‘Stranger Things: The First Shadow’ confirms who Henry killed and what was in the briefcase
If you were confused about that disturbing cave flashback in Stranger Things 5, volume two, trust us, you are not alone. The moment young Henry Creel walks into that blood-soaked tunnel, wearing his little scout uniform and pretending to be innocent? Chills, literal chills. And just when you think the scene will end in some vague metaphorical memory haze… we get a full-on murder.
What makes the whole thing even more unsettling is how scared young Henry looks before going in. Forget the whole creepy confidence his young version showed in the flashback scenes. He is spotted shaking this time, so naturally, Max and Holly use it as their one safe zone in his mindscape… until they figure out what actually went down in there.
At first, it is all fragments. Starting with blood, a man is screaming. There is THE briefcase. And then there is Henry, crushing a man’s skull like a pro. It all feels nightmarish, yes, and the show doesn’t tell you much more. No name, no explanation, no why.
But now we know. Because The First Shadow, aka the Stranger Things stage prequel, just dropped some major backstory. And yeah, it changes everything.
So… who was that guy, and what was inside that case?
Turns out, Henry didn’t just stumble into a regular scary cave. The man he kills in Stranger Things season five, episode six? He was a Russian scientist. A spy, actually. And that creepy flashback isn’t just a memory; it’s Henry’s origin story. According to The First Shadow, Henry went missing for 12 hours when he was eight, right near a military base in Nevada. No one knew what had happened. He came back injured, with no memory of where he had been.
But here is what really happened: that spy had stolen some top-secret tech and was hiding in the cave. He thought the military had sent Henry to trick him, so he shot him in the hand. Henry, cornered and bleeding, snapped. He did not have powers back then. He just panicked. And that is when he picked up the rock.
The show leaves the briefcase as a mystery, but the stage play clears that up, too. Inside? Military-grade tech connected to Dimension X. Not just some files or weapons, but actual technology that transported Henry into Dimension X for twelve hours. That is where he encountered the Mind Flayer for the first time. The same swirling entity we first saw in season two that infected Will’s mind and body does the same to Henry’s, changing him from a strange kid into the monster we now call Vecna.
That is the moment everything broke.
It is also why he is so scared of that cave. It is where he lost control. It is where he stopped being a boy and became something else. Not because he killed someone (although that’s huge), but because that is where the door first cracked open. The Mind Flayer didn’t find him later. It found him THERE.
And maybe now that we know who the man was and what was in the case, it makes the scene feel even darker. It wasn’t just trauma: it was the “beginning of the end”.