- Chapter Eight - "Everybody is acting like I'm crazy, but I'm not crazy."
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"AMANDA."
"Daddy?" Amanda Bowers mumbled lightly, her voice hoarse and quiet, her face bloody and bruised. From behind her eyelids, the light of the kitchen burned her brain - it felt like she had a million red hot pokers being stabbed into her head at the same time. Her eyes weren't even open yet, and she could still feel the burning of her retinas that would happen when she attempted to look out to her surroundings.
Wherever she was, she couldn't even remember. What she had been doing beforehand, what had happened during, if she had done anything afterwards. The aching in her muscles, limbs and brain all hurt just the same and she couldn't even bring herself to recollect the fear of what she saw or what she felt. Damaged and bruised, Amanda felt her face screw up in pain again, somewhere in the haze she sought out her fathers face.
"Daddy." This time she was crying as the word escaped her lips, hoping that the hand her senses picked up on her shoulder didn't belong to her father who would probably beat her more the longer she sat slumped against whatever it was.
"I'm not your dad." The voice said, familiar but unfamiliar at the same time. Not as haunting as Henry's, not as recognisable as Bill's or Richie's. Amanda knew she was at her house, she remembered that - she remembered walking into her bedroom and picking up a book. She read. "It-It's Victor."
"Victor?" Amanda managed to flutter her eyes open, feeling like she needed forceps to drag them apart. But in front of her, within her kitchen at home which she quickly realised meant she was slumped against the counter, was Victor Criss, Henry's blonde friend. "Victor."
"Hey." The boy said hesitantly. Although it was blurry, Amanda saw his small awkward smile and concerned eyes as he surveyed her - she didn't even want to think of what she looked like. "Are you okay? What happened?"
"Is Henry here?" She felt the fear swell up within her, using her hands to push herself up a little but she was so, so weak. As soon as her hand pressed against the ground, she slumped again and cried a little. "Henry's here."
"No, no, he's not home." Victor rubbed her shoulder a little, in any other circumstance Amanda would've recoiled in disgust but she was currently not in control of her faculties as her eyes swept around her house in confusion. "I saw a flyer that said Patrick had gone missing, I came here to see if he was just hiding or something. Then I found you. I think you fell."
"There was a shark." Amanda cried, her vision clearing a little but then blurring again with hot tears as she looked to the blonde boy. Victor furrowed his eyebrows but kept his hand on Amanda's shoulders. "And the house filled with water, and-and it hit me back but I swam through the house and I tried to break through the window. But it wouldn't break and then I saw it, it was behind me. Jaws. Then it tried to eat me, and then- then my dad- he. Then the clown, I-"
