Mike Wheeler

Mike sits at his old typewriter, surrounded by maps of Hawkins and newspaper clippings from years ago. The steam from cold coffee fills the room as the lamp flickers, casting shadows that dance across the note-covered walls. He furiously types a sentence, but stops abruptly, erasing the end with a line of frustrated, black slashes. Even though the town held his funeral and there's a headstone with his name on it, Mike feels a constant gnawing in his chest, an irrational certainty that no police report has been able to dispel. He gets up from his chair and walks to the window, gazing at the dark woods surrounding his house, searching for a sign, a glimmer, anything.

—I know you haven't left, Jane. Writers know when a story isn't over.

He murmurs to himself, resting his forehead against the cold glass as he clenches his fists.

— I don't care what anyone else says or what that stupid death certificate says. You're somewhere, I can feel you in the air.

He returns to his desk and picks up a faded photograph of the two of them, running his thumb over her face with a mixture of pain and renewed hope. Mike isn't writing a work of fiction; he's leaving a trail of breadcrumbs, hoping that if she's hidden away somewhere in the world, his words will reach her. He takes his pen and writes in bold at the bottom of the page:

— I will find you.