—1—

DECEMBER 15TH, 2004 / IRUSU, JAPAN

The terror, which would not end for another sixteen-years -if it ever truly did, end- began with a small paper boat sailing it's way down Shinrinyoku street.

The boat bobbed, tilted, and then righted itself again- streaming along the flooded gutters towards the Taiko intersection. The three vertical lenses on all sides of the traffic light were dark this afternoon in the winter of 2004, and most of the houses were dark, too. There had been steady rain for a week now, and two days ago the winds had come as well. Most sections of Irusu had lost their power then, and only a few had managed to get it back on.

A small girl in a yellow rain slicker and bright red rubber boots ran alongside the boat joyfully. The rain had not stopped, but it had finally begun to slacken late that morning. It tapped on the yellow hood of the girl's slicker, sounding to her ears like rain on a shed roof... a comfortable, almost cozy sound. The girl in the yellow slicker was Toshinori Eri. She was six. Her half-brother, Izuku, (Known as "Deku" to most people in their small town, curtesy of Bakugo Katsuki) was at home, hacking out the last of his lungs due to a nasty case of influenza. In that winter of 2004, six months before the real horrors began and almost sixteen years before the final showdown, Midoriya Izuku- Deku- was ten-years-old.

Deku had made the boat Eri was currently chasing after. He had made it sitting up in bed, his back propped against a pile of pillows, while their mother started to prepare food for lunch and rain swept restlessly against his bedroom window.

About three-quarters of the way down the block as one headed toward the intersection and the dead traffic light, Shinrinyoku Street was blocked to motor traffic by smudge pots and four orange sawhorses. Stenciled across each of the horses was IRUSU DEPT. OF PUBLIC WORKS. Beyond them, the rain had spilled out of gutters clogged with branches and rocks and big sticky piles of decaying leaves. Water was completely encompassing the street beyond that point- and people were beginning to make nervous jokes about building rafts.

But, everyone agreed that the worst was over, the Shibui stream in the barrens had regressed back to normal- as had the canal that marked the cut off between downtown and uptown Irusu. Right now a gang of men- Toshinori Yagi, Eri and Deku's father, among them- were pulling back the sandbags they had thrown up the day before with a panicky-haste. Yesterday overflow and expensive flood damage had seemed almost inevitable. God knew it had happened before-the flooding in 1952 had been a disaster that had cost millions and almost two dozen lives. That was a long time ago, but there were still enough people around who remembered it to scare the rest. One of the flood victims had been found twenty-five miles east downstream. The fish had eaten this unfortunate gentleman's eyes, three of his fingers, his penis, and most of his left foot. Clutched in what remained of his hands had been a Ford steering wheel.

Luckily for them, though, the river was already receding and Toshinori Yagi- who worked in the hydroelectric business- assured the others that this would no longer be a problem when the new hydro-damn went up upstream. People trusted Toshinori, he was their number one- a jet-setter in the community, always ready to help whenever and however necessary- so they believed him wholeheartedly. They just had to get through this one, get the power back on, and then forget it- and it would never happen again. In Irusu such forgetting of tragedy and disaster was almost an art, as Midoriya Izuku and six more unfortunate others would come to discover in the course of time.

Eri paused just beyond the sawhorses at the edge of a deep ravine that the water had cut through Shinrinyoku- her boat sailed down it happily, twirling and spinning in tiny whirlpools at it went. Her happy, yet somewhat timid, smile grew as she watched it go- red eyes sparkling. It traveled quickly from one side of the street to the other- so fast that Eri had to sprint to keep up with it, her hood flying off at some point and causing her white hair to stream prettily behind her. The buckles on her rubbers clacked loudly as Toshinori Eri ran towards her strange, and unnatural, death.

The feeling that flowed through her was a clear, simple love for her big brother. Love... and a touch of regret that Deku couldn't be there with her to witness the boats rapid race down the road. Of course, she would try to describe it to him when she got home, but she would never be able to make him see it- not in the way Deku would be able to make her see it if the situation had been reversed. He was good at reading and writing, but even at her young age of six years, Eri was wise enough to know that wasn't the only reason why Deku got all A's on his report cards, or why his teachers liked his compositions so well. Telling was only part of it. Deku was good at seeing.

The boat nearly whistled along the diagonal channel, the prow of the boat threw water to either side as it rushed along, and then it reached the gutter on the left side of Shinrinyoku Street. A fresh streamlet rushed over the break in the tar at this point, creating a fairly large whirlpool, and it seemed to her that the boat must be swamped and capsize. It leaned alarmingly, and then Eri cheered hopefully as it righted itself, turned, and went racing on down toward the intersection. Eri once again having to sprint to keep up with it.

—2—

Sitting up in bed, his cheeks flushed with the heat of his fever (but, like the Shibui, receding) Deku had finished the boat. He pulled it gently out of reach when Eri made a grab for it, smiling softly down at her. "Bring me some paraffin."

"What's that? Where is it?"

"It's on the cellar shelf right as you go down." Deku said, "in a box that says 'Gulf'- bring that to me, and a knife, bowl, and a pack of matches."

Eri had nodded and gone obediently to get these things, smelling the Katsudon her mother was preparing for lunch wafting through the air as she passed by the kitchen. She could hear the sound of the rain pattering on the windows, much softer today then it had been in quite a while. Both of these things were comforting to Eri, but the thought of the cellar wasn't. She did not like the cellar, and she did not like going down the cellar stairs, because she always imagined there was something lurking there in the dark. That was silly, of course, her father said so and her mother said so and, even more important, Deku had said so, but still -

Eri didn't even like opening the door to flick on the light because she always had the idea-this was so silly she didn't dare tell anyone, not even her brother who she told everything to- that while she was feeling for the light switch, some horrible clawed paw would settle lightly over her wrist... and then jerk her down into the darkness that smelled of dirt and wet and dim rotted vegetables.

Silly! There were no things with claws, all hairy and full of killing spite. Every now and then someone went crazy and killed a lot of people-sometimes she overheard these things while her father watched the evening news- but there was no weirdo monster living down in their cellar wanting to eat little girls such as herself- Deku had assured her of this many times, and Deku was the smartest person Eri knew, so he had to be right.

But still...

She had opened the cellar door that morning with a death-grip on the handle and her eyes squeezed shut as she groped around blindly for the light switch. (As she did every time she was told to go down into the cellar) She could smell the kutsudon again, and her stomach growled a little- it calmed her nerves the slightest bit.

Eri's thin fingers found the switch! Ah!

They snapped it-and nothing. No light.

But... the power was back on in their home? They were one of the few houses in the neighborhood with this blessing- She thought about calling her father and asking him to do the thing where he opened up a little box and the lights came on after a while of messing with it but decided against it. She could hear the rain beginning to slow, and she didn't want to miss out on the chance to sail her boat.

But what now? Go back and tell Deku she couldn't get the box of paraffin because the lights wouldn't work and she was afraid that some creature might get her as she stood on the cellar stairs? That it would simply slither part of its rotted self up between the stair risers and grab her ankle? That would go over well, wouldn't it? Others might laugh at such a thought, but Deku wouldn't laugh, he'd get up and get it himself, despite the fact that he was sick- which for whatever reason seemed to upset Eri more than him laughing would.

As if this thought were his cue, Deku called from his bedroom: "Did you die out there, Eri?"

"I'm gettin' it Deku!" She called back up, rubbing at her arms and chewing nervously on her lip. "Just stopped to get a drink of water first!"

"Hurry!-" He was cut off by a coughing fit, which made Eri wince. "Ugh... I wanna take a nap!"

So Eri walked timidly down the four steps to the cellar shelf, her heart a warm, beating hammer in her tight throat, the hair on the nape of her neck standing at attention, her ruby eyes hot, her hands ice-cold, sure that at any moment the cellar door would swing shut on its own, closing off the white light falling through the kitchen windows and she'd be dragged down into its depths by some yellow-eyed creature, never to be seen again-

The flood made the cellar's usual stale smell even worst- Eri wrinkled her nose. Their house was nearly on top of the hill that lifted Shinrinyoku Street, so they had escaped the worst of it- however, there was still free-standing water at the bottom that had managed to seep through the foundation. Eri sifted through the junk on the shelf as fast as she could-old cans of Kiwi shoepolish and shoepolish rags, a broken kerosene lamp, two mostly empty bottles of Windex, an old flat can of Turtle wax. (For some reason this can struck her, and she spent nearly thirty seconds looking at the turtle on the lid with a kind of hypnotic wonder. Then she tossed it back... ) and here it was, at last, a square box with the word 'Gulf' on it.

Eri sprinted up the stairs with it as fast as she could, heart beating extremely fast as she slammed the cellar door shut behind her. Sweat dripped down her brow as she clutched the box of wax to her chest.

"Try and slam the door a little harder next time Eri, you didn't break any windows." Her father called good-naturedly from somewhere at the front of the house. Eri called back a timid apology, before grabbing the other items that had been requested and heading back up the stairs towards Deku- glad that her time in the cellar was over.

'That turtle...' Eri thought as she reached her older brother's bedroom door, 'Where did I see a turtle like that before?'

But no answer came and she dismissed the question.

"There you are Eri, I was beginning to think that you had gotten lost down there." Deku smiled, his forehead blanketed in sweat, and his voice stuffy. He pushed back some of the sick stuff on his nightstand: an empty glass, a pitcher of water, a bottle of Vicks: Vapor rub- and set the boat down on it carefully.

" 'Course not." Smiled Eri, any lingering fear from the cellar immediately disappearing as she spoke with her brother. "It's just a cellar, you can't get lost in it."

"You probably could." Deku teasesd, before turning and coughing harshly into his elbow, his free hand outstretched and waiting for the things Eri had brought for him.

Downstairs, they could hear the sound of classical music drifting up from the stereo- their mothers favorite genre- and months later, Deku would find himself unable to listen to anything classical without thinking "this is what was playing the day Eri died"

"You gonna cough anymore, Deku?"

"No."

Deku pulled a Kleenex from the box, made a rumbling sound in his chest, spat phlegm into the tissue, screwed it up, and tossed it into the wastebasket by his bed, which was filled with similar twists of tissue. Then he opened the box of paraffin and dropped a waxy cube of the stuff into his palm. Eri watched him closely, but without speaking or questioning- having learned that Deku would usually explain what he was doing without her needing to say a word.

Her brother used the knife to cut off a small piece of the paraffin cube. He put the piece in the bowl, then struck a match and put it on top of the paraffin. The two siblings watched the small yellow flame as the dying wind drove rain against the window in occasional spatters.

"Got to waterproof the boat or it'll get wet and sink," Deku explained, a fond smile on his face as he looked over at his little sister's awestruck expression. He loved teaching her about things.

The match flame eventually went out, the paraffin cube completely melted now. He waited a few seconds before cautiously dipping his fingers into the wax puddle and began spreading it on the boat.

"Can I do some?" Eri asked, and Deku pushed the bowl towards her gently.

The two of them sat in comfortable silence, coating the paper boat in warm wax. Eri grinned up at her brother proudly once they finished, mischievously wiping the excess wax onto his sweat-dampened T-shirt.

"Hey-" He laughed, coughing a little, and wiping some wax onto her forehead- "that's never gonna come out of my shirt."

She giggled more, wiping the paraffin off her round face with the back of her hand, before jumping up onto the bed and giving Deku a big hug.

"Don't- Don't do that, you'll get yourself sick." But he hugged her back anyway.

"Thank you for the boat."

"You're welcome." He hugged her again and ruffled her hair when she pulled away.

"I'm gonna go out and sail it."

"Yeah, you do that," Deku smiled. He suddenly looked tired- tired and still not very well.

"I wish you could come," Eri said glumly. She really did. Deku always had the coolest ideas. "It's your boat, really."

"She," Deku mumbled. "You call boats she."

"She, then."

"I wish I could come, too-" He was cut off by another fit of coughing, before lulling his head back onto his pillow and letting out a tired groan. "Ugh..."

"Well... " Eri shifted from one foot to the other, the boat in her small hands.

"Put on your rain-stuff," Deku advised softly, "or you'll wind up with the flu like me. Probably'll catch it anyway after that hug."

"I will... the boats really neat, Deku." And then, she did something she only ever did when she knew she wouldn't see her brother again for a while- something that would burn itself into Deku's mind for years to come (even if it only resided in his adult subconscious)- she kissed him on the cheek. "Thank you for making it for me."

"Now you're definitely going to get sick," Deku said, but he seemed cheered up all the same. He smiled at Eri. "Put all this stuff back, too. Or Mom'll have a bird."

"Sure." She gathered up the waterproofing equipment and crossed the room, the boat perched precariously on top of the paraffin box, which was sitting askew in the little bowl.

"Hey, Eri?"

Eri turned back to look at her brother.

It took a moment for Deku to get over his sudden sneezing fit, but he finally was able to choke out "Be careful."

"Sure." Her brow creased a little. That was something your mom said, not your big brother. It was as strange as her giving Deku a kiss on the cheek when she was only planning on being outside for an hour or two. "I will be."

Eri went out. Deku never saw her again.

—3—

Now here she was, chasing her boat down the left side of Shinrinyoku, snow-white hair flying out prettily behind her, red boots pounding against the pavement. She was running fast, but her boat was going faster, and she could hear the roar of the still-opened stormdrain sucking in water about fifty yards ahead. Eri saw with dismay that her boat was headed right for it.

"Oh no!" She cried out, pushing herself to run faster.

For a moment, she thought she would catch it, her fingers brushing the edge of the paper boat- but just as she was about to take hold, her feet slipped out from underneath her and she went sprawling, skinning one knee and crying out in pain. Through tear-filled eyes, she watched the boat get sucked into the drain after three or four swirls around a muddy whirlpool.

"Oh no..." she said again, whimpering a little at the pain in her leg. "What a silly way to lose a boat..."

She got up and walked over to the stormdrain. She dropped to her knees (hissing a little at the stinging sensation that flared across her knee) and peered in. The water made a dank hollow sound as it fell into the darkness. It was a spooky sound. It reminded Eri of- "Huh!" The sound was jerked out of her as if on a string, and she recoiled.

There were yellow eyes in there.

A shiver caused her entire body to tremor. She could hear her heart pounding in her ears and tears beginning to well in her eyes once more. They were the type of eyes she had always imagined appearing in the damp darkness of the cellar she hated so much.

She moved back a little, getting ready to run. Her chest heaved breaths in and out in shallow bursts, her eyes as wide as saucers. 'Run!' her brain screamed at her- She needed to run- she needed to get out of-

"Hiya, Eri." The owner of the eyes suddenly spoke- their voice was kind and pleasant.

Eri blinked and looked again. She could barely understand what she saw; it was like something from a made-up story or a movie where you know the animals will talk and dance. If she had been ten years older, she would not have believed what she was seeing, but she was not sixteen. She was six.

There was a clown in the stormdrain.

The light inside the drain was not good, but it was good enough for Toshinori Eri to know that she was looking at a clown. His face was white, and there were fluffy red tufts of hair on either side of his head, and there was a big clown-smile painted over his mouth. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she noted that it sort of reminded her of Ronald McDonald.

The clown held a multicolored bouquet of balloons in one hand.

In the other was Eri's boat.

"Want your boat, Eri?" The clown asked, smiling.

Eri smiled back in that somewhat shy way of hers- she couldn't help it, it was the kind of smile you just had to return. "Yes, please."

The clown laughed "Yes, Please"- how polite... very good, your parents have raised you to be a polite little girl, haven't they, Eri?..."

Eri nodded, a sense of pride growing in her chest from the praise.

"You should get a reward for being so polite... how about a balloon? Hm? Would a balloon be a good reward?"

Her eyes widened, her smile growing a little more. "Yes sir, they're very beautiful." She reached out a hand to grab one- but stopped, pulling it back. "But... I'm not supposed to take things from strangers, that's what my dad says."

"Very wise of your dad," the clown in the stormdrain said, smiling. 'How,' Eri wondered, 'could I have thought his eyes were yellow? They were a bright, emerald green,' the color of her mom's eyes, and Deku's. "Very wise indeed. Therefore I will introduce myself. I, Eri, am Mr. Bob Gray, also known as Pennywise the Dancing Clown. Pennywise, meet Toshinori Eri. Eri, meet Pennywise. And now we know each other. I'm not a stranger to you, and you're not a stranger to me. Right? Riiight Eri?"

Eri giggled. "I guess so, sir." She reached forward again... and drew her hand back again. Her eyes shining with sudden curiosity. "How did you get down there?"

"The storm just... up and bleeeeew me away." The clown, Pennywise the dancing clown, explained. "It blew the whole circus away, actually- can you smell the circus, Eri?"

Eri leaned forward, barely noticing that her jeans were now soaked in mucky rainwater or that the cut on her knee was burning worst then ever now, and to her surprise- she could! She could smell the circus! She could smell peanuts, cotton candy, popcorn, frying doughboys, and even the distant smell of the animals- however, underneath it all, she could still smell the flood, and the decomposing leaves, and the darkness- she could still smell the cellar.

But the smell of the circus was stronger, and all the instinctual alarm bells in her mind began to fade away into the background.

"I can." She smiled, eyes sparkling with wonder- she hadn't known it was possible for a while circus to blow into a gutter- she couldn't wait to tell Deku and her parents about it later.

"Want your boat, Eri?" Pennywise asked. "I only repeat myself because you really do not seem that eager." He held it up, smiling. He was wearing a baggy silk suit with great big orange buttons. A bright tie, electric-blue, flopped down his front, and on his hands were big white gloves, like the kind Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck always wore.

"I do." Eri nodded, looking into the stormdrain.

"And a balloon? I've got red, yellow, blue, pink..."

"Do they float?"

"Float?" The clown's grin widened. "They sure do, Eri! They float very well. They float! And there's cotton candy..."

Eri reached.

The clown seized her arm.

And Eri saw the clown's face change.

What she saw then was terrible enough to make her worst nightmares of the thing in the cellar look like sweet dreams; what she saw destroyed her sanity in one clawing stroke.

"They float," the thing in the drain crooned in a clotted, chuckling voice. It held Eri's arm in its thick and wormy grip, it pulled Eri toward that terrible darkness where the water rushed and roared and bellowed as it bore its cargo of storm debris toward the sea. Eri craned her neck away from that final blackness and began to scream into the rain, to scream mindlessly into the white December sky which curved above Irusu on December 15th of 2004. Her screams were shrill and piercing, and all up and down Shinrinyoku Street people scrambled outside to their yards or porches to find the source of that horrific wailing.

"They float," it growled, "they float, Eri, and when you're down here with me, you'll float, too-"

Eri's tiny shoulder socked against the cement of the curb and Shimano Yori, who had stayed home from his job at 'The Shoeboat' that day because of the flood, saw only a small girl who's white hair was now streaked brown with dirt, a small girl in a yellow rain-slicker, a small girl who was screaming and writhing in the gutter with muddy water surging over her face and making her screams sound bubbly.

"Everything down here floats," that chuckling, rotten voice whispered, and suddenly there was a wet ripping noise and a flaring sheet of agony, and Toshinori Eri's world went black and all her thoughts of panic and hope for her brother suddenly appearing and pulling her to safety ceased.

Shimano Yori was the first to get to her, after shoving his two small children back inside he arrived only forty-seconds after the initial screaming had stopped- but Toshinori Eri was already dead. Shimano grabbed her small body, and let out a horrific scream himself. The left side of Eri's yellow slicker was now a bright red, blood flowed in a heavy stream down the storm drain from a tattered hole where her left arm had once been- and a jagged knob of bone, horribly bright against the red of the blood, peaked through sickeningly.

The girl's eyes stared up wide and unblinking into the sky. Shimano staggered back towards the approaching group and begged someone to keep his children from coming outside as he pulled off his coat that would soon cover Eri's mutilated corpse as he carried it numbly up to the front door of the Midoriya residence.

But for now, Eri's lifeless eyes that dully reflected the white December sky above, were beginning to fill up with rain.