Conformity Gate

Mike Wheeler thought he had survived the worst of it.
Years after the fall of Vecna and the death of Eleven, Mike is trying to live a normal life-working, sleeping, eating, moving forward. But grief doesn't fade the way it's supposed to. His nights are haunted by dreams of Eleven calling to him from somewhere impossibly far away, and his days are filled with moments where reality feels... wrong.
When Mike reconnects with his old friends, he realizes he isn't alone. They're seeing it too: visions of the Upside Down, flashes of a world that shouldn't exist, and the unmistakable feeling that something is watching from just beneath the surface of their lives.
Then Eleven appears.
She tells Mike the truth-she isn't dead, the world around them is an illusion, and the only way to escape is to wake up.
When Mike does, he finds himself in a ruined world where the war was never truly won. Vecna survived by invading their minds, convincing them they had succeeded, and staging Eleven's death to keep them compliant. Now the boundaries between worlds have collapsed, the Mind Flayer feeds on human energy, and the truth may be more dangerous than the lie.
To survive, Mike will have to face the reality he's been hiding from-and decide whether waking up is worth what waits on the other side.