While you were away

Holding onto you

Afternoon sunlight blanketed the small town of Derry. The suffocating warmth fueled the autumn buzz of students happy to be rid of their scholarly duties of the day. On a nearly empty street that almost completely void of the excitement, Richie and Eddie ran like they had just seen their deaths.

Their footsteps slowed to a walking pace as they saw Richie's house from a distance, glad to be rid of the possible threat of Bowers. Richie's peripheral vision reminded him that Eddie was still shooting him uneasy and concerned glances. The poker face he tried to plaster on was failing and his head ached as he dug in it for something funny or witty to say.

Nothing about anything was making sense to him right now, and it hadn't for a while. Richie started to feel different from his friends. Like maybe he was being left out of something. Or maybe they were the ones being left out. It wasn'ta small, petty thing. They were all still friends of course but they weren'thaving nightmares every night about this stuff. It didn't invade their every thought. He knew by the way that Eddie kept shooting pitiful and wary glances at him, that everyone else was suspecting that something was wrong with him too. He made a silent promise to speak to Bill about it. Bill would know what to do. Without thinking about it, Richie pushed his glasses up his nose and his eye twitched. Suddenly a snorting laugh came from Eddie, who evidently saw it. Some of the tension left the air around them and they continued with a bit more cheer in their steps.

Richie, still breathing a bit too fast from the run, turned his nose up with his finger and oinked several times impersonating a pig.

"Oh shut up," Eddie shot at him, but still laughing "you snort when you laugh too, asshole."

"I can't deny that, but no one does it quite as dramatic and as..." Rich made a dramatic hand gesture as if searching for a good word "...not quite as elegant as you."

Eddie sputtered back before he could even say anything and let out a wholesome throaty laugh. "I don't think there is such thing as an elegant snort."

"You, my dear friend are mistaken." Richie replied while soaring up the stairs and opening the door. With Eddie close behind him, he made a gesture as to say that he was holding open the door for him. Eddie took that with gratitude, just to have a door slammed in his face. Richie cackled maliciously as he made his way to the bathroom, with an exasperated Eddie tailing behind.

He flipped the switch up and lambent light filled the small comfy room, and all of the objects in it. The fragrance of an air freshener that resembled lilacs and rain filled Richie's senses. He tugged off his worn tennis shoes before stepping on the , blue rug that lay neatly in front of the bathroom counter.

Looking up, he was standing across a bloody faced version of himself, and felt that maybe he appeared a little green. Or maybe that was just the lighting, the bulbs needed changed soon. A small huff of anger came from the near hallway while Richie was searching for a red washcloth. He began to giggle.

"You're an asshole." Eddie said as he leaned in the bathroom door.

"Takes one to know one." Richie shrugged and began to clean off his face.

The blood didn't come off so clean. It chipped of and seemed to melt into the water in little brown swirls. Richie gave a silent thanks to Eddie, who had now moved into the kitchen to look for a snack. If Eddie hadn't taught him how to clean off the blood so many times before, he would probably be making a big mess. Cleaning himself off he slowly revealed the face of a boy who had obviously hurt his nose. Crap. With a bit of inspecting he found that there was no bruise yet, but probably would be soon. He hoped for the best that his parents might not notice but knew they probably would.

He came out of the bathroom about ten minutes later, with a freshly cleaned face. The curls in his hair that weren't frizzy were dampened, and stuck to his forehead. His eyes landed on Eddie, who was munching on salt n vinegar Pringles.

"What's the plans for today?" Richie asked.

Eddie set the chips down and spoke between crunches. "Um... I have to be home soon because my aunt is going to be visiting at some point today. I think Stan is grounded. I'm not sure about anyone else though. Mike might be free, it's not like he has any homework."

Richie gave him a steady look. "Eddie, all Homeschool has is homework."

Eddie crunched down on another salty chip and said "You know what I mean."

**********

The vibrant blue sky of the earlier day had started to be replaced by a painting of pink and violet hues. Eddie had long gone back to his house, and Richie Tozier lay sprawled out in his bed. He suspected that it was almost ten p.m. This didn't really trouble him, but the thing keeping him up did.

He couldn't stop thinking about that damned house. Why was it bothering him so much? Maybe I am actually just losing it. After about ten years Richie sat himself up, put on his glasses and checked the time. Only five minutes had passed.

He mumbled something about sleeping being pointless, and swung his feet over the bed. He landed...

on a cold, unfamiliar floor. Richie's surprise launched him up in a rocket of unfamiliarity, and he was falling down again for the second time that day. Except this time he wasn't in school, and he sure as hell wasn't at home. His already hurt nose throbbed, and he started to fear it might be broken like Eddie had expressed with such anxiety earlier. Like that's the biggest problem I have right now though.

The pair of already roughed up glasses started to slide down his face as he lifted it up off the concrete. He pushed them back up and a set of rotting wooden stairs refocused first. Unlike his dark room, the area around him was moderately lit by sun pouring over the trees. Shadows cast over the yard he stood by and reached out to him. He stared at them, and they stared back looking more like horribly disfigured hands than shadows. What the hell?

He knew he should have wanted to leave. He knew he wanted to leave so bad that he could almost feel a rope around his neck, keeping him from breathing correctly. You need to get out of here. He was drawn, and took a small hesitant step towards the house. Flesh is all you've got.

A yellow flowered weed nearby him was cast into his shadow. The vibrant warm color sunk away into a pale, sickening gray. Life drained from its beauty and what was left was the corpse, rotting away and crumbling into dust.

Of course though, Richie didn't see that. He didn't hear the shouts from the back of his mind telling him to go home, or the rational part of his mind wondering how he even got there in the first place. A bug landed on his arm. Then another. And two more.

He didn't care. Swat

He resumed his steps with no hesitation. Other than the thought of the house, Richie was an empty shell. He stepped inside, and the door to Neibolt house slammed behind him by itself.