Autophobia II ♡ r.t

Chapter Eight

Caroline made her way up the old rickety ladder of the clubhouse, all of them on their way now to find these 'tokens' mike had told them about. 

Richie reached his hand out towards her as she neared the top. She didn't particular need the help, she was fully aware of the fact that she could pull herself up and out of the hole, but she grabbed it anyway. Almost out of instinct.

He pulled her up with a soft grunt, pulling her in just a little too close to him, both of them simply staring at each other for a moment as if they were doe-eyed teenagers again, but almost jumped apart when Eddie spoke up.

"So, Mike. Where do we find our tokens?" Eddie asked, still holding one of stans shower caps, which each of the losers had held onto.

"I gotta be honest man, with all due respect; this is fucking stupid!" Richie exclaimed.

"Rich.." Caroline spoke softly, reaching up to place a comforting hand on his shoulder.

"No he's right!" Riley spoke up suddenly, coming to stand next to the two with folded arms "we already remember everything! Saving Bev. Defeating it. We're caught up"

"Not everything" Mike stated "we fought. But what happened after that? Before the house on neibolt? Think!"

The losers fell silent at that, all of them wracking their brains for any part of that summer they had spent alone.

Sure Caroline could remember other summers where she spent time alone. But that year seemed to be a black spot in her mind, missing bits and pieces from the timeline here and there.

"We can't remember, can we?" Caroline asked unsurely, hoping against hope that she wasn't the only one.

"There's more to our story. What happened that summer" Mike explained to them "and those blank spaces, like pages torn out of a book. That's what we need to find! We need to split up, you each need to find your artefact; alone. That's important"

Caroline tensed slightly at the word 'alone'. She had just gotten her friends back, she wasn't ready to leave them just yet to run off after some killer clown. No siree.

"And when you do? Meet me at the library tonight."

"I gotta say like, statistically speaking with survival scenarios, we're gonna be much better as a group" Eddie complained.

"Yeah splitting up would be dumb man. We gotta go together" Richie retaliated "we were together that summer, right?!"

"No" Bill stated plainly "not that wh-wh-whole summer."

It all seemed to come back to her at that very moment, as if bills words had unlocked a safe in her mind from which the contents were now spilling.

She remembered Bill. She remembered him pushing her, punching Richie. She remembered being yelled at, she remembers a lot of that.

They were apart. There was two whole weeks where every loser actively avoided each other, and as she looked around, Caroline was quite convinced her friends had just had the same experience.

                  .・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.

The losers had went their separates ways for the most part, although those who were headed in the same directions naturally grouped together.

So Riley, Eddie, Richie and Carrie were all coming to exit the barrens on one side, the latter three heading for the town while Riley had said something about a tree.

"So...where do you guys think you have to go?" Caroline piped up, trying to break the nervous tension in the group.

"Wish I fucking knew" Richie muttered, causing the group to laugh gently "what about you?"