𝐈𝐓 𝐑𝐄𝐓𝐔𝐑𝐍𝐒

𝐏𝐫𝐨𝐥𝐨𝐠𝐮𝐞

(WARNING: Brief mentions of graphic self-harm)

The summer of 1989 should have been unforgettable.

The voices of your friends echoed in the damp sewage tunnel. They were laughing about something but you couldn't focus on Richie's immature jokes or Eddie's growing health concerns when you were up to your ankles in greywater. Despite the cool, dark atmosphere, your hand was warm and snug in its place intertwined with Bill's. He and you were almost inseparable. Especially since the beginning of the summer when you battled your first encounter with It side by side. Your flashlights danced across the shallow arched ceiling of the channel. Every so often a mysterious liquid would drip onto your head but you were none the wiser. You were happy and adventurous and for a brief moment all was well in the world.

The more you focused on the rhythmic dripping onto your exposed shoulders, the easier you could drown out their voices. With every drop, the boisterous laughter became quieter by comparison. Softer and softer until if it weren't for Bill's hand squeezing your own, you would have assumed you were completely alone in the cold dark crawlspace.

It was then that you realized that it wasn't just your imagination. Everyone had stopped walking and talking altogether, their flashlights pointed at the impenetrable surface of the murky water. The level had risen up to your knees so quickly that you hadn't even noticed until just then. A low humming filled the empty space between you and the rest of the Losers and suddenly you missed the laughter.

"Guys?" You croaked, dropping Bill's hand to fiddle with your own flashlight that had flickered off out of nowhere. The humming, like the greywater, was rising steadily into a low chant. Words with no sensible meanings that still shook you to your core.

No matter how hard you smacked your flashlight, the only light that filtered through the cracked glass was dim and just about nonexistent. Deciding that it was enough, you held it like a weapon in front of you. "What the fuck?" A gasp fell from your lips as you struggled to make out the horror you were currently facing.

Your friends had morphed into creatures of rotten flesh and exposed skeletal innards. Richie, who stood at the front of the pack, had sickly green skin that drooped from his eye sockets and nostrils. The skin of his cheek was ripped away, exposing swarms of maggots crawling around the interior of his mouth.

Terror had taken shape on all of your friends. Black tar dripped from every orifice of Eddie's face, Stan's eyes were cold and distant, blood flowed from long vertical slashes in his forearms. "No," you whimpered. You tried to back away from the scene but the greywater had turned into liquid cement holding you in place. Taking a labored breath, you held the flashlight tightly in both hands as you directed it's beam to the boy closest to you. "Bill?"

His face was hollow and sunken like a Halloween pumpkin on a warm November afternoon. His hair was wet with what looked like blood but smelled like something flammable. A sickening grin split open his chapped lips and sent a new shockwave of fear down your spine. You offered no resistance as he pried open your clenched palm and forced something surprisingly dry into your grip.

"Come home, (Y/N)," He gargled, expression frozen in a permanent smirk. The rest of the Losers followed in the chant. "Come home, come home, come home-"

Cautiously, you held the foreign object up to the light to try and decipher what exactly it was. It had a papery texture but held a distinct mass. As soon as you caught a flash of the bright pink coloring in the dim yellow light you knew exactly what you were holding and your breath hitched. It was The Riley Express. Deep red blood stained the pastel pigment of its neck just like you remembered. The washable marker had smudged the label but there was no mistaking your discovery.

A frightened screech left your throat as your flashlight finally gave out and enveloped you in complete darkness. Giggles erupted amongst the circle of zombies and you wanted nothing more than to make them shut up.

A whisper sounded as clear as day in your left ear. You could feel Bill's hot breath fanning your cheek and it took everything you had not to flinch away from the funnel of moist air. "Come home, (Y/N). We miss you."

__

All at once you jolted from your trance and caught your bated breath in your throat. It took a few moments of deep breathing to remind yourself that you weren't in the sewers. You weren't drowning in greywater and you certainly weren't surrounded by the grinning carcasses of your old friends. It had been nearly thirty years since you last lived in Derry, Maine. Thirty years since you had come face to face with a real threat to your life.

You sighed and leaned back on your heels. You were in your art studio, not your bedroom as you first thought. The yellow lamplight was dim but you could make out the boxy outline of a large canvas on the floor in front of you. You had been sleep painting again, obviously.

The habit grew from an unconscious desire to visualize your dreams. Some you wanted to remember, others you couldn't afford to forget. Only recently had you begun unintentionally bringing your nightmares to life as well. Since you did it in your sleep there was nothing you could do to stop it besides locking your bedroom door at night but not even that brings a complete end to it.

After rubbing the sleep from your eyes and allowing yourself to yawn, you stood up from your seat on the cold concrete floor and walked toward the light switch on the far wall. "Alright," you mumbled, feet shuffling in your half-asleep state. "Let's see what freaky thing I cooked up this time."

The canvas was a mess of muted greys and bright reds. You stepped closer, squinting your eyes as you crouched down to get a better look. It was what looked like a bridge from the view of the river that flowed underneath it. Red and blue lights flickered from the police cars parked overhead. Floodlights were pointed at one of the wide support beams that held up the bridge. Long, thin letters spelled out a message across the beam. You leaned in as far as you could without falling on top of the canvas. Without a doubt, in suspiciously red ink, were the words that you could hear as clear as day in your own head, 'come home'. You blinked and fell backward, shuffling away from the cursed painting. "Oh my god."

The summer of 1989 should have been unforgettable.

So why couldn't you remember the horrors of your youth?

(A/N: So this is two years late. Something clicked and I suddenly had a whole plot figured out and idk. I hope this one gets just as many reads as it's predecessor. Otherwise, there isn't really a point. It's a sequel after all. I just realized that this is the first time one of my stand alone fics has had a demand for a sequel. Wow. Anyway, I did edit this one but if any mistakes missed my eye please let me know so I can fix it up for ya. Later!)