Are you afraid?

by AJVstories

Eddie Kaspbrak finds himself captured by Pennywise, the vicious clown, but captured with him also is Henry Bowers. Over this desperate and terrifying time, the only comfort Eddie can find is by his school bully. Throughout this story Richie struggles with not knowing where his best friend is. Will Eddie get out before the clown does something horrible?

It was a chili Tuesday afternoon on the day Eddie Kaspbrak would find himself in the arms of the viscous clown who found great pleasure in terrorizing the children of Derry. Eddie was a nice boy. He always kept to himself and never dared to challenge any of his school bullies. He was a very clean and conducted boy. He nearly always had his hair gently combed and his clothing always looked fresh and clean. That's how he liked it.

Along with being accountable and well taken care of, Eddie was very small, sometimes to his disadvantage. He was the smallest amongst his tight group of friends, making him an easy target for any misdeeds. Eddie was so fragile, as his mother liked to say, and this way of thinking really did make him feel helpless and cowardly. He felt like he was futile, and his mother certainly contributed to this notion. She would constantly remind him of how dangerous the world was, and how delicate and tenuous he was. She would take him to the doctors almost every single week and would be sure that he takes every single one of his pills on the daily. She wouldn't allow him to do the things that normal kids would do, like running in the woods, swimming in the creek, and wrestling around with friends.

Eddie never really thought about his mother's arbitrary ways. He always thought to assume she was truly just trying to protect him. Something in his head always told him not to question his mother's methods. He always felt guilty when he did. She was just scared, and she just wanted him to be safe. Why would Eddie even question that. Why would he even feel the slightest bit sorry for himself when his mother would say no to letting him go out with his friends. She's just trying to be a good mother after all. This is what Eddie thought, but of the recent, he found out his mother was just faking his sickness to get the attention from others. This condition is called Munchausen syndrome by proxy, and unfortunately enough, it resides within Eddie's mother. Ever since he found out about his mother's illness, Eddie has been reluctant to follow the rules as thoroughly as his mother likes. She's been lying to him. She's been making him feel like he was so fragile. Eddie had believed it too. He truly believed he wasn't like normal kids in reference to all his sicknesses and conditions. Eddie had felt slightly degraded in a sense and he quite frankly couldn't get himself to forgive his mother.

Eddie's life was upside down and backwards but all he knew he was sure of was that his friends had his back. Eddie's friends were always there for him when he needed to get away from his house. They were always there for him when he was having an asthma attack. They were always there for him when Henry Bowers and his gang were picking on him. They were always there for him. And Eddie could appreciate that deeply. Eddie, Richie, Bill, and Stanley would always get into deep talks at the park. Eddie loved how he could tell his friends absolutely anything and they were never quick to judge him like some of the other kids at school. They wouldn't make mean comments about his mother, besides the odd jokes from Richie. Eddie loved how he found a group of friends who actually loved and cared for him.

Eddie was never afraid or upset when he was with his friends. The only people that made him truly scared was Henry Bowers and his gang and Pennywise. The awful clown hasn't been seen around the town recently, so Eddie was relieved for that reason. But he still had to deal with Henry every single day. Henry liked to pick on Eddie and his friends. He found some sort of enjoyment in seeing them struggle, which Eddie thought was very sick and unnerving. But Eddie knew that there had to be something going on at home for him to be such a cruel and scary person. People aren't just born brutal and angry. Whether or not there was or wasn't something going on at him, Eddie was still afraid of Henry profoundly. Henry would always push him around and call him names, and once he even used his knife to carve an "H" on his friend, Ben's stomach. Eddie wasn't necessarily afraid of how violent Henry was, he was afraid of how inconsistent and unpredictable he was.

As for the clown, Eddie was extremely terrified. Kids go missing so often in Derry, and the clown is certainly the main reason for this. Eddie would often find himself overthinking about the chance that one of his friends may one day go missing too. Eddie wouldn't know what to do if Richie or Bill went missing. He would be devastated. He was so terrified that one day he'd wake up to a phone call saying one of his dearly loved friends was missing. He wouldn't know how to live without them. His friends were his family. His friends treated Eddie better than his own mother did. Eddie thought about it often, he thought about how he wished his mother would treat him with the same kind of respect that his friends did, but he figured it was just the way she was and he couldn't change that. All Eddie knew was that his friends were his family, and losing them wasn't an option for him. He was terrified of the clown taking his friends, but little did he know what was lying ahead in the future for him.