Stranger Things : I m Steve Harrington Chapter 72 72: The Final Assault - Part 4 (Escape)

Bob

The countdown was digital nightmare. Sixty seconds collapsing to thirty, twenty, ten.

"Straight 300 ters!" I guided through SuperComm. "Right at junction! Ladder shaft, climb fast! You have thirty-five seconds!"

On my monitors, four dots racing through tunnels. Behind them, hundreds of red signatures—demo-dogs in pursuit.

"Tunnel collapsing section three!" Dr. Owens reported. "Chain reaction starting early!"

"TEAM, COLLAPSE ACCELERATING! MOVE FASTER!"

Steve

Phase 3 pushed my body past human limits. Carrying El, running full speed, fighting rear guard simultaneously.

Demo-dogs sward. I killed without slowing, bat and knife extensions of my will.

The tunnel groaned. Structural failure spreading faster than predicted. The explosives' chain reaction had begun early.

"Thirty seconds!" Bob's voice.

Ceiling chunks rained down. Hopper ducked, Billy unconscious on his shoulder. We hit the junction, turned right.

Ladder shaft ahead. Vertical climb, narrow space.

"Twenty seconds!"

Hopper went first, Billy slung over his back. El grabbed the ladder, started climbing despite exhaustion.

I brought rear. Demo-dogs right behind us, clicking fury.

Dustin

We felt the explosion from the bunker. Not the final detonation—preliminary collapses. Tremors shaking ground.

"They're coming," I said to The Party. "Get ready."

Will stood beside , clearer-eyed than he'd been in weeks. "Steve's severing the connection. I can feel it breaking."

"Is that good?"

"For ? Yes. For him?" Will's face twisted with worry. "It might kill him."

Dart clicked nervously, sensing the impending detonation.

Max grabbed my arm. "Billy's with them. He better survive."

"He will. Steve won't let him die."

Please let that be true.

Murray

I'd been following the Hawkins story for weeks. Tonight, all the pieces had converged—military-style operation, underground infiltration, massive energy signatures.

I parked on a ridge overlooking the industrial complex, cara ready.

The ground rumbled. Surface cracks appeared, spreading.

Through my telephoto lens, I caught the tunnel entrance. Four figures erging—two adults, two teenagers, one carried.

"What the hell are you people doing down there?" I muttered, photographing everything.

Then the world exploded.

Steve

We burst from the tunnel exit into cold November daylight. Ten seconds remaining.

"GET CLEAR!" Bob's voice scread through comms.

We ran. Hopper carrying Billy, El stumbling, supporting her.

Five seconds.

The ground beneath us cracked. Tunnel network collapsing, entire underground structure caving in.

Three seconds.

Two.

One.

The source gate detonated.

El

The shockwave threw us like toys. I tumbled through air, hit ground hard, rolled.

Beside , Steve convulsed. The corruption across his body writhed—black veins retracting, spreading, fighting themselves. The Mind Flayer's connection was severing violently.

He scread. Not pain scream. Dinsional scream. Like reality itself was tearing him apart.

I crawled to him, placed hands on his chest. "Holding on. Stay!"

The corruption pulsed, trying to kill him, trying to reclaim him, trying to drag him through dinsions.

"STEVE!" Hopper's voice. "Stay with us!"

Hopper

The explosion crater was three miles wide. Entire downtown industrial complex collapsed into massive sinkhole. Dust cloud rising like mushroom.

And Steve Harrington lay convulsing on the ground, corruption receding in agonizing waves.

I grabbed the radio. "Bob! We're clear! Steve's down! Get dical here NOW!"

"Ambulance dispatched. Five minutes out."

"He might not have five minutes!"

El held Steve, trying to use her powers to stabilize him. But the corruption fought back, dinsional energy resisting.

Billy woke up, saw Steve dying. "No. After saving , you don't get to die. That's bullshit."

The corruption spread one final ti, then contracted violently. Steve arched back, screaming.

Then went still.

Will

At the bunker, I felt it. The connection breaking. The Mind Flayer's presence in my mind severing completely.

Freedom. For the first ti in months, my thoughts were entirely mine.

"It worked," I breathed. "Steve did it."

But the joy felt hollow. Because through the remnants of the link, I'd felt Steve's agony. The cost of severing the connection.

"We have to help him," I told The Party. "Now."

We ran. All of us. Toward the explosion site, toward Steve, toward saving the person who'd saved us all.

Murray

Through my cara, I docunted everything. The explosion, the collapse, the four survivors on the ground.

And the impossible readings on my equipnt. Dinsional energy off the scale, then collapsing to zero.

"Whatever you people were doing," I said to my recordings, "you just closed sothing. Sothing big."

I'd get my story eventually. But today, I just docunted.

Because this was history. And soone needed to rember.

Steve

Darkness. Cold. The Mind Flayer's presence receding like tide, pulling at my consciousness, trying to drag with it.

No. I'm not yours. Never was.

The corruption fought. Part of wanted to follow it, to beco fully dinsional, to transcend humanity.

But Chrissy's face appeared in my mind. The Party. Everyone I'd fought to save.

I promised to co back. I promised to try.

I grabbed onto reality. Onto humanity. Onto life.

The corruption released with scream that echoed across dinsions.

My eyes opened. El's face above , crying.

"Stayed," she whispered. "You stayed."

"Promised I'd try," I managed. Voice raw, body broken, but alive.

Hopper laughed with relief. "You magnificent stupid son of a bitch. You actually did it."

"We did it. Team effort."

Billy sat up nearby, healed but exhausted. "Never doing that again."

"Agreed."

Ambulances arrived. EMTs sward, treating wounds, stabilizing injuries. But the real damage was invisible—corruption scars, dinsional trauma, the cost of bridging worlds.

I'd survived. We'd all survived.

Season 2 was over.

And sohow, impossibly, Bob Newby was still alive.

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