Chapter Text
Dark.
It was so unimaginably, so endlessly dark.
Not the kind of darkness you saw when you closed your eyes at night. Not the soft dark of a childhood bedroom after the lights were switched off, or the comfortable shadows that lived in the corners of a quiet, well lived in house.
This darkness was absolute.
It stretched in every direction, swallowing the world whole. It felt thick somehow, suffocating, as if it had its own gravity to it. As if it pressed against your skin and seeped into your lungs with every breath you tried to take.
The face of nothing.
The face of God.
Silence.
A silence so deep it felt like the universe itself had stopped breathing. There was no drip of water, no rustle of movement, no distant echo of footsteps through the tunnels. Nothing existed here except the dark and the suffocating nothingness that came with it.
For a moment, maybe seconds, maybe hours, you floated inside that silence.
And then, screaming.
The sound ripped through the emptiness like a blade.
Your screaming.
Every cell in your body was on fire.
It wasn't the simple pain of an injury. Not the sharp sting of a cut or the dull throb of a bruise. This was something deeper, something ancient and deliberate. A pain so intensely personal it felt as though it had been crafted specifically for you. Every nerve ending burned, every muscle spasmed and twisted in utter agony.
The pain carved through skin and flesh like a virus, digging deeper and deeper until it felt as though it had reached the core of you, branding itself across the very essence of your soul.
You couldn't breathe. You couldn't think. There was only pain.
And fear.
God, you were so afraid.
The realization came slowly at first, creeping through the haze of agony before settling in your chest like a block of ice; you were going to die here.
Not somewhere heroic. Not somewhere that meant anything.
Here.
In the dark, rotting bowels beneath Derry.
All the effort. All the sacrifices. Every sleepless night spent whispering plans in basements and bedrooms. Every bruised rib, every broken bone, every moment of doubt that you'd forced yourself to push through just to make it this far.
None of it mattered now.
You would die.
And then they would die.
You pictured them in flashes through the haze—faces you knew better than your own reflection. Mud-streaked, terrified, but still standing.
Bill Denbrough. Eddie Kaspbrak. Ben Hanscom. Richie Tozier. Stanley Uris. Beverly Marsh. And Mike Hanlon.
Your friends.
The only people stupid enough to die down here with you.
And nobody would ever find your bodies.
The sewers would eventually swallow you the same way the IT would. Your bones would rot beneath the streets while the town above carried on like nothing had happened, if any bones would even be left. Kids would ride their bikes down sunlit sidewalks, couples would walk their dogs, people would laugh and live their lives while you drifted through the filth beneath them.
Forgotten.
IT had won.
You could feel it.
The sensation was unmistakable.
Something cold and hungry lurched, pressing against the underside of your skin without touching it. It felt like leeches burrowing beneath your ribs, like invisible fingers digging deep into your chest and pulling something out piece by piece.
Your essence.
Your life.
Your soul.
To IT, you were nothing more than a snack. Something small and temporary to satisfy its endless hunger. You couldn't see. You couldn't hear. You couldn't taste.
But you could feel.
Feel every boiling atom in your body as your throat strained to force out a terrified scream. Your mouth opened, lungs straining, but nothing came out. Your scream died inside your chest as your body hung suspended in the air, limp and useless, like a puppet whose strings had been cut.
And then, just as suddenly as it had begun, you fell.
The impact came without warning. One moment you were weightless, suspended in that suffocating bright light, and the next your body slammed hard against cold, wet concrete.
Pain flared through your ribs and spine, but it was distant now. Muted. Like your body had grown too exhausted to keep aching. You lay there, barely able to move. You should have been dead. At the very least you should have been unconscious. But you weren't, not entirely. Some stubborn fragment of awareness still clung to you.
Through the thick fog clouding your mind you could hear voices distant and muffled. Someone was screaming. Something large crashed somewhere nearby, the sound echoing violently through the tunnels as footsteps splashed through shallow water.
Your body ached all over, but the pain had changed. It wasn't sharp anymore. Just a dull, heavy throb that pulsed slowly through your bones. Your eyelids felt impossibly heavy and your mind drifted. The sounds around you faded further and further away until they became nothing more than distant echoes in the dark.
And then, nothing.
Peaceful, blissful nothing.
~
You awoke slowly.
The first thing you noticed was the smell. Sharp antiseptic, mixed with something faintly metallic and stale. The air felt dry, artificial, like it had been trapped inside the same building for years. Then came the sound, a steady beeping and another soft mechanical hum somewhere nearby.
Your eyes fluttered open.
Faded yellow sheets clung to your sweat-slicked skin, twisted around your legs in uncomfortable knots. The fabric felt thin and worn, like it had been washed two too many times. A plastic-like hospital gown hung loosely from your shoulders. The faded pink material stuck unpleasantly to your skin, itchy and damp at the same time. The ceiling above you looked stained and discolored and the walls were a pale, sickly shade of yellow. The paint was chipped near the corners, revealing older layers beneath.
The place didn't look much like a hospital.
It looked more like an abandoned nursing home that someone had decided to keep using anyway.
Machines surrounded your bed, monitors blinking softly in the dim light, wires running from them to your arms and chest. A bag of clear fluid hung from a metal stand beside you, a thin tube disappearing into the back of your hand. The steady beeping from the monitor almost managed to drown out the pounding inside your head.
Your skull throbbed like someone was hammering on the inside of it and your body felt impossibly heavy, like gravity had doubled while you were asleep. Your limbs moved slowly, stiff and uncooperative, as though they hadn't quite realized you were supposed to be awake yet.
You tried to sit up. Your muscles revolted instantly. Pain shot down your spine in burning streaks, forcing a strained gasp from your throat as you collapsed back against the pillow.
The sudden movement stirred someone at the foot of the bed. A figure youninstantly recognized to be your mother jolted awake in the chair she had apparently been sleeping in.
For a second she looked disoriented, blinking rapidly as she tried to make sense of what she was seeing. Then her eyes locked onto yours and she was on her feet in an instant.
"Oh... oh my God."
She rushed to your bedside and gently cupped your face in her hands. Her palms were warm and soft, but even the light pressure sent a dull ache ringing through your skull.
Her eyes searched your face frantically, tears pooling in the corners almost immediately.
"Lord in heaven, sweetheart… you're awake."
Her voice trembled as she leaned down and pressed a soft kiss to your forehead. She let out a long, shaky breath, closing her eyes for a moment before wrapping her arms around you carefully, as though she was afraid you might break if she held you too tightly.
"The boys and Bev brought you in two days ago," she murmured.
Her voice cracked slightly.
"They said you'd crashed your bike..."
She pulled back just enough to look at you again, her eyes shining with exhausted relief.
"We didn't know if you were going to wake up."
Your heart lurched weakly in your chest.
The Losers.
They were alive?
Where were they? How had they managed to escape the sewers? Your mind flooded with questions, each one louder than the last. You opened your mouth to speak and pain exploded through your throat immediately. It felt raw and scraped, like you'd swallowed glass.
You coughed weakly and shut your mouth again. Instead, you lifted a trembling hand toward the plastic cup sitting on the bedside table. Your mother noticed instantly. Without a word, she picked it up and carefully held it to your lips. The water was lukewarm, but it felt like heaven sliding down your throat.
She watched you drink with a strange, fragile expression—like she was afraid this simple moment might disappear if she blinked.
The next few hours blurred together. Doctors came. Nurses followed.
They drifted in and out of the room in a steady rotation, checking monitors and shining small lights into your eyes. They asked questions in calm, practiced voices while scribbling notes onto clipboards.
How do you feel? Do you know where you are? Can you move your fingers?
You answered when you could, your voice hoarse and weak. Most of the time you simply nodded. They adjusted tubes, replaced bandages, and whispered to one another in the corner of the room.
Sometimes they spoke with your mother instead.
Those conversations were quieter.
Your mother would step closer to them, her arms folded tightly across her chest while they spoke in low, careful voices. Every so often her eyes would flick toward you, only when she thought you weren't looking. You didn't catch much of what they said, mostly medical jargon.
Something about dehydration. Something about the IV drip not absorbing into your system as quickly as it should have. They mentioned medications, rest, observation. Words that drifted past your ears without meaning.
The Losers came later that afternoon.
They filed into the room like they were sneaking into somewhere they weren't supposed to be. Mud had long since been washed from their clothes, but something about them still looked… worn. Like the sewers hadn't fully let them go yet.
They greeted you the only way they knew how.
With jokes.
Richie pointed out the bandage across your forehead and said it made you look like you'd lost a fight with a mailbox. Bill commented on how ugly the hospital room was. Beverly laughed about the ridiculous story they'd given the doctors about your bike crash.
You managed a weak smile.
But all of you knew.
Nobody said it out loud.
Nobody mentioned the darkness. Or the thing that lived inside it. It was an unspoken agreement between all of you, a silent understanding that whatever had happened down there was better left buried.
For now. But something inside you stirred when you looked at them.
Like an old wound slowly reopening beneath your skin, a rot that began to spread slowly through you, like a memory you couldn't forget no matter now deeply you shoved it down.
Later the next night, your mother helped you out of the hospital. Your legs trembled as you walked, leaning heavily on her arm as she guided you toward the car. The night air outside was cool and quiet.
Too quiet.
As she helped you into the passenger seat and closed the door gently behind you, a sickening thought crept quietly into the back of your mind.
The kind of thought you couldn't shake once it appeared.
Some small, dark pit inside you whispered to you that this wasn't nearly as over as you thought it was.