Hawkins, Indiana looked ordinary.
That was its greatest lie.
The streets were quiet, lined with maple trees that whispered secrets when the wind passed through. The neon sign outside Melvald's General Store flickered like it was unsure of its own existence. The old railroad tracks behind Hawkins Middle School hummed faintly at night — though no trains had passed there in years.
People said Hawkins had healed.
They were wrong.
Beneath the cracked pavement and beneath the layers of denial, something still breathed.
And it was waking up.
Page 2 – The New Kid
Ethan Roy arrived in Hawkins on a gray Thursday afternoon.
He didn't want to move. Nobody ever wants to move to a town that smells like wet leaves and regret. His mother said it was a "fresh start." His father said nothing at all.
Their new house stood two blocks from the abandoned Hawkins Lab.
Everyone pretended the lab wasn't there anymore.
Ethan noticed it the first night — the way the streetlights near it flickered like nervous eyes.
Page 3 – Static in the Air
The first sign something was wrong came with the radio.
Ethan was trying to tune into a rock station when the signal broke into violent static. Through the noise, he heard something else.
Not music.
Breathing.
Slow. Heavy. Wet.
Then a voice — distorted, whispering:
"Still here…"
The radio burst into sparks.
The lights in his room flickered.
Outside his window, the woods moved.
Page 4 – Hawkins High
Hawkins High School had a strange energy.
The lockers were dented like they'd been punched by something stronger than human hands. Teachers avoided certain hallways. And the janitor refused to go near the science wing after dark.
That's where Ethan met Maya Henderson.
Maya didn't believe in coincidences.
"You live near the lab?" she asked him quietly.
When Ethan nodded, she didn't look surprised.
"You should leave," she said.
"Why?"
She stared at the ceiling lights.
"Because Hawkins doesn't like new people."
Page 5 – The Woods Behind Town
That night, Ethan couldn't sleep.
The trees outside scraped against his window. The air felt charged — like before a thunderstorm.
He grabbed a flashlight and stepped outside.
The woods behind Hawkins were darker than they should have been. No insects chirped. No owls called.
Halfway between the trees, he found something.
A patch of earth — black and rotting.
And in the center, a thin crack glowing faint red.
The ground pulsed.
Like a heartbeat.
Page 6 – The Tear
The crack split open.
Not wide. Just enough.
Enough for something to see through.
The air grew cold. Ethan's breath turned white. A vine — slick and dark — slithered from the opening and wrapped around a tree.
Then another.
And another.
The woods were being claimed.
Ethan stumbled backward.
From inside the crack, a low growl echoed.
Hawkins wasn't done with monsters.
Page 7 – The Forgotten Files
Maya had access to old newspaper archives in the Hawkins Public Library.
Hidden between articles about missing pets and snowstorms were strange reports from the early 1980s:
Electrical storms with no clouds.
Children claiming walls were "breathing."
Government trucks arriving at night.
And one article that had been half-burned:
"Lab Incident Linked to Inter-Dimensional Rift."
Maya looked at Ethan.
"It's happening again."
Page 8 – The Upside Beneath
The crack in the woods grew each night.
Animals vanished first.
Then power outages rolled through town in waves.
People blamed transformers.
But Maya and Ethan knew better.
They returned to the woods with rope and a camera.
The crack had become a doorway.
Through it, they saw a twisted reflection of Hawkins.
Dead trees.
Floating spores.
A sky cracked with red lightning.
The Upside Down was bleeding through.
Page 9 – Something Crosses Over
It happened at midnight.
The ground split fully open.
A tall shadow crawled through — thin, skeletal, with a head that unfolded like a terrible flower.
Its movements were wrong. Too sharp. Too fluid.
It sniffed the air.
It was hunting.
And Hawkins was full of prey.
Page 10 – The Signal
Back in Ethan's room, the radio turned on by itself.
This time the voice was clearer.
"Open more."
The lights burst.
Windows shattered.
From across town, screams echoed.
The creature had found its first victim.
Hawkins would not forget this time.
Page 11 – The Plan
Maya believed the tear could be sealed.
"If it was opened once, it can be closed."
They needed power — enough electricity to disrupt whatever energy held the doorway open.
The abandoned Hawkins Lab still had generators.
But going there meant facing whatever still lingered inside.
Page 12 – Hawkins Lab
The lab stood like a corpse of concrete and rust.
Doors hung crooked.
Walls were scarred by claw marks.
Inside, the air felt heavier — charged with old experiments and older mistakes.
The generators were still there.
But so were the vines.
They had spread through the building.
The Upside Down was reclaiming its birthplace.
Page 13 – The Core
Deep underground, they found it.
A chamber humming with red light.
At its center — a widening rift, larger than the one in the woods.
The creature was there.
Waiting.
It didn't rush them.
It smiled — in its own horrifying way.
Page 14 – The Surge
Ethan pulled the lever.
The generators roared to life.
Electricity surged through cables, flooding the chamber with white light.
The creature shrieked — a sound like tearing metal.
The rift trembled.
Collapsed inward.
Exploded in a storm of sparks.
Silence followed.
Heavy.
Absolute.
Page 15 – Aftermath
Morning in Hawkins looked peaceful.
Too peaceful.
The crack in the woods was gone.
The lab stood still.
But the streetlights still flickered.
Just once.
Like a blink.
Ethan kept the broken radio.
Sometimes, late at night, it hummed softly.
Static.
Breathing.
Waiting.
Because Hawkins never truly closes its doors.