the lies continue on

Chapter Ten

The balloon seemed to only be growing bigger and bigger. Was this part of the ritual? Mike ordered us to keep chanting, but I could tell he was panicked by the looks of it. The balloon soon became to larger for him to control. We all ran out of the sculpture and to the walls of the cave before the balloon popped and knocked us all to the ground. My ears were ringing just like everyone else's.

"Y/n" A muffled yelled shouted. After blinking my eyes a few times, I realized it was Eddie. He helped me up and we regrouped with the others.

"What the fuck happened?" I asked as I rubbed my temples.

"Did we do it?" Eds asked.

As Bev struggled to fix her flashlight, the moment it flashed on, we got a glimpse of Pennywise. He was larger than every. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. I screamed and fell back into Mike's arms. Pennywise then started to mock us.

"Oh, did it work, Mikey? Did it work?" His laugh filled the room. "Tell them why your silly little ritual didn't work. Tell them it's all just a...What's the word, Eds? Gazebo?"

"Mike, what's he talking about?" Eddie asked.

"Mikey?" Bill asked as well.

Pennywise continued, "Oh, Mikey, you never showed them the fourth side, did you? Didn't want them to know what actually happened to the poor Shokopiwah?"

Then it clicked in all our heads. Everyone who performed the ritual...died.

"Fuck, Mikey. You lied to us, again?" Bill yelled.

Mike tried to reason with us. "No, but they didn't believe! They didn't believe they could kill It! That's why it didn't work back then!"

Richie yelled, "are you fucking kidding me, Mike? Fuck!"

"I needed something, anything, for us to remember. Anything for us to believe!"

    The deadlights then reappeared into the sky of the cave and the clown slowly crept over to us, revealing its new almost spider form. "For 27 years, I dreamt of you. I craved you. Oh, I've missed you! Waiting for this very moment." We all began to back away, but Mike wouldn't move. We called for him, but he wouldn't listen. All he did was mumbled how sorry he was. "Time to float!" Pennywise screamed as he prepared his claw to strike at Mike. Thankfully, Bill knocked him out of harms way just in time. We started running from Pennywise as fast as we could as he swung at us over and over again.

    Just as I had fear, we had all separated when we were looking for safety from the clown. I was running down one of the "halls" of the cave before falling down yet another rabbit hole. As I expect to fall onto another piece of hard ground, I was surprised when fell onto my bed in New York. I didn't have much time to question what was happening as Jack walked in only seconds later.

    "Jesus Christ, there you are. I've been looking all over this fucking city for you." He said as he pulled me off the bed to face him. "Why the fuck weren't you on stage? Do you have any idea the lengths I went to to get you this fucking gig?" I didn't answer him out of fear of saying the wrong thing. It didn't matter though. He grabbed my hair and pulled it back. "I'm talking to you!" He shook his head in anger before throwing me on the bed again. "You know, I am getting sick of this fucking attitude of yours. You said you wanted to be a start, sweetheart. This is the price of it." He began to under his buckle and fear set in. I didn't wanna go through this, not again. I wish I could say this wasn't the real Jack, but that would be a lie. There are days that I give in and play dumb to his stupid game for safety reasons. Other nights I try and fight and it only brings me to scenes like this.

    I snapped myself out of it to realize this was merely one of Pennywise's mind games to scare me, it was also a wakeup call that I couldn't go through with this any longer. "Don't touched me. I kicked him across the face as he tried to crawl towards me and grabbed the nearest picture that resided on the nightstand and bashed it across his face. I hated that picture of us anyways.

    "You bitch!" He shouted as he cupped his now bleeding cheek and prepared himself to chase after me. I grabbed one of the shards of shattered glass and bolted out the door into the living room I tried the front door, but it was locked. I ran to the terrace door and thankfully it was open. I threw open the door and ran outside. I looked over the ledge to get an idea of backup options should things go south. I was 15 stories up with a clear jump into the pool. There was no way in hell I was jumping. There had to be another option. Before I could think of one, a pair of hands wrapped around my neck.

    "I should've known you were just a waist of time, y/n. Now you'll die and no one will ever remember your name." He laughed as he cut of my airway and lifted me higher. My legs flailed around my grip tightened on the piece of glass.

    "I'm done playing your game, Jack" I choked before stabbing the glass into his neck. He dropped me to the ground and held his neck in pain. His eyes lit up with shock that I finally did something to stop him. I was honestly still shocked too. As he began to spit up blood and beg for help by reaching out to me, I slowly backed away. I didn't look where I was backing up to until it was too late. I tripped over the railing and began to fall 15 stories down. Everything became a blur until I hit the water of the pool. I sunk down deep until the pool and refused to open my eyes until I felt some grab me and pull me back to the surface. It was Bill. I was back in the cave. He threw himself and I over the ledge to hold us up.

"What the hell happened to you?" He asked.

"We'll talk later." I explained as we both hopped out and back onto the ground.

    We both noticed that Pennywise had ahold of Mike. Before he could hurt him, Richie idiotically threw a rock at him. "Hey, fuckface! Wanna play truth or dare? Here's a truth. You're a sloppy bitch! Yeah, that's right! Let's dance. Yippee-ki-yay motherfucker..." his words were cut short as he was caught in the deadlights and lifted into the air.

"Richie!" I screamed. Bill held me back so I couldn't help. I tried to fight him.

"Y/n, stop. You're only gonna g-get caught in the deadlights too."

Before I could put up more of a fight, I heard Eddie yell, "Beep-beep, motherfucker!", before throwing a steel rod into the clown's throat. He began to choke and let his hold of Richie go, causing him to fall back to the ground. Pennywise lost his footing and fell onto the sculpture, impaling himself. Eddie and I ran to Richie's side.

"Rich!" He yelled with excitement. "Hey, Rich, wakeup!" I brushed back his hair as his eyes flickered open. "I think I got him, man! I think I killed It! I did! I think I killed It for real!" His celebration was cut short as he was impaled by a sharp claw. I let out a horrific scream.

"Eddie..." Richie was at a loss for words.

"Y/n...Richie..." he cried before being lifted up into the air and thrown into a different section of the cave. We all quickly ran to his aid as the clown continued to struggle on the sculpture. We found him lying on the floor, bleeding out. We were quick to sit him up against a wall. I sat down beside him and looked over his injury. Things weren't looking too good. That was the reality of it. Pennywise continued to cry out to come and play.

Richie took off his jacket and applied it to Eds' wound. "He's hurt. We gotta get him out of here."

"How are we supposed to do that, Richie?" Bev asked.

"I almost killed it" Eddied tried. "The leper. My hands around his throat. And I could feel him choking. I made him small."

I nodded my head in agreement with him so he would stop talking. "Eddie, just breath." I caressed his cheek and he flashed me a smile. "He seemed so weak."

Mike came to realize something from Eddie's mumbling. "The Shokopiwah. All living things must abide by the laws of the shape they inhabit."

Ben they yelled out, "Guys! There's a passageway through here."

"The tunnel!" Bev explained. "Pennywise has to make himself small to get through the entrance of the cavern, right? If we can get back there, we can force him down to size."

I finished her thought by saying, "We make him small. Small enough so we can kill him."

We had one shot at this. It was now or never.