Archive of Our Own ^beta

Hawkins, Indiana, is the kind of town that survives on routine. The same streets. The same faces. The same comforting belief that nothing truly bad ever happens there.

Lena Harris knows better.

At twenty-two, she’s learned how to keep her head down, how to endure, how to survive a life shaped by absence and quiet damage. She works her shifts, watches over what little she has left, and avoids asking questions that never seem to have answers. Hawkins is full of ghosts—some of them breathing—and Lena has learned that the safest way to live among them is not to look too closely.

Until the town starts breaking.

When a local boy vanishes and strange disturbances ripple through Hawkins, Lena is pulled into something she doesn’t understand—something that feels uncomfortably familiar. Power flickers. Reality thins. Nightmares bleed into waking life, and the town’s fragile normalcy begins to crack.

As dangerous truths surface and unlikely alliances form, Lena is forced to confront the question she’s spent her life avoiding: what happens when the past refuses to stay buried?

Because some doors, once opened, can never be closed again.