Ana had no idea what time it was as she walked down the sidewalk, only that it was night. The darkness was peppered with the flashing lights of emergency vehicles rushing to their destination, and she quickly realized that the fire was somewhere downtown. It was an area of Derry she had visited only a handful of times previously, but being that the quaint town only really held one business area, she was able to navigate her way there without issue.
The closer she got to the source of the commotion, the more worried onlookers she saw on the sidewalks and in the streets. By the way people were rushing around, she knew that the catastrophe was still taking place. Citizens of Derry were crying, holding each other, screaming. Ana's heart dropped as she neared the source of their anguish; the elementary school was completely consumed in flames.
She approached a young couple that was standing and watching silently, not wanting to disturb any of the bystanders that were so distraught that they were wailing nonsensically and therefore probably knew someone who had been inside. "What's going on?" she asked quietly as she came to stand next to them.
The woman didn't turn to look at her as she replied, her gaze fixed upon the fire. "The spring concert was tonight. Something exploded in the auditorium."
Ana's hand covered her mouth in shock. "Oh my god..." She didn't know what she could possibly respond with, and abandoned any half hearted attempt at trying to make light of the dire situation.
"We just know that they got some people out. But a lot of others are missing," the woman continued, her tone void of any emotion whatsoever. Her companion was staring at a middle-aged man that had fallen to his knees and was screaming, the people surrounding him doing what they could to offer comfort. Ana took temporary solace in assuming that Heather and Ronnie were now grown and had no reason to be in that building. But then she realized that if 27 years had passed, there was a possibility that could already have school-age children of their own. She had no reason to think that they had gotten out of Derry once they reached adulthood, as most of the town's citizens stayed for the remainder of their lives. Panic started to set in.
She left the couple without saying a word, heading towards the school, her focus now on trying to make sure her 'family' was safe. But the scene was chaotic, and the police and firemen had much more urgent issues to deal with than the people clamoring to make identifications of the bodies that were still being pulled from the building. Ana joined the group that was crowding the emergency vehicles, trying to see the faces of the rescued children that were being loaded up into the ambulances.
Then she caught sight of the sign that was at the edge of the school's parking lot, the one that announced the children's concert that had promised laughter, singing and unending cuteness rather than the tragedy that had taken its place. It read, 'Elementary Spring Concert 2026, 7pm.' She and Pennywise hadn't been sleeping for twenty-seven years as she had been anticipating. It had only been ten.
Her mind started to race again, trying to grasp that her fake niece and nephew weren't adults yet; relief began to wash over her knowing that they were teenagers, making it more unlikely that they had been in school tonight. Knowing that standing there in the mass confusion was helping no one, she decided to head to the house that she hoped still belonged to Cassandra and Derek. Maybe she would catch a glimpse of the family of four, and then she could sleep knowing at least they were alive.
She was walking away, nearing the end of the line of ambulances that were taking up most of the parking lot, when she heard a child screaming. It was coming from the rig parked at the very edge, and as she rushed towards the sound, she saw a paramedic running towards it as well. Ana reached the back of the ambulance, finding a girl no more than five or six years old, trying to hide herself in the corner of the vehicle.
"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.
"No!" She yelled at the flamed body that was starting to climb into the back of the ambulance, her voice competing with the sounds of its covetous bellows. It started to stretch out a burning limb towards them, clawed digits starting to take shape as it grew closer. Ana grabbed a fire extinguisher off its hook, the first solid thing she could see near her, and smashed it right into its growling face. It screeched in pain, the arm snapping back to its side. and for the first time, Ana had real hope that somehow she could save the little girl.
The gold eyes stared at her for a few seconds, and she pleaded with Pennywise in her head. Please, no. Not this one. You can't. Finally, he let out a grunt of frustration, turning to leave, still maintaining the flaming demonic form as he walked. Abigail was a crying, nonsensical mess, but Ana still started to clamor towards the exit to follow him. She intended to stop him from eating any of the other kids that were there tonight, but just as her feet hit the ground, she collided with a warm body.
"Abigail!" she heard the man she had nearly knocked over cry, and the little girl shot into his arms. There was a woman standing right behind him, and she nearly shoved Ana out of the way to get to her child. Ana thought nothing of it, and frantically searched for the glowing form in the night so she knew which way to go. But there was no sign of him.
She didn't bother to try saying goodbye to the reunited family, knowing that she was the furthest thing from any of their minds. She couldn't will herself to go back to the burning school, deciding that whatever happened to those ill-fated people inside was out of her hands. She started to head to her family's house again since Pennywise was obviously preoccupied, the streets still littered with gawkers that didn't pay any attention to her. But suddenly she felt uneasy, like she was being watched, and she started to instinctively look around for the source of her discomfort.
There were groups of people all over, none of them looking in her direction. Most of them were talking among themselves or staring at the school. She was about to turn to continue on her way when she locked eyes with a young woman across the street, and she knew her paranoia of being watched was warranted then. The woman was facing Ana, her back to the school and all of the others around her, her eyes unblinking. She had unnaturally platinum blonde hair that fell past her shoulders, and her current outfit consisted of a black corset, a black leather skirt and fishnet stockings.
Ana raised her eyebrows at her, the ensemble sticking out like a sore thumb in this small town. She was about to call out to the woman, possibly to tell her to kindly fuck off, when her dark red lips broke into a large grin.
"Okay then," Ana mumbled to herself, not at all in the mood to start conversing with a potentially crazy stranger, and kept walking. For a while, the feeling of being watched was still there, but the further she got, the more assured she was that she wasn't being followed by the blonde goth.
By the time she reached her destination, the odd smiling woman was pushed out of her mind. She stood on the street for a while, the house appearing to be dark and quiet. She still didn't really know what time it was, and for all she knew, the family was sound asleep in their beds. Then, a light turned on in one of the bedrooms as the house phone started to ring. She heard the muffled voice of her 'sister' answer, and then a raised voice as she reacted to some sort of bad news. Ana moved closer to the house, needing to know what was going on, if the kids were safe. She heard Derek's voice join his wife's, but not clearly enough to know what they were talking about.
Then more lights turning on. Her heart soared as she saw Cassandra and Derek enter the kitchen, followed by a red-haired teenager. They sat at the kitchen table, and then another teen appeared, a girl with long brown hair. The mood appeared to be somber as the parents delivered whatever bad news they had gotten on the phone, and Heather clapped a hand over her mouth in shock. Ana assumed that they were being told about the school, and she knew it was likely that the family knew someone that had been inside. But she couldn't shake her sense of relief.
Her walk back to Neibolt house was uneventful, something that Ana wasn't about to complain about, although she found herself wondering how long Pennywise was going to be out hunting. She couldn't sense him nearby, and she found herself disheartened at the fact at that he was probably still around the school. Seeing him terrorize poor little Abigail gave her a renewed sense of resentment for the clown, even after all the time they'd spent together. She knew it was going to be an inevitable quarrel, Ana being unable to hide her feelings from him. For a split second she hoped he was full when he came back to the house so he could be as rational as he was capable of being, then felt guilty for the people he was gorging on. As usual, she was in an infinite cycle of conflicting feelings.
She reached the house, going through the gate and walking towards the front door. In the dark of the night, it took her a little while to realize there was something painted on it, her eyes straining to make sense of the dark shapes. She opened the door and reached inside the entryway to flip on the porch light, and bright red suddenly came into focus. In neat, cursive letters, was painted "For You". There was a little heart drawn beneath it, some of the blood that has been used as paint dripping down the ground.