Chapter Text
The last thing Phil remembered was fear. So so much fear. That creature had leapt out of the screen and attacked the group of kids. Obviously, he snatched his sister’s hand and started running. What else could he do?
There was nothing quite like the fear and helplessness he felt when he heard Teddy’s screams. He had caught a glance of the shorter boy being swept up before he turned and ran the other direction with Susie. The crunch. That had been the worst part. One second, Phil could hear Teddy’s wild screams, then there was a crunch followed by a brief second of silence before Lilly picked up where he had left off.
Teddy is dead Teddy is dead Teddy is dead, was all Phil could think as he climbed over the folding movie theater seats. His best friend, Theodore Uris, had just been murdered by whatever government science experiment demon baby thing had jumped out of Matty’s arms.
He didn’t have long to think before he was being knocked to the ground himself. He remembered the thing going to bite him… and then nothing. He was sure he was dead as well, but he had hoped that the afterlife would at least reunite him with his best friend. The guy had died only moments prior, it shouldn’t have been that hard to find him right? Instead, Phil seemed to be in an inky abyss, and he was… floating?
He felt almost exactly like he’d felt the night that he had been told that Matty was missing. His mind and body weren’t quite connected. He felt adrift in a scape of grief and fear, Matty was missing and, honestly despite what he constantly told Teddy, he felt guilty. Was it their fault? Would Matty still be alive if they had gone to his stupid birthday party?
His thoughts now took him down a similar path; If they hadn’t forgotten about Matty’s birthday, then Matty would still be alive, if Matty was still alive then Lilly wouldn’t have gotten Teddy and him to help her search, if they hadn’t gone looking for Matty then they wouldn’t have gotten attacked by that thing and Teddy would still be alive.
Phil’s mind looped through this train of thought over and over again, and if he could feel his lungs he’s sure he would’ve been hyperventilating. He’d always believed aliens and government experiments to be real, but he’d never thought about what he would do when actually faced with them. Fight or flight, those were the two things humans were said to choose between when attacked. Clearly, Phil had chosen flight. Had it been the right choice? Could he have even fought? If he fought, would Teddy still be alive? Would he still be alive, or at least, not in whatever purgatory he was currently in?
The void he floated in was dark, but not black, almost what he would see if he closed his eyes. Were his eyes closed? Could he open them if they were? All of these ideas hurt to think about, so he ignored them as best he could.
He’d been floating for what felt like eternity, but also somehow only a few minutes, when he heard a voice call out.
“Bill?” It was a girl yelling, but she sounded faraway. For a second he thought it might have been Lilly, but it didn’t sound like a voice he recognized.
The voice continued, “Mike? Ben?” More names he didn’t know, Derry was a fairly small town so he was sure he knew everyone at school.
“Richie?” While he didn’t know a Richie, he definitely knew a Rich, he’d never talked to him, but he could vividly picture a tiny kid in a band uniform.
The voice had kept calling out seemingly random names when Phil decided to call back. “Hello?” Oh God, his voice sounded terrible.
When he called out, the girl paused her naming and seemed to answer him, “...Hello?”
Phil could feel his body again suddenly, excitement rushing through him. “Hey… hey! Over here!” He waved his arms around, facing the direction the voice had come from. “Follow my voice!”
From the darkness appeared a girl with short red hair and rather boyish clothes. Her skin was pale and she had dark crescents underneath her eyes… she looked like shit.
“Wow… you look like shit,” said Phil before he could stop himself. Curse him and his fast mouth.
The girl let out a startled laugh, “You don’t look so good yourself!” She responded quickly. Phil smiled, at least there was something good in this void.
Phil looked down at himself for the first time in minutes (hours? months?). His clothes still felt damp with sweat, being chased by a mutant demon baby will do that to a person. What the fire-headed girl was probably referring to was the blood that was splattered on him. There was a gash on his right arm from where the creature had attacked him, and blood was sluggishly oozing from it. It looked painful, but he couldn’t feel it, which really should’ve freaked him out more than it did.
The girl’s grin had settled into something of a soft smile. Maybe she was in the same position Phil was. Maybe she also had no clue how she’d gotten here and no clue how to get out. “Seriously, are you okay? That looks like it hurts.”
“Me? Oh- pshh, I’ve had worse,” if you could call scraping my knee at sleepaway camp worse. He brushed off her concern with ease, no need to make a pretty girl worry. “What about you?” he asked suddenly, check on the pretty girl, Phil, “You look pretty wiped out…”
“What? Oh-” she nervously tried to tuck her short hair back, “I’m okay-” she cut herself off, something coming to life in her eyes that Phil hadn’t even noticed was missing, “No, no, I’m not okay actually. That fucking clown got me,” she took a shaky step away from Phil as she spoke, her gaze suddenly guarded and cautious.
She was looking at him almost like he was a threat. Phil cocked his head to the side, “A clown?”
“Yes! That goddamned clown tried to eat me and now I’m here!” she huffed. There was a pause and she eyed him, “did it get you, too?”
Phil took a quick step towards the girl, yes, somebody else with weird shit happening to them in Derry! Maybe she could help! Maybe they could get out of here and he could get back with Lilly, Susie, and Ronnie!
“Yeah! Only i-it wasn’t a clown! It was this weird fucking mutant baby thing an - and it crashed through the movie screen and attacked me and my friends!”
The girl’s eyes flickered with excitement before a look of confusion spread across her face. “What was your name again?” she sounded hesitant to ask.
“Phil, Phil Malkin,” he put on his best showman voice and stuck his hand out for her to shake. The girl took his hand and shook it, her shake was slow, almost like her confusion was seeping into the greeting.
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you around, Phil Malkin,” there was a beat of awkward silence before she continued, “Do you live in Derry?”
Now she was starting to confuse Phil as well, “Duh,” he sounded a lot less confident than he wanted to, “Derry, Maine, birthplace of Paul Bunyan.”
The girl nodded and spoke again. “That’s weird… you’d think in a small town I’d know everyone.”
Phil froze and frowned slightly. He’d never seen this girl in his life either, come to think of it, everything about her seemed a little strange. “Well, what’s your name?”
“Beverly.”