I woke up to then feeling of gravel poking into my back, and somebody shaking my shoulders. Frantic voices were carried away by the wind so that I couldn't really hear what was being said.
I tried to peel my face from the ground, open my eyes, lift my hands, but my body wouldn't cooperate.
"What happened?" I tried to say, thought it came out more like 'wo hanened'.
Still, it was enough to reignite the effort to wake me. They were poking me in the stomach, shaking me, gently tapping my cheek. And slowly but surely, my brain rewired itself, and I could get my eyes open.
The relief was clear on the boys faces, as they stood over me, waiting for me to get up.
I closed my eyes again and sighed, and then attempted to pull myself up. Immediately, the boys had their hands on my back and shoulders to help me.
"You were out like a light!" Richie exclaimed.
"You got an illness of something?" The boy with the cast asked.
"Not everything is an illness, Eddie." The dark skinned kid sighed.
I leant back on the tree again, resting my shaking legs, trying to remember what had happened. They had crowded me, that was the problem, and I panicked. I must've stopped breathing properly.
"I'm not ill..." I mumbled. "I just don't like people."
One of the boys, the one who had stuttered earlier, nodded like that made a lot of sense. The others seemed unsure what that meant, until they were ushered back a few steps, so I wasn't surrounded.
It helped a little, but I could sense them watching me, and the air caught in my throat, making me cough suddenly. Automatically, they steadied themselves for me to faint again, but I kept myself standing purely out of stubbornness.
After a few moments of breathing, I was ready to talk again.
"I have an anxiety disorder, it makes me panic if I so much as see people, let alone have them surrounding me." I explained.
A little more understanding dawned in their eyes.
Another few minutes of silence, and the next sentence worked its way from my head to my mouth.
"I'm sorry to have interrupted your conversation."
That's the way it was with me. I could recognize that I wasn't causing them too much trouble, but I still have to apologize. Otherwise I'd be wrecked with unnecessary guilt.
They all muttered different things like 'It's okay' and 'You just rest now.'
More silence, and then I spoke again.
"I should get go-" I started, but Richie interrupted.
"Wait... you saw It too?" He muttered.
I'd forgotten about telling them. Now they eyed me with wonder, and I understood. The man down the drain could have killed me, so it's a marvel I survived.
"How do you know you did?" Eddie seemed unsure about me still.
I thought about that for a moment.
I'd seen the red baloons they described. I'd met someone down the drains, like they said they had. I was lucky to escape with my life, the same as them.
And yet...
I shook my head.
"I guess I don't."
With that, I pushed myself away from the tree and began heading back to the hotel. I heard them mumbling behind me, disbelief that I could just leave without another word. But I was tired, and confused, and my breathing still hadn't settled.
I needed to be alone.
I'd made it two blocks before the drains began to draw me closer. I glanced at them, unsure.
It was unlikely that I'd meet the man again, since I was in a different part of town.
Right...?
I hesitantly stepped towards the nearest one. I sat next to it, and slid my legs down. The rest of me followed soon after, my mind made up.
My feet hit the dirty concrete below, and I scrunched my nose at the smell that hadn't been there last time. I turned to the left and continued in the same direction I would have gone on the streets above.
The smell got worse as I walked, and soon, I had my shirt pulled up to cover my nose, exposing my stomach, which left me cold. But I couldn't stand the stench.
The drains twisted and turned, but I did my best to follow the streets above.
Rocks scattered as a few mice scurried away from the light of my phone. I heard the crunch of something like a snapping stick, and I twisted suddenly, dropping the phone.
With an angry huff, I knelt on the ground trying to the find where I had dropped it, since the light landed down. My hand brushed over something cold, and at first I thought it was my phone.
But when my left hand found the phone else where, and the light illuminated the ground, I froze.
A scream got stuck in my throat, and I couldn't push it out.
My hand lay over another, and the light of the phone soon revealed that the hand was connected to a lifeless body. The eyes were glazed over by a thick grey colour, and the skin was white like paper. The hand was cold, freezing, and stiff like a rock.
The body had been dead for a while, that was certain.
And it stank.
That was the smell.
But I couldn't imagine one body giving off so much odour.
I shook my head, disgusted, lifted my hand away and wiped it on my shirt.
Where had it come from? How did it get down here? Who was the person before they died? Does their family know where the body is?
I had so many questions, and no answers.
I stood and surveyed the body, covering my nose again with my shirt and breathing in the scent of my perfume. It barely covered the stench, but it helped a little.
I sighed for the poor dead person, and turned away.
My foot hit something, and I almodt stumbled, but I caught my footing, and lowered the light of the phone.
I shouted out now, disbelief filling me.
No. No. No. No. NO!
I had seen plenty of dead people before. In fact, I'd often felt safer around them because they could not longer judge me like the living can.
But this... this was terrifying.
There was not just a few scattered dead people before me.
There was a mountain of them, all in the same condition as the first one.
Except... something was different.
And then it hit me.
There was blood everwhere, covering the bodies, spilling out of some bodies, pooling on the ground around them.
And then another observation came to light.
If these dead bodies couldn't move, then what had I heard snapping before?
My heart went up again, my breathing stuttered, and a small growl echoed from the shadows.
I'm not alone.