It awakened suddenly.

All alone, lying at the bottom of the black pit Pennywise called its resting place.

He awoke angry.

Angry, alone and hungry.

Very, very hungry.

He had not had a good rest as he usually had for the last few hundred years.

He awoke to the memories of defeat that had happened 27 years prior. Memories of Richie, with his mouth that ran away with him. Memories of Eddie, with his easily manipulated sense of hypochondria. Beverly, with her easily manipulated sense of belonging. Ben, with his easily manipulated sense of love. Mike with his easily manipulated sense of knowledge and history. Stan, with his sense of logic and understanding. Memories of Bill Denborough with his guise of leadership. Of his friendship and the phrase 'he hits his fist against the posts, and still insists he sees the ghosts.

That phrase had plagued his dreams for the last 27 years.

And for all the time he was asleep, all Pennywise dreamed of was revenge.

Revenge and the need for an heir…

For you see;

That night that Bill Denborough and the rest of the Losers Club had defeated Pennywise; the night that they had injured him, the night that they made Pennywise enter his long rest early… The night that, without the Losers Club realising, they had actually destroyed one of his Dead Lights that lived deep within him. When the whole gang finally decided that they we not afraid of Pennywise the Dancing Clown, and they attacked him, not so much with weapons, or blunt objects, but with their mind, they actually destroyed a part of what made Pennywise.

And this is what scared Pennywise the most. Not the fact that they had not been afraid of him, but that if it happened again, or if he got injured again, he would no longer be able to come back from the brink of death.

Before the fight beneath the sewers of Derry, Pennywise had been made of three separate Deadlights. Each deadlight could be seen as a life. One he was born with. The circumstances of his birth remain unknown, even to him, who has been alive for millennia. The other two however, he had taken. Taken by consuming other people whom he had manipulated who had ties to the Macroverse. But this was exceptionally rare as people who had knowledge of this place often went insane.

However Pennywise knew that in this world, seven people had dealt with the Macroverse, and had lived to tell the tale. All he had to do was find one of them who could accept his deadlight.

May as well kill two birds with one stone , and make an heir and take revenge all at once, Pennywise thought to himself as he literally pulled himself together, and manifested himself into one of his favourite guises. That of a man, by the name of Robert Grey.

27 years seems like such a long time for humans whose lives frequently come and go without them achieving much more than working, reproducing and dying. But to Pennywise, or as he is now, Robert, 27 years is but a blink of an eye. As he made his way from the sewers beneath Derry and emerged into the daylight once more, he absorbed all the changes that had happened to the world.

All of the advancements in technology, the change of people's perceptions of the world, and most importantly what people were now most afraid of.

He sniffed the air searching for something. For someone. For anyone who had been stupid enough to remain in Derry after his last reign of terror. Anyone from the Losers Club who had the misfortune to remain in his town. To remain in his feeding ground. And now his breeding ground.

Robert fumbled over the entrance to the sewers, each step he took was a struggle and his breath was laboured. He felt weak and knew that he needed to feed, and soon.

…

Freya Hanlon sat alone in a quiet corner of Derry Public Library with her back to a large window. The afternoon sun casting a nice warmth on her back, and providing excellent reading light. A large pile of books lay in front of her stacked neatly in alphabetical order. Her father gave her an allowance of $5 a week to place books back on their correct shelves after they had been returned. She often got distracted and read many of them, before finally putting them back. Her father didn't mind. She was a slow worker when it came to returning the books, but it kept her good while he was working, and meant that she at least had the company of words on a page, and characters in the books. She often stated over their evening meals that she had a new best friend. Usually a character from whichever book she was reading at the time. She also enjoyed looking through the checkout slips on the inside of front cover, seeing who had checked out which books, and creating in her head personalities of the people who frequently checked out books.

She had no real friends and was frequently bullied at school, much to Mike Hanlon's dismay, but after many meetings with the school council and the teachers, nothing had changed, and the teasing and name calling had continued. Freya herself didn't seem to mind though. Her head was always buried deep within her books and did very well at school. Mike had considered and suggested to have her home schooled on many occasions, but after suggesting this to Freya several times she kept declining.

'I like school Dad. They teach me so much and I wanna go to college, so I need to stay in school' she would frequently say.

The main reason she was bullied was due to her unique appearance. She had inherited her father's dark skin and hair, but some traits from her mother. Her mother had had a condition called Poliosis, which meant that a section of her hair had no pigmentation, leaving it a striking white colour. It was more subtle in her mother, who had blonde hair and pale eyes, but on Freya it stuck out a lot against her dark wavy hair, and when you are in high school sticking out isn't something most people want. She also had another condition called Heterochromia Iridum that had also left her with one deep brown eye, and one striking blue eye which just gave the bullies all the more ammunition against her. However, some of the people who frequently bullied her had other ways that they liked to torment her. Some knew about what had happened to her mother, and these were the times Freya got upset, and withdrew further into her books.

Not long after she had been born, her mother had begun to have vivid hallucinations and see things. What things she saw Freya didn't know as her father always refused to tell her for fear of him upsetting her. But she did hear things from the bullies. She heard their interpretation of what had happened. No doubt rumours spread from the bullies parents, and gossip mongers in the town. They liked to chant that her mother hadn't wanted her, and that she had tried to kill her when she was just a baby. That she had gone insane by how much she hated her new child, and when she couldn't kill her daughter, she tried to kill herself. They would say things like 'no wonder she tried to kill you when you came out looking like that!' and 'just looking at those ugly eyes is enough to send anyone insane!'

All mike had said was that her mother hadn't been very well and that she had gone to a special hospital where they would look after Freya's mother until she was better and they could all be a happy family again. That was over 16 years ago now and Freya had all but given up hope on that ever happening. She had no memories of her mother because she was so young when she was taken away. But she was happy enough with her life as it was living with her father, and helping him in the library. She was happy enough to let herself live within her books and within her own mind. Or at least she thought she was.

…

Robert Gray staggered through the streets slowly. To most people walking by he just looked like someone who had a few too many drinks. His walk was staggered, his deep red/brown hair a mess and sticking up randomly at the sides, and his breathing laboured. But the biggest indication that he could be drunk was that he was drooling. The drool ran down from his red pouty lips and landed on the collar of his shirt leaving a damp patch. He wasn't drooling from drink, he was drooling because he was starving and was struggling to control himself and maintain his form. He had so little energy left he could not teleport himself, transform into anyone or anything else and he could not create illusions. He needed an easy kill and fast. He needed to find someone alone, defenceless and someone he could kill easily.

Robert did not need to wait for long. As he walked he could hear a bicycle coming down the road. He knew it was a child before he saw him because he could hear the giveaway sound of playing cards flickering against the textured surface of a wheel. It reminded him of the bike Bill had ridden in the past, and this only fuelled his rage, and determination to feed. He carried walking along the side of the road with arms ready to move. The child on the bike was about 8 years old. Young to be alone, but he was probably just enjoying speeding down along the long straight road. A split second before the child passed Robert on the bike, he stretched out his arm to an abnormal length, hitting the child in the chest and knocking him from his bike. It had taken a lot of effort even to lengthen his arm, and now he struggled to control himself. Robert sauntered over to where the child had fallen and was now sitting bewildered in the middle of the road trying to decide whether he wanted to cry, or scream as a stranger approached him, with eyes changing from a soft blue, to a glowing red/orange, and a horrid smile filled with infinite layers of teeth.

The child never had the chance to do either as he was dragged from the road into the thick trees beside the pavement, never to be seen again.

….

The light was fading in Derry's Public Library and all the heat that light had provided was dwindling. Freya closed the book she was reading and looked up at the large clock that was on the wall above the main desk and saw that it was a few minutes to 7. Her father looked up from the papers he was sorting there and smiled widely at her. 'Home time' Freya thought happily. She loved this time in the evenings. The slow walk from the Library to home in the fading light, where Mike would make them a delicious evening meal and sit happily watching reruns of old shows on the television before going to bed and doing the same thing tomorrow all over again. The days may have seemed repetitive to most, but Freya always enjoyed them and they always seemed different with each new book she read.

Mike walked around the Library, doing his final checks to make sure that everyone had left before turning off all of the reading lamps at each desk. Freya waited by the front doors with a bundle of books in her arms.

'I swear you bring more books home then you actually put away!' Mike laughed as he walked towards her, the large Library keys jingling in his hands as he walked.

'Don't be silly Dad, I always put everything you give me away,' freya laughed.

'Of course you do dear. Although if you do keep bringing all these books home, I may aswell put a sign out on our front lawn saying welcome to the new Derry Library.'

'At least then you'd be able to work from home and wouldn't have to get up so early every morning' she laughed as they walked out of the large double wooden doors of the library.

Mike smiled at this, ' Yeah, it would be nice to work in my pajamas all day long.'

With the doors now locked until tomorrow morning, they began the short walk home. It was a pleasant evening in Derry. The air was still warm, and there was very little breeze. The walked in silence along the road home. They often did this. Although they got along well for father and daughter, it felt to Freya although they spent quite a lot of time together, they spent very little of this talking. It was although they were both too trapped inside their own heads to be able to hold much of a conversation. Both of them were true book worms through and through.

As they walked around a corner, they both saw something glisten in the fading light that was lying in the middle of the road. They picked up the pace a little to see what it was. It was a children's bike lying on its side haphazardly in the middle of the road. A sudden breeze picked up which made them both shiver suddenly. The wheels of the bike slowly started turning in the new wind.

'Some kids probably playing in the trees over there' Mike said as he pointed out into the trees that now danced in the wind.

'Sure hope he's alright Dad.'

'I'm sure he's fine dear. Probably building a clubhouse or something in there with his friends' Mike said as his eyes flitted between the trees and the abandoned bike. 'C'mon Freya, lets get home. It feels as though the weather is turning and we're without jackets. Don't wanna catch a cold now do we?'

'No Dad,' Freya agreed as she started to walk ahead of her father who had decided to move the bike from the middle of the road and prop it up against a tree with a soft chink sound before continuing to walk too. Mike got a strange feeling as he rested that bike against the tree. He had a sudden sense of deja vous and shook his head. Sweat had started to drip from his brow as he walked away but he had no idea why. 'What's this bike reminding me of?' Mike thought as he caught up to his daughter. He shook his head, pushing these thoughts to the back of his mind, thinking that it had just been a long day and he wanted to hurry on home.

As they walked Freya thought to herself 'I wonder who that bike belongs to? I'd quite like to play in the trees with them.'

…

Robert had transformed into his Pennywise form after he had grabbed the boy. He prefered to eat whilst in this form from hundreds of years of habit. He heard a chink noise and looked up from his meal, wondering if someone had discovered the missing boy already. He wiped the blood from his mouth on the back of his gloved hand looked over to where the road was. He could faintly hear voices. He sniffed to see if they had gotten close enough to him to interrupt his meal, or to see if they were afraid. Rather than rushing up, out of the trees after them he just smiled. A smile so wide, that the sides of his mouth tore upwards into a sort of chelsea grin, filled with sharp, bloodied teeth.

'I know you,' He whispered to himself. 'And you'll do just fine' he smiled as he moved back down to the half eaten boy to continue his meal.