Young and Yearning (IT Imagines and Oneshots).

Reddie; Poison.

"Breaking news," The television reporter recited, staring deep into the camera, "Hundreds of deaths have been reported in the New Jersey area, alone, and no doctor, nor scientist, has an explanation," He breathed in a deep breath, before continuing, "Sources from all over the world claim that similar situations are occuring. More updates at eight."

"Cut!" The director called, as the camera and its dolly drew backwards from the desk, "Nice job, Tozier," He complimented the reporter, nonchalantly, as if he didn't mean it. Richie Tozier, the reporter, nodded curtly in reply, before straightening his papers and returning to the makeup desk. There, an older woman tended to his face.

"How're you doing, Val?" Richie asked, as she covered a makeup sponge in some sort of white, fixing powder. Richie crinkled his nose as she dabbed it onto his face, before blowing some cool air onto it.

"I'm doing okay, Richie," She smiled, "That's enough with the chatter, you're back on in a couple hours and we have got to get the lighting right on that your pretty little face!" Val pinched his cheek gently, causing Richie to scrunch up his nose once again, and causing herself to laugh heartily. Soon after, he returned to his spot on the desk, as people around him assembled his cards and his glass of water. Richie breathed in a deep breath, and continued reading the news.

Richie Tozier was a man in his mid-thirties. For years, he had done boring articles in his home town of Derry, Pennsylvania. He quickly moved onto his new, bigger job, in New Jersey, and did the daily news on Channel Seven. Most of the time, the reports were average. A new record set, a new restaurant opened, no deaths or accidents. Or, that was until the second of June, when a mysterious force began killing off people, one by one. No patterns were involved in the killings, or between the victims, besides the fact that they were near each other when they occurred consecutively. The deaths sprung up where you'd least expect it, and the victims were those you'd least expect.

The first reported was an infant child, barely two months old. His parents were devastated when he died, claiming that they just found him in his crib, peaceful and passed. Two days after, both parents passed, too, the mother and father, found by their neighbour, together in bed. She quickly called the police, who performed autopsies on the body, and found nothing. No trauma, no physical harm, no poisoning, nothing hereditary ran through the victims' veins, either. It was a mystery left unresolved, and admist all of it, were the medical services. Specifically of which, being Eddie Kaspbrak.

Eddie Kaspbrak was in his early thirties, recently a graduate from medical school. He soon moved out of his home town, and away from his overbearing mother, to pursue his dreams of saving the world and helping citizens. Only problem was, Eddie didn't know where to begin. Soon after advertising his availability, Eddie was hired as an intern at his local hospital, and it was only a few weeks in when he had to deal with his first mysterious disease.

The disease, or illness, that had spread to the news reports. Eddie and the lab technitions were searching and experimenting desperately, to find some sort of cure for this illness. Problem was, nobody knew when they were infected. One moment, they were healthy and happy, the next, dead.

The world had come to a halt. Everything was grey, with very little colour breaking through. The sun had turned a musty beige, and the clouds a looming black. Years beforehand, many gasses and oils were released into the oceans and into the air, world leaders claiming that very little would come out of the spillages, and they were purely doing what was in the citizen's best interest.

Money had become a very important thing in the dystopian world, the people would do anything for it. Many were out of control, parents going to the point of selling their children as sex slaves. Drugs were dealt, deals were made, hitmen and women spread across the world, as the economy and the world slowly came to an end. This wasn't the first disease-like thing to spread among the world, according to the overall controlling monarchy. The first, was aging, so they iradicated it. Every century, a booster would be coursed into each citizen's veins, so that they remained living. Not only did this booster continue on life spans for disturbingly longer than should be, but any traces of humanity had been erased from the people.