That same day, in the afternoon, the rain was falling with such force that the sky seemed to have darkened long before its time. Black clouds completely covered the sun, and the constant sound of water hitting the asphalt and rooftops filled the air with a heavy, unsettling murmur.
Liam walked along the sidewalk with steady steps, holding a black umbrella over his head while carrying the bags with what he had bought that day in his other hand. Water slid down the edge of the umbrella and splashed against his sneakers with every step. The streets were almost deserted; no one wanted to be outside in weather like this.
The wind blew hard, forcing him to tighten his grip on the umbrella.
"Great…" he muttered under his breath, without stopping.
That was when he heard something that didn't fit with the sound of the rain.
A laugh.
It wasn't loud, but it was clear. Childish. Light.
Liam frowned and slowed his pace. He looked to his left and saw a corner where the street sloped slightly downward. There, the water rushed forcefully toward an open storm drain.
And beside it, a boy who seemed to be reaching out his hand to retrieve a paper boat.
"Here you go, Georgie." Said a sweet, welcoming voice, but to Liam it sounded threatening.
When Liam saw this scene, his mind went completely blank for an instant. His steps came to a sudden halt, and an icy shiver ran through his entire body, from the back of his neck down his spine, making his skin prickle as he realized one single thing. He had been living for so many years without being aware that this town was where IT lived, or as he called himself: Pennywise.
At that very moment, he understood everything. That was why the name Derry had sounded so familiar to him years ago, when he first learned the town's name. Now, with his heart pounding hard in his chest, Liam regretted having dismissed so quickly that uncomfortable feeling of recognizing the name from somewhere.
[DING]
In that instant, the cold, metallic sound of the system echoed in his mind, yanking him out of his thoughts.
[NEW MISSION AVAILABLE]
[RESCUE GEORGIE, PREVENT PENNYWISE FROM TAKING HIM INTO THE SEWERS]
This was Liam's first mission. For a moment, he hesitated, feeling his breathing grow uneven, wondering if he really should complete it. But the situation gave him no more time to think.
"AAAHHH!" Georgie's scream of pain rang out.
Liam's eyes widened in horror as he saw Pennywise bite into Georgie's arm, tearing it off with terrifying ease, almost casually, as if it were nothing more than a toy.
In that moment, Liam was unable to stay still. Watching a child about to die without doing anything was something he simply could not allow.
He clenched his fists tightly, his fingers trembling, and sprinted toward Georgie, who was trying to turn his small body away from the storm drain, clumsily dragging himself across the wet asphalt to get farther away.
As he ran, Liam saw a hand slowly reaching toward Georgie, extending from the darkness of the sewer, while the boy cried uncontrollably in pain.
"Shit, I have to be faster." Liam pushed his body to the limit, gritting his teeth and forcing every muscle, somehow managing to run faster than he ever had before.
In what felt like eternal minutes to Liam, but in reality were only a few seconds, he reached Georgie. The boy, seeing him approach, lifted his head and looked at him with tear-filled eyes, begging for help without needing words.
Liam, without hesitating for even a second, picked him up with surprising speed, pressing him against his chest and narrowly preventing Pennywise's hand—mere centimeters from grabbing Georgie's leg—from catching anything but air.
"Oh, who are you? This shouldn't be happening." Pennywise said, his tone mixing surprise and amusement, as if this were an unexpected twist in a game.
Liam, with Georgie in his arms, immediately turned to keep an eye on the sewer, not responding. With quick, clumsy movements, he tore the sleeve from his shirt and tightly wrapped it around what remained of Georgie's arm, desperately trying to stop the bleeding.
Georgie cried in his arms, shaking with fear but also relieved that someone had helped him. His small body trembled, and he seemed unable to speak due to the shock.
Without thinking of replying to Pennywise, Liam turned around, ready to run and get as far away as possible. He knew he couldn't face him alone; staying there would be suicide.
But when he turned, about ten meters away, Pennywise stood in the middle of the street, under the rain, staring at him while holding a red balloon in one hand.
Surprised, Liam couldn't help but stop. His feet felt glued to the ground as his mind raced, thinking of how to get out of this situation. First, I'll use the Observe skill to see if I can find something useful.
At that moment, a large translucent screen filled with information about Pennywise opened before his eyes.
[PENNYWISE / IT / AVATAR]
RACE: Primordial Entity (Macroverse)
TITLES: God, Devourer of Worlds, Destroyer of Destiny.
[ABILITIES]
EXTRA-TEMPORAL EXISTENCE: ?????
PRIMORDIAL IMMORTALITY: ?????
TERROR METAMORPHOSIS: [LVL ?????] Can transform into any form that represents fear in the target.
TANGIBLE ILLUSIONS: [LVL ?????] His illusions can cause real damage.
MIND READING: [LVL ?????] Accesses the target's fears, memories, and psychological weaknesses.
REALITY CONTROL: ?????
TELEPORTATION: ?????
INSTANT REGENERATION: ?????
DREAM DOMINION: ?????
DEADLIGHTS: [LVL ?????] Causes permanent madness or instant death to humans.
[WEAKNESSES]
Collective faith
?????
?????
?????
Seeing this, Liam couldn't help but feel a chill run down his spine, as if something cold had slid along it. His fingers tightened involuntarily around Georgie's body, pressing him closer to his chest. He was far stronger than Liam remembered from the movies, and that realization left a heavy knot in his stomach. It made him think that Pennywise had always been playing with the Losers' Club, holding back, pretending to be weak purely for entertainment.
And what the hell was that about "Destroyer of Destiny"? He had never heard that title associated with Pennywise before, and just reading it caused an uncomfortable pressure in his chest, as if something invisible were squeezing his lungs. He suspected it was something very bad. On top of that, it was clear that there were several things the Observe skill couldn't show him at its current level 1, which only increased his sense of vulnerability.
"What are you? I can't see all your fears, something is blocking my access to your entire mind." Pennywise said, tilting his head slightly, his smile stretching unnaturally as he looked at Liam holding Georgie, his eyes shining with almost childlike curiosity.
"You don't really think I'll answer your question, do you?" Liam said, clenching his jaw and planting his feet on the wet ground, holding his stance firm despite the slight tremor running through his arms from the strain and tension.
"Oh, well, it doesn't matter. Give me Georgie, I was about to eat him. Come on, Georgie, look, here's your arm, do you want it back?" Pennywise said playfully, lifting the severed arm and waving it like a toy, his sing-song voice clashing sickeningly with the scene.
"Nooo, I won't go with you." Georgie replied fearfully to Pennywise, shrinking against Liam's chest. Then he lifted his trembling gaze toward him. "Don't leave me, I'm scared." He looked at him with eyes full of terror, tears mixing with the rain as he silently begged Liam not to abandon him.
"Calm down, Georgie, I won't leave you." Liam gave him a forced but warm smile, tilting his head slightly and adjusting his hold, trying to make his voice sound firm and reassuring despite the chaos inside him.
Seeing this, Georgie somehow knew Liam wasn't lying. His eyelids began to droop, his body suddenly relaxed, and he fell unconscious from blood loss, going completely limp in Liam's arms.
When Liam saw this, he held Georgie even tighter, adjusting his grip so he wouldn't slip, and lifted his gaze solemnly toward Pennywise, who remained standing a few meters away with a twisted smile, watching everything unfold with amusement, as if it were nothing more than a show.
At that moment, Pennywise began to change shape… or was it an illusion? Liam didn't know. His breathing grew heavier as he tried to analyze it; it was difficult to distinguish between the two abilities. Then he saw that, right where Pennywise had been, Carrie's mother appeared, gripping a large knife and holding Carrie tightly as she struggled desperately to break free.
"Carrie, I never should have let you leave the house, look what happened, that demon." She pointed at Liam, her face twisted with rage. "He corrupted you, pulled you away from me, from God, and now the only thing I can do so God will forgive you is take you with me before Him." With that, she stabbed Carrie in the heart, without her being able to do anything to stop it.
"Nooo, Carrie." Liam couldn't stop his heart from freezing for an instant at the sight, the world seeming to blur around him, even though he knew it wasn't real.
Carrie turned her gaze toward Liam and smiled, blood pouring from her mouth, eyes, and ears. "You couldn't protect me, now you have nothing, you'll never have anything, nothing, nothing, nothing," Carrie kept smiling, but her smile began to crack, as if something were stretching it from the inside, breaking unnaturally.
"No… thING…" she whispered at first.
The word didn't come out right. It dragged, folded in on itself, then came back, multiplied.
"Nothing… nothing… NOoothing…"
Each repetition sounded different: one was Carrie's voice, another a crying child's, another a deep murmur that belonged to no human.
"The world around him began to fall out of tune.
The rain fell upward.
The streetlights bent like soft bones.
The asphalt breathed."
"Nothing to hold when you're cold…" Carrie said, but her mouth no longer moved; the words came from the bleeding holes where her eyes were.
Nothing when you wake up screaming… Nothing when you're dying alone…
Her neck elongated with a wet, impossible crunch, and her head tilted at an unnatural angle. The blood stopped falling and began to float, forming twisted letters in the air.
NOTHING
NOTHING
NOTHING
The letters writhed like living worms.
"You're always late, Liam," said Pennywise's voice now mixed with Carrie's, layered and badly synchronized. "Late to save… late to love… late to run…"
Carrie's body began to fragment, not into pieces, but into memories: her laughter, her voice calling his name, her hand intertwined with his, all tearing apart and falling into the open sewer.
"Nothing… nothing… nothing…" the word sped up, becoming an infinite echo, bouncing inside Liam's head. "NOTHINGNOTHINGNOTHINGNOTHINGNOTHING"
Liam felt something trying to dig into his mind, to pry it open, to create cracks. The smell of rust and rot filled his lungs.
Carrie took one last step toward him… and then her face melted, revealing behind it the white, smiling, eternal face of Pennywise. "That's what's left when you fail," IT whispered, leaning in until he was just inches away. "Nothing."
The red balloon slowly rose between them.
And in that instant, Liam understood something: Pennywise didn't want to kill him yet. He wanted to empty him first.
Liam didn't hesitate. Seeing Pennywise so close, with that twisted smile and his eyes fixed on him, his body reacted before his thoughts. He stepped forward and slashed straight for his neck, the motion clean and desperate, summoning his dagger at the last instant, feeling the familiar weight of the weapon materialize in his hand.
But Pennywise, in a completely inhuman way, bent his body backward at an impossible angle. The blade didn't fully decapitate him; it only sliced halfway through his neck, flesh tearing open with a wet, unnatural sound.
"Oh, what a strange dagger, that hurt quite a bit." Pennywise spoke with his neck nearly severed, tilted grotesquely, as if nothing had happened. As he spoke, a low, bubbling laugh escaped from his open throat.
Before Liam could react, Pennywise's hand moved with terrifying speed. His long, cold fingers closed around Liam's arm holding the dagger, squeezing tightly. In a single second, with a sharp yank, he tore the weapon from his hand.
"What a curious weapon." Pennywise held it up in front of his face, slowly turning it between his fingers, examining the runes glowing green. He tilted his head with sick interest. "This is what allows it to hurt me more." He easily analyzed the cause, as if taking apart a toy, instantly understanding what had injured him.
But Pennywise only held it for a second.
The next instant, the dagger vanished from his hand, evaporating without a trace, leaving him surprised for a fraction of a second. His eyes widened slightly, curious.
Liam didn't waste the opportunity. He gritted his teeth, twisted his body, and delivered a powerful kick straight to Pennywise's stomach. The impact was solid and forceful, sending him stumbling backward several steps and forcing him to release his grip.
Without looking back, Liam turned and ran. His feet pounded against the wet asphalt as he fled as fast as possible, his heart hammering in his chest, hoping with every step that Pennywise wouldn't pursue him.
"What an interesting child." Pennywise murmured from behind, drooling slightly, his lips stretching into a hungry smile, as if already savoring his flesh.
"Shit, shit, damn Pennywise." Liam ran without stopping, the air burning his lungs. As he moved, he couldn't stop replaying what had just happened, nor could he avoid thinking that the monster had struck directly at his greatest fear: losing Carrie, the only thing he loved in this life.
"I'll kill that bastard someday, I want to see how he keeps laughing then." he thought, fists clenched as he ran.
In that moment, something settled inside him. Liam had developed a deep hatred for Pennywise. To him, that illusion hadn't been just a trick—it had been a threat.
And it was something Liam would never, ever allow to become reality.