Arrival (Pennywise x OC)

Chapter 2

"Honey, it's okay," the paramedic was saying, climbing into the back of the ambulance with the girl. "You're safe now." The girl was silent now, but tears were streaming down her splotchy little face.

"Fire," Ana heard the child sob. "The fire is going to get me!"

"Is there anything I can do to help?" Ana asked, noticing that the girl's parents didn't seem to be anywhere nearby.

"We can't find her family," he replied. "Actually, it would be a big help if you could stay with her, I have so many other patients to attend to. She's stable, no obvious burns or anything. She just needs to be watched."

"I can do that," Ana replied without hesitation, and the first responder left to attend to someone else in another ambulance. The girl was still huddled in the corner, her face still wet with tears as she looked at Ana. "I'm Ana. What's your name?"

"Abigail," she said with a sniff.

"Nice to meet you, Abigail. I'm going to wait with you here until we find your mom and dad." Ana didn't want to force the girl to come and sit by her on the stretcher, so she waited patiently, talking to the child and trying to keep her mind off of what was going on. It was a welcome distraction for Ana as well.

An hour had passed, and Ana had been able to coax the girl into coming to sit with her on the stretcher. They were talking about Abigail's favorite television show, one about unicorns and pixies that Ana had never heard of, when Ana felt Pennywise coming. Being preoccupied with worrying about Ronnie and Heather, and now watching over this little girl, she had completely forgotten that at some point, he would come looking for her. As she waited for a sign that the clown was near, she started to plan her argument in her head as to why she couldn't come home right now. This lost little lamb needed her, and she was going to stay.

Ana was so wrapped up in her own thoughts right then, that it took her a few moments to realize that something was off. She noticed that Abigail was staring out the door of the ambulance and into the night, and she was about to ask her what was wrong when she noticed that everything was now silent. No sirens, no distant shrieking or sobbing, no rumble of the fire that blazed on mercilessly. It was as if someone had a remote that controlled all of the background noise, and they had hit the mute button.

She found herself staring into the dark night, just like the child seated next to her, but unable to see anything. Every instinct told her to get up and shut the doors, but it was almost like she was paralyzed. It wasn't quite fear, as her nerves were always competing with the contentment that always ran through her veins when a certain alien was close. But as her blue eyes remained fixed on the blackness outside the emergency vehicle, she couldn't help but hold her breath in anticipation.

The silence was broken finally by Abigail's screams, and Ana didn't have time to turn to the girl to comfort her; their previous view of the undisturbed twilight was overtaken by the appearance of angry orange and red flames. They seemed to take up the entire entrance to ambulance, leaving little hope for them to escape. As Ana snatched the wailing girl by the arm and pulled her close, her mind registered that the intruding inferno had a human shape to it, albeit an abnormally broad, impossibly tall one. She could make out the blurred outline of a mouth that snarled at them barbarically, and she identified the gleaming golden eyes rimmed with red instantly.

"The fire!" the girl was shrieking, and Ana squeezed her as tightly to her body as she could. She knew they were in an extremely perilous situation. Pennywise was absolutely famished from his decade long sleep, and she had no clue if he had already fed prior to terrorizing poor little Abigail. She knew she was lucky that he was able to restrain from killing and eating her down in the sewers, but she didn't know how long the entity could maintain that self control. But she wasn't about to let him devour this child.