Strange as IT Seems

Chapter 28: Message Received

Richie is gasping frantically like he's being pulled underwater and can't get any air. His heart is going 1000 beats per minute and his mind is a jumble of confusion and fear. He's also shaking to the point where he has to take off his glasses to avoid having them fall off his face with erratic movements. He curls up into the fetal position to try and do something to calm down.

The moment plays over and over in his head... that creature... that thing... It had no face, just flaps of flesh that opened like a flower, but then it spoke. It said something in the voice Pennywise... the f***ing clown. How was it possible? They'd killed it last summer and there was no way in hell it could be back... or could it? It was impossible! It had to be, they'd watched the thing shatter and crumble like stone... So how did the monster know about the "beep beep Richie?" It didn't make sense and his mind will not go to that place again.

If... it was even real. Everything that happened, maybe it was just a hallucination. The flickering lights, cliché as they were, could have made him see something that wasn't there. Maybe he was so nervous and scared that he imagined it. Or there was a toxic gas leak that caused him to create this figment of his imagination. He shouldn't have gone to that laboratory and he'd never go there again.

As his brain begins to rationalize it, the shaking stops and he's breathing a bit better. He slowly uncurls from the fetal position and lays back in the sun, soaking up the heat and bringing himself back to reality.

"You okay?"

Richie sits up and wipes sweat from his face, squinting at who was talking to him. He puts his glasses back on to see his duplicate, Mike Wheeler, staring at him from his bike.

The Wheeler kid was riding through town after leaving the Byer's home and he had to stop at the grocery store before heading back to his place.

He was cutting behind the gas station when he saw the crashed bike and the kid laying on the ground, looking like he was either panicking or having a seizure or was high on something.

"I'm fine," Richie manages to say. Unfortunately, his voice was cracking a little bit betraying what was said.

"Because you look like you were having a seizure or something," he says.

"I said I'm fine," the kid from Derry insists, getting up from the ground and heading towards his bike.

"Okay then, I just thought you might have passed out."

"Well thank you for your concern, less handsome twin," he smirks.

Mike glares at the kid and rolls his eyes.

"This again?"

"You have to admit, I am better looking,"

"Dream on four-eyes," Mike snorts in amusement.

"I'm clearly taller than you." Even when standing next to one another, they were the exact same size.

"And my dick is bigger."

"Why is that so important to you?"

"It shows who's tougher," Richie says, climbing onto his bike and going towards the Hawkins kid.

"No, it doesn't and we're sure as hell not going to compare," Mike snaps. "But also, who has the girlfriend?"

"That's unfair!" Richie fires back. "You were just lucky."

"No, I wasn't, I have a girlfriend because I am a person who actually cares about other people's feelings and I don't go shooting off my mouth at every opportunity."

"That's a very small percentage of what it takes to get a girlfriend," the bespectacled Derry kid continues.

"It's really not. I'll admit that El and I have our differences, but we care and trust each other. A big reason why I have a girlfriend."