Finn Wolfhard⁵

05:10 am, someone else's apartment.

The old smartphone's screen lit up once again in the darkness, momentarily bathing the room in a dim neon glow. The display read "8 missed calls." The device vibrated silently on the very edge of the battered kitchen table, threatening to topple onto the dirty floor.

You groaned softly and buried your face deeper in the crumpled jacket that served as your makeshift pillow. Going to bed at 4:30 AM after a night out to catch forty minutes of sleep in someone else's kitchen was a dead giveaway from the start.

My legs, propped up on the hard chair, were numb, the short sofa was mercilessly pressing on my sides, and my clothes were completely saturated with the persistent, suffocating smell of cheap cigarettes and other people's homes.

And at that very moment of peace, when sleep had finally overcome the heavy head, the communications operator again missed someone else's signal.

Finn called.

A man whose curly-haired face would have been perfect for illustrating the "Walking Asshole" entry in any search engine. He had a resolutely inability to understand the word "no," ignored time zones, and seemed to genuinely believe that dialing a number nine times in a row would definitely get him an answer.

The vibration stopped. A second's pause—and then the screen flickered again. A short, gunshot-like text message arrived:

"I have some business, call me back."

You cracked open one eye, glanced at your cell phone screen, and rolled over with a soft curse. You weren't going to call Wolfhard back, even if everyone in the world chipped in and paid for your unlimited data plan for the rest of time. Let him think the subscriber was out of range. At this predawn hour, the rest of the world was officially deaf, mute, and inaccessible to Finn.

Suddenly, a suspicious rustling sound was heard in the hallway of the stranger's apartment, followed by a quiet knock on the first-floor window. It seemed Wolfhard had decided to go beyond ringing the doorbell.