Drown Hearts

Chapter 1

All you felt was fear. When the unknown number appeared on your phone screen reading "Maine", your heart dropped. You didn't know why. It was like an itch in the deepest part of your memory suddenly needed to be scratched. "Hello?, who's calling?" You ask, your voice shaking a bit. "Y/n, it's me, Mike. I'm calling from Derry. Somethings happening and you need to come back."

Derry. You almost dropped your phone when you heard that name. "Y/n, please, it's important, I called the others, we meet the day after tomorrow."

You hung up your phone and just stood there. It took you a few minutes to recollect yourself, but eventually you moved from your frozen position and began to pack. Whatever was going on was important. You had to go, no matter the negative emotions you associated with that town. In the morning you would be on the next plane to Maine.

~~~

When you walked into the restaurant, everything came flooding back. The losers club was finally reunited, besides the now missing Stanley. As you walked towards the group, memories of the group hanging out during the hot summers and riding your bikes through the small town came back. It felt good. But there was still an uneasy feeling in the air as to why all of you had to come back.

The host directed you towards the table, for which you already knew was yours and you were greeted by you long childhood friends. Beverly was the first to hug you. Being the only two girls in the group, you always had a special bond growing up. "God y/n you look great! It's so good to see you!" She says with a huge smile. You laugh and hug her back. You had missed your friends so much. You go around giving each boy, who were now men hugs.

You finally made it to Ben he stopped for just a second before you hugged him. "Wow, y/n, you look great..." he says with a smile. God he looked so different. He certainly wasn't the boy you remembered. You finally hugged him and turned to the group, now that everyone was here, except Stanley of course who hadn't arrived yet, you all decided to take you seats and order dinner. Ben pulled out your chair for you and you sat between him and Mike.

You talked and laughed for hours. You drank and joked and everything just felt right. You reminisced over the past and listened to Richie's jokes, those of which were mostly directed towards Eddie.

"So Richie, everyone else has said if their married or not, what about you?" Asks Eddie jokingly. With a huge grin on his face, Richie turns to Eddie to answer him. "I married your mom dumbass." he says with a huge grin. "And ya know, we're very happy together" at that comment, everyone bursts out laughing. All except Eddie though.

"Okay, okay, enough about me, are we not gonna talk about the elephant not in the room?" Richie jokes while looking directly at Ben.

Ben laughs lightly as everyone sits at the table awkwardly. "Uh, ya, I lost a bit of weight after high school. I guess at some point I just decided to start working out." He says with a shrug. You turn to him in your chair and lightly smile. "You look great Ben, don't worry about what other people say." You tell him. With that, the atmosphere around the table grew a bit awkward. Thankfully the host came around the corner with a bowl of fortune cookies, signally that the meet up was winding down for the night.

The losers each grabbed a cookie and continued to talk a bit, but this conversation wasn't like the other ones. The real elephant in the room, the reason why you were all in Derry still had to be brought to the surface. "So why can't we remember everything?" Bill asks, concern evident on his stern face. "There's this effect that Derry has on people. Once you all left, you just started forgetting. And now that your back, your probably gonna start to remember it all soon." The table looks around at each other. "I never left so I never forgot. It's hard to explain. All I know is that IT is back and we need to kill it." Mike says.