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The ride into the Upside Down is silent.
Everyone is so focused, trying to mentally prepare for what comes next. This is do or die. The final fight.
Anxiety washes over everyone.
What if they lose?
What about Holly and the other kids?
What about their families?
What about everyone else?
They won't be able to stop Vecna if El, Kali, Ethan, Jae, and Hallow are gone. They're their greatest weapons, and without them, they're weak. They've said it themselves. Vecna seeks to destroy them because without them, he can't be stopped.
They're paralyzed by the fear of seeing their loved ones get mauled by Demos. Even each other on the battlefield. They don't know what they're about to walk into. What will Vecna have that they don't? Obviously, the Demogorgons, Demodogs, Demobats, but what else? He has to have something else up his sleeve... er, his tree-looking arms.
Hopper, Enzo, Murray, and Nicole had taken another truck filled with water to the lab. With them rode El, Kali, and Jaeden. Hallow decided she'd be on the front lines with Ethan while Jaeden would help Kali and El from afar in the void-mind. In the trailer truck, Steve drove. Robin sat beside him in the front, fidgeting with Eddie's old spear. Joyce, Nancy, and Jonathan sit behind them, along the door side of the trailer. On their right, Jonathan's side, sits Will, Ethan, Dustin, and Lucas. On the left, Nancy's side, sits Mike and Hallow. Plenty of room is left aside for the kids once they're rescued and Vecna is defeated.
Max and Vickie weren't allowed to go for obvious reasons. Max is wheelchair bound, heavily disabled after being broken into a pretzel and being in a coma for a year and a half. Vickie just got wrapped into this. Robin wasn't allowing her to go under any circumstances. Plus, someone had to take care of Max while she led the powered trio through Vecna's mind.
Ethan seems scared. Paranoid. Anxious. His leg bounces erratically. He's locked in on his shoes, just thinking, completely zoned out. His vision doubles, blurring as the truck lightly bounces over potholes and bumps in the road.
He didn't want to say goodbye to anyone. Not as a just in case. He didn't have time to write letters like Max did. He didn't want to think about what could happen, but he knew there was still a chance it would happen. He didn't say goodbye to his mom, or Enzo, or Jaeden, or El, or Kali. If worst came to worst, he'd potentially have a moment to try and say goodbye to Hallow, and Will, and Robin, and Dustin, and Lucas, and Mike. He'd try to tell Joyce to tell Nicole that he loved her, to thank her, and to tell Enzo he was the father figure he'd always wanted that he never had. All he did was try to support and listen.
Will rests a hand over Ethan's bouncing leg. Ethan quickly looks up at him, confused. His sight returns as normal, pupils dilated.
