the untold 'dirty little secret.'

ch 5; doors and horrors.

"But.. why..?" Mike spoke up, and the others turned to him. "Why is he still after you? And.. just you."

Richie stared at the boy, then fell into a deep stare at the wall behind him, zoning out into his thoughts. 'It must be about the secret. My actual fear. How did It find out..?'

"Has anyone else been ss-seeing anything?" Bill asked the group, who shook their heads and scanned everyone else's expressions. "Hm."

"But.. we all said what we were afraid of? Right?" Beverly hinted at, and they all slowly nodded. "Richie.. you said clowns?"

Richie nodded. "Yeah. That's what I'm afraid of."

"Is it y-your greatest fear, though?" Bill asked, and everything fell silent.

Richie sat there for a moment. It wasn't. And he knew that. But, he didn't want to say what was. He was afraid of what they'd think.

"Well that's a no," Eddie said after the long pause. "Soo, what is?"

"Literally clowns," Richie replied stubbornly.

"You just went silent for like- two minutes," Beverly argued, causing Eddie to nod in agreement.

"Yeah, I was thinking. I was trying to think of something that I feared more, but I couldn't."

Suddenly, there was loud ringing in Richie's ear. He squinted at it and started plugging his right ear, looking at the losers to see if they were affected by it too. Instead, they stared with blank faces at him.

His eyebrows furrowed and he tried to speak, but nothing came out. This frightened him. The loser's faces all turned up to terrifying smiles, which eventually grew into Pennywise's infamous facial expression.

Richie's eyes widened and his face fell flat. He was beyond scared, realizing that these people could've just been Pennywise the whole time. He sucked in a breath, and that was until he heard music.

Carnival music.

His eyes trailed to behind the group of the non-losers, and their heads all turned to face the direction of where the music sounded. Richie tried to scream. Tried to move. But he couldn't. It was like some sort of paralysis.

"Richie," a voice came, sounding awfully scratchy and off-tune. He breathed out a whimper and sweat dripped down his forehead. "Why don't you just tell them? Your dirty, dirty secret."

He tried to shut his eyes. Tried to make It go away. The only thing that happened was the noise increasing. Screams, laughter, evil laughter, in fact. A loud, high-pitched ringing growing louder and louder. But there were more voices. Faint ones.

These voices sounded distressed. Scared. That's when Richie heard his name. He chose to keep his eyes closed, trying to focus on the faint screams that called 'Richie!'

"Richie!" the scream boomed, this time much louder. Richie's eyes shot open, and he began to breath heavy. He looked around to see the loser's frantic expressions.

They all paused and stared at the terrified boy, and Beverly put her hands on his shoulders. He flinched, trying to pull away until he noticed it was only her. He took a deep breath and held one of her arms so that whatever the fuck just happened wouldn't again.

"What just happened?!" Eddie finally blurted out, making Richie look at him with terrified eyes. He squeezed them shut and hugged Beverly as tight as he could. He felt safe with her.

"Please, please please don't turn into clowns," he begged, and the losers exchanged looks.

Bill and Mike exchanged knowing looks, and nodded at each other. Everyone's eyes soon fixed on Bill as he scooted closer to Beverly and Richie. He placed a gentle hand on the boy's shoulder.