his skin as if fighting to get out. The heavy chains held him down, but the soldiers on them were struggling to maintain their grip. With one final surge, black smoke expelled from Isaac's mouth in full flight from this uninhabitable host and burrowed itself back into its master, fueling Vecna with this one last bout of energy to duel Eleven. Isaac's body collapsed back to the ground, his eyes rolled into the back of his head, and he lay still.

Eleven was also screaming, as was Vecna, as was the entire Upside Down, but it was a distant sound and Eddie was far displaced from it. He tried to move anything, but only his eyes seemed to be working. Everything moved at half speed but with a single blink, it seemed that several moments had passed. Eleven and Vecna were battling each other on level ground, then suddenly they were fifteen feet in the air, then Vecna was on fire and shriveling into ash...

Eddie thought he might have blinked again, but he could have passed out, for when he opened his eyes, he could no longer see Eleven or Vecna or indeed anything but the wet pavement in front of his face.

It was raining: the storm Owens had predicted, except from what Eddie could smell, it was normal, pure, cleansing rain. He would have liked to have been able to sense the raindrops on his face, soaking through his clothes, but he was far and away from all of it. Vecna might be dead, Eleven might be dead, everyone might be dead, and he wouldn't know because he was dying and alone. He tried to conjure up the images of those he loved most, but his brain didn't seem to want to focus on anything or feed him anything that might make his passing easier.

Presently, he became aware of his body moving, his face being turned upward to blink up at the rain. His eyes were telling him that he now lay in his brother's arms, but he couldn't feel it. He couldn't feel anything, which was worse than feeling pain because it meant he was on his way out. He couldn't draw comfort from the pressure or the warmth of Isaac's touch; the sight of him was all Eddie had.

"C-Chrissy…?" he asked urgently, remembering how Vecna had shown him those rooms in the lab where his girlfriend and his sister were about to kill themselves. "Max? Tell me we s-saved them."

"We did," said Isaac, though he could be lying and Eddie wouldn't know. Vecna could still be alive and Eddie would have no idea. He would die without having proof of the truth and he would have to be okay with that.

Eddie didn't trust his eyes despite them being one of the last senses available to him, but he could have sworn that his brother looked younger, almost as if the stain of the Upside Down on his body had been washed away. The scarring across his throat was still there, as were the nicks and cuts of the past week and a half, the evidence of his fights with himself and with Eddie. He wasn't whole, but he was human, and that was enough. What little part of Eddie that could feel emotions right now told him that he was experiencing relief that Isaac was finally, finally free of Vecna's stain. It had cost Eddie his life to make that a reality, but he'd done it and now Isaac would have to be the one to find a way to get by without his brother.

Eddie realized he had not even thought to write a will or any parting words. He had not thought that far ahead as Isaac had. And now it was too late.

"You l-look better," Eddie observed as he saw those identical brown eyes trying and failing to not look concerned on his behalf. "And y'know, I th-think I'm dy-dying, bro."

"I think you are too." Eddie appreciated the honesty, but he didn't care for the broken way in which Isaac had said it. He had no business sounding like he was barely holding it together when Eddie had done everything in his power to hold it together when he had said his farewells to Isaac before Isaac had been sucked into the portal. Eddie wanted strength and encouragement right now, not weakness and depression.

"Damn."

"You won't, though, because help is coming." There was that optimism Eddie was looking for, even if it was false. But even if help was coming, it wouldn't matter. The damage had been done and there was no way to reverse it this time. The hole in his stomach was too severe, the turmoil Vecna had put him through too unforgiving. Deep down, Eddie had known that this would be the outcome from the moment he had been told that Vecna was not dead. It didn't make this departure any easier, though. He was still scared shitless and he wanted to be reassured that he had done the right thing, that he had given all he could.

"I want y-you to p-p-promise me that I'll be ok-okay."

The last bit of comfort he could have in this life was for his brother to look him in the eye and lie to him.

"T-tell me I'll b-be okay. Please…"

"You will be. I'm not going to bury you a second time," Isaac promised. He might have been crying, but with the rain, it was impossible to tell. Eddie liked to think that his brother was holding him tightly just now. "I love you, Eddie."

Eddie's voice came out clear and desperate as he realized that he wasn't ready. "I don't know what's on the other side. I don't wanna go."

Even as he said it, he felt himself going, drifting, fleeing his body. He didn't know where he was going or what he would find when he got there, if he got there. There was nothing to guide him. There was no enveloping darkness, no promising light at the end of the tunnel. There was just nothing as everything faded out to white.