Chapter 1 : Movie night
Many Weeks Later
Mornings in Derry felt unreal—too gentle, too bright, too carefully arranged for a town that carried the quiet stench of something rotten beneath its smiling surface.
Derry Junior High stirred awake in slow motion. Laughter echoed across the yard, careless and light, students drifting in loose clusters with backpacks slung low, voices overlapping in meaningless chatter. From a distance, it looked normal. Almost warm.
Ali Smith stepped out of her mother’s car without saying a word. The door closed softly behind her, the sound swallowed by the noise of the crowd. She adjusted the strap of her bag and headed toward the building, eyes fixed straight ahead, pretending the familiar tightness in her chest wasn’t there.
She failed.
Against her better judgment, she glanced back.
Mary Smith was kneeling beside Astra, her arms wrapped around the little girl in a gentle embrace. She smiled as she spoke, brushing a strand of hair from her daughter’s face, laughing at something only the two of them seemed to understand.
It was small. Ordinary.
And it hurt more than it should have.
Ali turned away at once, telling herself it didn’t matter. Telling herself she was just eager to get to class.
After weeks in Derry, she had reached one conclusion she could no longer ignore:
Something was wrong with this town.
Not in any obvious way. No crumbling buildings, no visible chaos. Just… people. The way they looked at things. The way they didn’t look at things. Crimes came and went like background noise—rape, robbery, murder, kidnapping—yet nothing ever seemed to truly shake anyone. The police were the worst of it. Indifferent, selective, disturbingly calm.
Three weeks ago, a three-year-old boy from their neighborhood had vanished.
His family begged. They cried on the local news. The police promised they were “doing everything they could.”
Nothing happened.
No clues.
No updates.
No body.
Then, days later, a dark-skinned man accidentally injured someone.
He was arrested within the hour.
How convenient.
Every morning, the radio praised the Derry police as heroes. Ali only heard grown-up bullies hiding behind badges and rehearsed speeches.
School wasn’t any better.
The students were cruel. Violence was casual. The weak were beaten down like it was tradition, and the teachers—well, most of them didn’t even pretend to care. Bullying had become as natural as breathing.
At first, she had been targeted for being new.
Whispers. Shoves. Notes slipped into her locker.
Then, strangely, things changed.
One afternoon, she was invited to sit with one of the popular groups—the Pattycakes. Patricia had smiled at her, warm and effortless, and waved her over like they’d been friends for years. The unspoken promise was clear: protection. Especially from the Bowers brothers.
When Ali stepped into the schoolyard, she caught Patricia’s eye, the girl gave her a friendly grin and motioned for her to come over.
For the first time in a long while, Ali felt safe.
Her sister, however, existed on a completely different plane of reality.
Ali spotted Astra near the edge of the yard, skipping along the pavement, humming softly to herself. On her right hand sat the rabbit puppet, perched like it had always belonged there.
Bon Bon.
The thing never left her.
No matter how many times Ali tried to persuade her otherwise, the puppet stayed. Its head tilted slightly, its mouth opening and closing in quiet, animated rhythm, as if whispering jokes meant for one audience only.
Astra listened, smiling faintly.
Then the Bowers gang approached.
Ali saw them before her sister did. Or maybe Astra saw them and simply didn’t care.
She didn’t move.
She didn’t shout.
She didn’t run.
Bullies always went for the easiest targets. Small. Quiet. Strange. A little girl talking to a puppet might as well have been an invitation.
But that had never mattered.
Because—
The girl calmly lifted her hand and began counting on her fingers.
Three.
Two.
One.
Ali flinched as Andy Bowers let out a shrill, pig-like scream that sliced straight through the air.
She looked.
The gang was no longer standing.
Bodies lay scattered across the concrete, confidence replaced with shaking limbs and broken postures. Someone was sobbing. Someone else couldn’t even scream anymore. Andy’s arm twisted at a wrong angle, his face so swollen it barely resembled itself. His younger brother had collapsed entirely, clutching his leg, rocking back and forth in silent panic.
And Astra—
She kept walking.
Not a pause. Not a glance.
The girl's rabbit toy’s glassy eyes lingered on the fallen boys, its mouth twitching as if suppressing laughter.
Ali didn’t panic anymore when bullies targeted her sister. That part had faded with time. No matter where they went, no one ever truly managed to hurt her.
What haunted her was something else.
No adult ever reacted.
Not properly.
No matter how badly someone was injured, the blame never fell on that small figure with the puppet. Parents apologized—to her. Teachers dismissed it as accidents. The victims were scolded instead, told to behave, told to stop provoking.
It made no sense.
And since coming to Derry, Ali had begun to feel it more and more clearly.
This place.
This darkness.
This suffocating, unnatural calm.
It didn’t reject Astra.
It welcomed her.
Like the town itself understood her in ways no one else ever could.
And somehow, that frightened Ali more than any monsters ever could.
____
Sitting in Ms. Douglas’s class felt like watching time drag itself forward on its knees.
Astra slouched in her chair, one elbow resting lazily against the desk, her gaze drifting toward the window while the teacher’s voice blurred into meaningless static. Whatever Ms. Douglas was talking about might as well have been another language.
Beside her, her partner had decided that silence was a crime against humanity.
Bon Bon animatedly reenacted the entire fight with the Bowers brothers, exaggerating every scream, every stumble, every pathetic attempt at running away. He mimicked their faces with theatrical precision, switching voices mid-sentence, clearly enjoying himself far too much for someone who hadn’t even been the one throwing the punches.
If anyone didn’t know better, they would’ve thought he was the one who’d sent them to the hospital.
Just thinking about those two made her scoff. Their confidence had always been a joke. Loud, ugly, and fragile.
This wasn’t even the first time they had tried something since she transferred here. For reasons she still didn’t understand, they kept provoking her—despite losing every single time. And the outcome never changed. She walked away without a scratch. They ended up bruised, humiliated, and escorted off by adults with tired faces and disappointed voices.
Somehow, it always felt like the world itself leaned in her direction.
No matter how hard she hit back. No matter how badly she crushed them. The teachers, the staff, the principal—everyone always sided with her. She never got punished.
Not once.
But honestly, none of that really mattered anymore.
Lately, her thoughts had been occupied by things far more unsettling.
Every night, when she lay in bed, she felt it.
That unmistakable sensation of being watched.
As if something stood just outside her vision, just beyond the dark, staring at her through the shadows. It made her skin prickle—not in fear, but in irritation. Worse than that was the smell.
Cotton candy.
Popcorn.
Artificial sweetness, thick in the air like a carnival that refused to leave. It appeared every night and vanished by morning, leaving no trace behind. She was convinced someone was following her.
She just didn’t understand why her stalker smelled like a circus.
And then there was the other feeling.
The one that had haunted her ever since moving to this town.
A deep, restless urge.
Not to run.
Not to hide.
To hunt.
Along with it came a hunger that made no sense. She had always been able to eat far more than any normal person—enough for ten adults in one sitting. But now even that wasn’t enough. The craving kept growing, day by day, as if her body itself was demanding something more.
Right now, that hunger was gnawing at her.
She placed a hand over her stomach and felt it twist, as though something alive were shifting beneath her skin. It didn’t feel like pain. It felt like a demand.
Food.
Real food.
Meat. Roast meat. Fried meat. Meat drowned in sauce.
Or worse.
The thought sent a strange chill crawling up her spine—not fear, just something cold and curious. Her jaw tightened. Her fingers dug into the edge of the desk until the wood let out a faint, stressed creak.
She hadn’t told her mother.
She didn’t want to.
Mary already seemed tense these days. Always checking the windows. Always locking the doors twice. Astra suspected it had something to do with the neighbors. Ever since they moved here, those people had acted… wrong. Their smiles lingered too long. Their eyes followed her for too long.
Her mother had forbidden her from talking to them.
Whenever she asked why, the answer was always the same—an awkward pause, then a sudden change of subject. And somehow, that made everything feel worse.
Bored with the view outside, her attention drifted back to the classroom. Row by row, desk by desk—until it landed on the small boy in the front.
What was his name again?
Macy? Kati? Barry?
Right.
Matty.
She only remembered because of the pacifier he always carried around. Even now, he was gripping it tightly in one hand like it was the only solid thing in his life.
At the moment, Alvin Marsh was leaning forward from the seat behind him, whispering something cruel into his ear. Normally this was the Bowers brothers’ job, but since they were currently busy recovering in hospital beds, someone else had decided to take over.
Poor kid.
Not that she cared much.
He was an easy target. Always had been. Kind, quiet, and cursed with the kind of life that practically invited misery. She’d passed his house more than once while wandering around town. A drunk father who treated violence like a daily routine. A mother who barely reacted to the bruises on her own son’s skin.
Every time Astra walked past that place with her own mother, Mary would tighten her grip on her youngest hand and hurry her along—sometimes even picking her up, as if they were walking past something infectious.
She had considered helping him once.
Then she decided it wasn’t worth the effort.
Kids like him always latched on. Forever grateful. Forever dependent. Just like he had with her sister on the first day of school—following Ali around like a lost puppy until she joined that strange group of talking dolls.
Only then did Matty finally stop.
And honestly?
She had no interest in becoming anyone’s savior.
Apparently, her rabbit agreed.
Bon Bon went quiet the moment he noticed where her attention had gone. His eyes followed her gaze, then something mischievous flickered across his face.
Without asking, he slipped his hand into her bag and pulled out the rock she had packed that morning—for “something fun” later.
He didn’t hesitate.
With perfect aim, he hurled it at the back of Alvin Marsh’s head. A dull crack echoed through the classroom.
The boy cried out, clutching his scalp as every head turned.
“Miss Douglas! Smith threw a rock at me!” he shouted, instantly pointing at her, completely convinced.
The teacher examined the wound with bored efficiency before shifting her gaze toward Astra—who looked perfectly innocent, aside from the way her left hand was tightly clamped over her partner’s mouth, desperately trying to muffle his laughter.
Ignoring the strange detail, Ms. Douglas spoke in her usual cold, mechanical tone.
“Mister Marsh. Falsely accusing a classmate is a serious offense. Go to the principal’s office immediately.”
And just like that, the world bent again.
Astra hummed softly as she struggled to keep Bon Bon quiet, his shoulders shaking with silent laughter against her arm.
She didn’t notice the small, hesitant look of gratitude aimed at her from the front row.
Not that she would’ve cared if she did.
____
The school bell rang sharply, slicing through the air and echoing along the corridors.
In an instant, the classroom exploded into motion—desks scraped, chairs shrieked against the floor, and voices tangled together in a chaotic rush toward freedom.
Astra moved more slowly than the others.
She calmly slipped her books and supplies into her fluffy, rabbit-themed blue backpack—the one with the long, dangling ears her mother had custom-made for her. It was bigger than most schoolbags, reinforced and sturdy, built to carry far more than just notebooks.
On her right hand, Bon Bon was already busy.
“Large fishing net.”
Taken from an old man’s house near the river.
Astra glanced down.
“Checked.”
“Axe.”
Borrowed from her father’s tool shed, carefully wrapped in layers of cloth.
“Checked.”
“Spray to mask smell.”
An earthy-scented bottle they had “borrowed” from a hunter who had gone a little strange after some incident with a criminal.
“Checked.”
“Rope.”
Taken from the neighbor’s house. The same one where someone had died last week.
“Checked.”
“Blood bag.”
Astra paused.
“…Checked—wait.”
She stopped and looked at him.
“Where did you get this?”
They had been together the whole time. There hadn’t been a single moment where he could’ve wandered off.
The bag wasn’t even full. Through the cloudy plastic, dark liquid sloshed lazily inside, mixed with uneven shapes that looked… wrong. Like something collected in a hurry.
Bon Bon tilted his head, thinking.
“Found it,” he said cheerfully.
Astra stared at it for another second, then shrugged and zipped her backpack shut.
“…You’re really bad at explaining things, you know that?”
Bon Bon giggled.
“Details ruin the fun.”
A timid voice broke in behind them.
“U-Um… Astra?”
They both stopped.
The duo turned to see Matty standing a few steps away, gripping the strap of his bag like it might keep him from falling apart. He’d clearly been waiting for the right moment to approach.
Bon Bon spoke first.
“What do you want, brat?”
Matty flinched, then forced himself to speak.
“I just… wanted to thank you. For earlier. In Ms. Douglas’s class.”
His eyes flicked nervously between the girl and the rabbit on her hand.
“When you helped me with Marsh—"
“Don’t think of it like that.”
Her voice cut straight through him.
It wasn’t the lazy tone she used with her sister, or the playful one she used with Bon Bon. This was flat. Empty. Almost bored.
“I didn’t help you,” she said calmly. “That rock was thrown by him.” She lifted her hand slightly. Bon Bon stuck out his tongue at Matty.
“And he only did it because he wanted to hurt Marsh.”
Matty froze.
“I didn’t care what happened to you,” she continued.
“So you don’t need to thank me. You were never the point. I can’t believe you thought I saved you.”
Her voice shifted, just a little—now laced with mockery.
His mouth opened, but no sound came out.
She stepped closer, close enough that he had to look up at her.
“You really think someone like me would go out of my way to help you?", she asked softly.
“That’s adorable.”
Then she walked past him.
“I never thought you were even worthy of my attention,” she added, “let alone the idea of saving you.”
“In fact,” she said without turning around,“I think you’re kind of pathetic.”
His breath hitched.
“Getting bullied for that long and still doing nothing about it,” she went on.
“That’s not being kind. That’s just being weak.”
Bon Bon slowly turned his head toward Matty.
He smiled.
“Yeah,” he said brightly.
“All that crying. All that hoping someone will come save you…”
He leaned closer, lowering his voice into a playful whisper.
“…and nobody ever does.”
Astra stopped at the doorway.
“If I were you,” she said coldly,"I would’ve left this town a long time ago. Or at least learned how to disappear.”
“I-I can’t,” Matty stammered.“My family, they’ll—”
“Will what?” she interrupted.
“You don’t have a family, Matty.”
She wasn’t guessing. She was stating a fact—something almost everyone who had ever seen his family already knew.
He stiffened.
“Your father drinks and treats you like a punching bag,” she said lightly, almost amused.
“Your mother’s too busy gambling and getting high to remember you exist. Even when she’s sober, she still pretends you’re not there.
She turned just enough for him to see her smile.
“The truth is, you have no one waiting for you. No one who would notice if you disappeared.”
Then she walked out.
Bon Bon twisted around on her hand and called after him, his voice dripping with cheer.
“Don’t worry! People like you don’t get better endings anyway!”
They laughed as they left the classroom, their voices echoing down the hall.
“Bye-bye, baby boy!” the rabbit added, sweet and cruel at the same time.
Matty stood alone, staring at the empty space where they had been.
Their laughter faded into nothing, but he still didn’t move.
Only when the silence became unbearable did he realize his hands were shaking.
A single tear slipped down and hit the floor.
He wiped at his face, but more followed.
And somewhere beneath the pain, beneath the humiliation and the fear, something began to take shape inside him—quiet, desperate, and dangerous.
An idea.
An idea about escape.
An idea about finally being free of this horrible place.
______
Rushing out of the building, Astra headed straight for the sidewalk where her older sister was waiting.
Right beside a dimly glowing lamppost, Ali leaned against the cold metal, headphones on, completely absorbed in whatever song was playing—cut off from the rest of the world, as usual.
The moment she noticed the smaller figure approaching, she slid one earcup aside and frowned.
“What took you so long?”
Astra shrugged, her voice lazy, bored, like nothing in the world could ever truly interest her.
“Got stuck with a small problem on the way.”
From her right hand, Bon Bon let out a crackling little laugh.
“Yeah. A teeny-tiny baby problem.”
Ali blinked, glancing between the two of them, clearly missing every layer of meaning.“…I’m just going to pretend I understand that so I don’t feel stupid.”
Before Astra could respond, the familiar sound of their mother’s car rolled up beside the sidewalk. The engine hadn’t even fully died before the driver’s door swung open and Mary Smith was already striding toward her youngest.
“My baby!”
She scooped Astra up without a second of hesitation.
A storm of kisses immediately followed, landing all over the girl’s face. Astra struggled, her expression twisting into pure, genuine horror—but it was completely useless. Bon Bon, ever the little menace, leaned forward and exaggerated every sound with loud, dramatic smacking noises.
“Mwah! Mwah! MWAH! Ohhh nooo, she’s being devoured alive!”
“Did you miss Mommy? Mommy missed you so much,” Mary cooed, each sentence punctuated by another kiss.
Astra felt like she was being smothered to death by affection.
She shot a desperate look toward her sister for help—only to watch Ali calmly open the car door and climb into the back seat, pretending very hard not to see anything at all.
Traitor.
After a long, hopeless battle powered entirely by overwhelming maternal love, Astra was finally released and placed back on the ground. The moment her feet touched the pavement, she turned around and pinched Ali’s arm hard.
“Why didn’t you help me?!”
Ali yelped and rubbed the sore spot.
“Do you honestly think I’m strong enough to stop Mom?”
Astra didn’t reply. Instead, her eyes drifted over her sister’s arms—thin, soft, almost fragile—then to their mother’s, firm and solid in comparison.
And just like that, a memory surfaced.
Back when they still lived in the old house. When Astra was five.
She had been sitting on the couch, watching cartoons. Her parents were arguing in the next room. The voices grew louder. Sharper. Meaner.
Then suddenly—
Her mother punched the wall.
Not lightly.
The sound had been loud, dull, final. A crack spread across the surface like a spiderweb.
And right after that, as if nothing had happened, Mary picked her up and took her to the amusement park.
The cracked spot was later covered with a framed photo of Astra as a baby. A decoration born from anger.
From that day on, their father never dared to provoke her again.
Neither did the two daughters.
So why had she even expected help?
Beside her, Bon Bon let out a short, amused snort.
“Hah. Weak.”
Astra wanted to argue. She wanted to tell him not to talk about her sister like that.
But the words never came.
Because, unfortunately, he wasn’t wrong.
Ali really was weak. Fragile. Like that useless Matty—just slightly better, only because she was family. And because she loved her sister, Astra simply ignored those flaws.
Even if Ali couldn’t protect herself, Astra could protect her.
That was enough.
A small paw nudged her wrist, snapping her back to the present.
Bon Bon tilted his head.
“Earth to psycho child. You went full documentary mode again.”
She exhaled slowly and looked toward the front seat.
“Mom,” Astra asked calmly, as if none of that had crossed her mind at all, “are we still going to the movies tonight?”
The question caught Ali’s attention. She leaned forward from the back seat.
“Huh? Where are we going?”
Her genuine curiosity made the rabbit snort.
“We’re going to sell you off, obviously,” Bon Bon said, his voice sharp with mockery, laughter distorted and gleeful. “Premium condition. Slightly used. No refunds.”
Astra immediately tapped him on the head.
“Ow—hey! That’s abuse!” he protested dramatically.
She sighed and glanced at her sister.
“Mom said she’s taking us to the movies. The Music Man or something. Right, Mom?”
“Yes, darling,” their mother replied sweetly.
Astra didn’t notice the faint trace of disappointment hidden behind her smile. Mary had only planned to go alone with her youngest.
But the white rabbit noticed.
And he found it absolutely hilarious.
Ali’s eyes lit up. It had been a long time since she’d gone out with their mother like this.
“Oh… that sounds nice.”
Her voice was soft, filled with simple, honest excitement.
Bon Bon leaned back against Astra’s arm, grinning.
“Yeah. For her.”
The girl didn’t deny it.
The youngest had no idea what was really going on between her sister and their mother. She only knew one thing for sure:
She and Bon Bon had no intention of actually watching any movie tonight.
They had something else to do.
And it just happened to take place at the theater.
_______
After a lavish dinner their father had prepared, the Smith sisters were driven by their mother to the town’s only movie theater.
The building stood alone at the edge of the main street, its flickering neon sign buzzing weakly against the darkening sky. While Mary stepped up to the ticket booth, Astra lingered near the entrance, her eyes wandering with bored curiosity—until they suddenly locked onto a familiar silhouette near the emergency exit.
She tugged sharply on Ali’s sleeve and pointed.
“Sis… isn’t that your old best friend?”
Ali had been staring dreamily at the movie posters, her excitement barely contained. It had been a long time since her mother had taken her to the movies; usually, it was just Astra who got that privilege. Tonight felt special, even if she had to share it.
Following Astra’s finger, Ali saw him.
Matty.
He stood half-hidden in the shadows near the side door, small and thin as ever, clutching the straps of his backpack like a lifeline. He looked exactly like someone planning to sneak in—nervous, hesitant, glancing around as if the walls themselves might betray him.
Ali froze.
She didn’t call out. Didn’t wave. She simply met his eyes.
For a brief moment, the world seemed to narrow into that silent connection. Matty’s expression flickered—surprise, then something softer, more fragile—before he quickly turned away, pretending to be deeply invested in a nearby poster.
“Wow,” Bon Bon chimed in, his voice dripping with mock delight, “You don’t wanna hug and kiss your ex-bestie? How tragic. Should I play sad music?”
Ali said nothing.
The rabbit’s grin widened at her silence, knowing full well it was getting under her skin. Explaining would only give him ammunition, and losing her temper would entertain him even more. So she simply clenched her jaw and kept staring at the posters, pretending her heart wasn’t hammering against her ribs.
Behind her, she heard Astra adjust the puppet on her hand.
“Don’t be stupid,” Astra said casually. “Ali could never like someone that weak.”
Her tone sounded defensive at first—but there was a sharp edge to it, playful and cruel at the same time, like a child poking at a bruise just to see what would happen.
Bon Bon giggled.
“Ooooh, roasted. Should I write that on his tombstone now or later?”
Ali’s fingers curled into fists.
She and Matty might not be close anymore, but hearing him reduced to a joke—especially by them—still hurt more than she wanted to admit.
A moment later, Mary returned, smiling brightly, holding three tickets.
Without hesitation, she scooped Astra up into her arms like she weighed nothing at all, pressing a kiss to her cheek before handing the tickets to Ali without even looking at her.
“Alright, here we go,” Mary said warmly. “Let’s get popcorn and drinks.”
Astra squealed with delight.
“I want the biggest popcorn they have!”
Bon Bon bounced slightly on her hand.
“And I want a soda so big I can drown in it!”
Mary laughed softly, indulgent, nodding at everything Astra said as they walked inside.
“Of course, sweetheart. Whatever you want.”
Ali trailed behind them.
She glanced back at the spot near the exit.
Matty was gone.
Maybe he had slipped inside.
Maybe he had given up and gone home.
She didn’t know which possibility felt worse.
There was a strange pressure in her chest, a quiet sense of urgency she couldn’t explain. A feeling that if she didn’t talk to him tonight—just once—she never would again.
And the worst part?
She didn’t know whether she was more afraid of reaching out…
Or of never trying at all.
____
To be honest, Astra had no idea what she was even watching.
She had grown up on cartoons—loud, flashy ones full of explosions and monsters, where people barely talked and never burst into song for no reason. This, however, was a live-action movie. Real people. Real faces. And suddenly, one of them would start singing, right in the middle of a normal conversation, as if that were the most natural thing in the world.
Didn’t they feel awkward? Astra wondered. If someone she was talking to just randomly started singing, wouldn’t that be embarrassing? Or creepy? And why did everyone else just… accept it? Sometimes the characters weren’t even singing to anyone, just singing near them, walking down the street while strangers joined in like some kind of collective insanity.
She shifted in her seat and glanced sideways.
Ali was completely absorbed, eyes glued to the screen, barely blinking. Their mother, Mary Smith, on the other hand, had already given up. At first, she’d been feeding Astra popcorn and soda like she always did, attentive to every small movement her youngest made. But after Astra lost interest and pushed the popcorn away, Mary had quietly taken out a book and started reading instead.
Of the three of them, only Ali was truly watching the movie.
If Astra hadn’t followed Bon Bon’s advice and kept an eye on Matty from the very beginning, she never would have come here in the first place. Watching a musical was already irritating enough. But knowing that weak, pathetic little loser was sitting just a few rows behind them made it ten times worse.
The faint, wet squeaking sound of Matty sucking on his pacifier echoed every now and then.
Astra’s eye twitched.
Honestly, what kind of disgusting movie-watching etiquette was that?
She slowly turned her head toward Bon Bon, who sat snugly on her right hand, his white body limp and innocent-looking, his glassy eyes fixed on the screen. His mouth curved in its usual permanent grin.
“I’m going to rip that thing out of his mouth,” Astra muttered under her breath.
Bon Bon tilted his head slightly, as if considering it. Then he nudged her arm with his soft paw.
“Pssst. Kid.”
Astra looked at him.
Bon Bon subtly gestured behind them with his chin.
“It’s starting.”
Right on cue, a hushed but clearly irritated voice cut through the theater.
“Psst. Kid, get over here.”
Astra’s lips twitched.
It was one of the theater employees, trying—and failing—to sound calm.
“It seems you’ve snuck in without a ticket,” the man whispered sharply. “Come on. Don’t make a scene.”
From the back rows came frantic rustling, followed by Matty’s hurried movements as he scrambled out of his seat.
“Kid, get over here. Now.”
Matty didn’t respond. Instead, he bolted.
His footsteps slapped against the carpet as he ran out of the screening room, the employee chasing after him, his whispering completely abandoned.
“Hey! Get back here!”
That was the signal.
Astra immediately turned to her mother, who hadn’t even looked up from her book yet.
“Mom,” Astra said sweetly, “can I go to the bathroom?”
Mary lifted her head at once, concern softening her features.
“Do you want me to go with you, my dear?”
Astra forced herself not to grimace. Of course she asked. She always asked.
“No, it’s okay,” Astra replied quickly. “Bon Bon’s with me.”
She raised her right hand as if that settled everything.
Bon Bon nodded enthusiastically.
Mary hesitated for a moment, then smiled. “Alright. Don’t take too long.”
Astra slid out of her seat before her mother could change her mind.
The moment they were in the hallway, her expression shifted from bored child to focused predator.
They moved quietly, blending in with the dim lighting and the hum of other moviegoers. Near the exit, Astra spotted him.
Matty was crouched behind a cardboard cutout of some smiling movie character, his bag slung over his shoulder, breathing hard. Not far from him stood a different employee—a middle-aged man—and his daughter.
Astra immediately noticed the way Matty and the girl locked eyes.
Just for a second.
A silent exchange. A thank you. A promise kept.
Then the girl turned away, rejoining her father as if nothing had happened.
“Music Man, directed by?” the man asked casually as they walked.
“Morton DaCosta,” the girl replied without hesitation.
“Hm.” He chuckled, clearly impressed. “First film? Your nana’s favorite.”
“Auntie Mame.”
“Ooh! That’s my girl.”
Astra didn’t care about them at all.
Her attention was entirely on Matty, who had already started moving toward the exit, trying to look casual while failing miserably.
“So dramatic,” Bon Bon whispered. “He didn’t even bow.”
Before Astra could respond, a furious shout echoed behind them.
“HEY!”
The other employee—the one who had chased Matty earlier—had finally realized he’d been tricked.
Matty’s fake calm shattered instantly. He broke into a full sprint, bursting through the doors and out into the night.
The employee ran after him, but it was useless. Matty was fast. Desperate people always were.
“Next time, I’m calling the police!” the man yelled, out of breath.
Astra and Bon Bon slipped past the chaos unnoticed, their footsteps light, their expressions bright.
Bon Bon giggled softly.
“Wow. That was easier than stealing candy from a coma patient.”
Astra smiled, eyes gleaming.
“See? Told you he’d run.”
They followed Matty into the darkness.
After all, the bait had worked perfectly.
____
Has anyone ever wished they had never been born?
Matty certainly had.
He had been unlucky since the day he came into the world—born in what he believed was the worst town in America: Derry. In his family, his existence felt less like a blessing and more like a running joke. At school, things weren’t any better. He was bullied relentlessly, mocked for the pacifier he sucked on whenever his anxiety became too much to bear.
He had only a few friends, and even they drifted away when it became inconvenient to stand beside him. They hadn’t shown up for his birthday last month. If not for his mother’s sudden, almost suspicious burst of affection—bribing a handful of kids with candy to attend—he would have spent the day alone.
Last week, on the final night of the year, as midnight approached and fireworks prepared to bloom across the sky, Matty made what he thought would be a brave decision. He invited his crush to the old abandoned tower where he and his friends usually hung out. As the countdown reached zero and the sky exploded with color, he leaned in to kiss her.
She stopped him gently.
Not cruelly. Not mockingly. Just kindly.
“I only see you as a friend,” she told him.
Still, the humiliation burned.
The next morning at school, in Mrs. Douglas’s class, the bullying continued. Alvin Marsh had switched seats with Andy Bowers to sit directly behind him, taking advantage of the Bowers brothers’ absence—they had been sent to the hospital that day, leaving Marsh free to torment him alone.
Then something strange happened. His former friend’s sister—whom he had secretly hoped might still care—threw a rock that struck Alvin in the head. For a brief moment, Matty thought she had defended him.
But after school, when he tried to thank her, she laughed.
It wasn’t her, she said. It was her toy.
She had only wanted to hurt someone. Anyone.
That laughter planted an idea in his mind.
He would leave Derry.
He would escape his father’s beatings, his mother’s indifference, the whispers and the laughter. He didn’t know where he would go. Anywhere had to be better than here.
Before leaving for good, Matty decided to reward himself one last time by sneaking into the town’s only movie theater to watch The Music Man.
He didn’t expect to see Ali there. They used to be inseparable, before she joined the Pattycakes and their social worlds split apart. A loser like him couldn’t drag someone like her down. He understood why she distanced herself.
Seeing her one last time felt like a quiet goodbye.
Unfortunately, he didn’t even make it halfway through the film. The theater staff recognized him—he had a reputation for sneaking in without a ticket. The moment they called out his name, he bolted. Down the aisle. Through the lobby. Out into the cold night air.
They weren’t fast enough.
Breathless and desperate, Matty made the decision that would become the worst mistake of his life.
He hitched a ride.
At first, the family seemed normal—almost kind. Their clothes looked oddly old-fashioned, but their smiles were warm. The father and mother appeared attentive. A boy around Matty’s age practiced spelling words aloud. A girl teased her little brother in that harmless way siblings do.
It almost felt peaceful.
Until it didn’t.
The conversation in the car slowly twisted into something unnatural. The parents began saying things that made no sense. The older daughter suggested strange, unsettling words for the boy to spell. He obeyed. Then he began spelling out the very words Matty spoke, as though mocking him—echoing him.
“Let me out!” Matty begged for what felt like the tenth time.
“Out. Out. Out.” The family chanted in unison, their voices hollow and rhythmic.
“OUT. OUT. OUT.”
The sound was everywhere.
Then came another sound—wet, squelching, tearing.
The pregnant mother was screaming. But not in fear. In something like delight.
Was she in labor?
“OUT! OUT! OUT!”
Matty pressed his pacifier into his mouth, sucking desperately to calm his racing heart.
A heavy thump landed on the roof of the car.
“You little crybaby.”
The voice was familiar—Astra’s voice. Or rather, the voice of her puppet, Bon Bon.
Matty looked up. The rabbit puppet hung over the window, attached to Astra’s arm. An axe blade pierced through the roof with a violent metallic shriek. Once. Twice. Again.
The chanting continued. The tearing flesh grew louder.
Then—a growl.
Not a baby’s cry.
A growl.
The mother cooed lovingly. “He’s beautiful, dear.”
“Isn’t he, though?”
With a final crash, a large section of the roof was ripped away. Astra stood above them, rope tied around her waist, axe in hand, her puppet still strapped to her right arm. Blood streaked her clothes.
She scanned the car.
“Which one?” she asked softly.
“Over there, Asty,” Bon Bon replied, pointing.
Matty followed their gaze.
The creature crawling toward him was no baby. It was slick and misshapen, with webbed limbs like bat wings and something like a second head bulging from its shoulder. It snarled as it moved.
“Please,” Matty whispered to Astra. “Help me. I want to go home.”
She ignored him.
Throwing aside the axe, she pulled out a large fishing net and lunged into the car. But the creature darted away with unnatural speed, wings snapping open as it leapt into the shadows of the vehicle’s interior. Astra crashed into the mother’s torn body, blood splattering across her and her puppet.
“Where is it?” she muttered.
The car swerved wildly.
The growling echoed from everywhere and nowhere.
Matty sucked harder on his pacifier, trembling. He felt it before he saw it—a hot breath against his ear.
Astra rose slowly from the wreckage, her face streaked red. She and Bon Bon were staring at something beside him.
“There it is.”
Pain exploded across his skull as his head was slammed against the window. Glass shattered. His pacifier flew from his mouth and disappeared into the night. Then came the biting—sharp, relentless, countless teeth tearing into him.
In that moment, Matty understood.
He would never leave Derry.
But he would never suffer there again either.
As his vision darkened and the world slipped away, his thoughts drifted—not to the horror, not to the pain.
He thought of Teddy.
Of Phil.
Of Lily.
Of Ali.
He would never see them again.
And then there was nothing.
_____
“Why weren’t you watching your sister? You cared more about that movie than about her. And now she’s gone. Are you happy now?”
The words had been thrown at her so many times in the last twenty minutes that they’d started to lose shape, blurring into a dull ache behind her eyes.
They had searched every inch of the theater—each aisle between the worn velvet seats, the sticky lobby floor, even the narrow hallway that led to the restrooms. The lights had come on, the credits had rolled, the crowd had thinned. Astra never came back.
Now the car tore down the dark streets, headlights cutting through the thin veil of mist hanging over town. It was late—too late for an eleven-year-old to be wandering anywhere alone.
In the driver’s seat, Mary gripped the wheel so tightly her knuckles looked pale even in the dim glow of the dashboard. Panic sharpened her voice, turned every sentence into an accusation. It was easier, perhaps, to blame the girl beside her than to sit with the quiet, creeping fear settling into her own chest.
But Ali hadn’t sent her to the restroom.
She remembered it clearly: her little sister leaning over their mother’s seat, whispering something in that spoiled, coaxing tone she used so well. Her mother glancing up from her book, smiling fondly, waving her off with a distracted, “Don’t take too long.” And then the pages turning again.
No one had asked the fourteen-year-old anything.
What did she expect from her, anyway? To keep track of every breath her sister took? To have some instinct that would tingle the moment something went wrong? She was only a child herself, though it never seemed to matter.
“I’m sure she just wandered nearby,” she said quietly, forcing steadiness into her voice. It felt strange, offering comfort to the very person who kept lashing out at her.
The town slid past in stretches of shadow and dim porch lights. A bridge rose ahead, small and unremarkable, spanning the black ribbon of water below.
As they crossed it, something bright caught her eye.
Yellow.
It bobbed against the current beneath the bridge, drifting lazily in the dark water.
Her breath hitched.
A pacifier.
Not Astra’s—she had long since outgrown those—but she knew exactly whose it was.
Matty.
The image of him earlier that evening flickered through her mind: standing a little apart from the others in the theater lobby, their eyes meeting for the briefest second. The boy who had helped her navigate her first bewildering days at school. The boy she’d slowly left behind once she found her place with the Pattycakes.
He hadn’t spoken to her. Maybe he hadn’t dared to.
Now his pacifier floated in the river like a forgotten secret.
A cold weight settled in her stomach.
Up ahead, a cluster of headlights and silhouettes crowded the roadside. Her mother’s voice faltered as she slowed the car. People stood in a loose ring around something crumpled near the ditch.
As they drew closer, the shape resolved into a car—its front end smashed inward, metal twisted like paper. The windshield had splintered into a spiderweb of cracks. Even from inside their own vehicle, she could see the dark smear across the interior. Not oil.
Something else.
The dread that had begun as a faint whisper beneath the bridge now tightened around her ribs.
The town had always felt wrong after dark, as if it held its breath once the sun went down. But tonight, that stillness felt different—charged, expectant.
Something had shifted.
And whatever it was, it wasn’t finished yet.
_____
After-Credits Scene
“Ow—ow! A little gentler, would you? At this rate you’re going to scrub my fur clean off!”
Bon Bon’s shrill complaints rang through the upstairs bathroom of the Smith house, ricocheting off tile and porcelain. Astra had locked the door the second they climbed in through her bedroom window, and now the small room was thick with steam, soap, and the faint metallic scent of blood.
They’d been at it for two hours.
The night had not gone according to plan.
Catching the mutated baby had seemed simple enough that morning—find bait, lure it out, corner it. Easy. Efficient. Almost fun. Instead, the thing had proven annoyingly clever. After biting straight through that sniveling Matty’s head as if it were an overripe apple, it had turned on them with something almost like playfulness. When Astra lunged, it dissolved into smoke—actual smoke—only to reappear behind them an instant later. Tiny hands, absurdly strong, had seized Astra by the collar and flung both her and Bon Bon out of the car like discarded toys.
By the time they staggered to their feet, the vehicle had vanished.
No tire tracks.
No scent.
No wreckage.
Just an empty stretch of road and the sticky warmth of blood soaking into their clothes.
Now, under the unforgiving bathroom light, that same blood refused to come off.
Bon Bon squirmed as the girl dragged a soap-slick cloth across his face. His white fur had taken on a stubborn pink tint.
“I am a delicate work of craftsmanship!” he screeched. “Not a frying pan! You can’t just scour me like last night’s lasagna!”
“Keep your voice down,” Astra muttered, narrowing her eyes as she scrubbed harder at the patch around his nose. The stain there clung like it had signed a lease. “Do you want Dad to wake up and come upstairs? Because explaining why we’re covered in blood at midnight sounds exhausting.”
Downstairs, her father lay asleep on the sofa, the television still flickering blue across the living room. The bowl of popcorn rested against his chest like a loyal pet. He hadn’t stirred once.
Bon Bon huffed dramatically. “If you peel off my fur, I’m blaming you. And when I’m bald, no one will ever love me. I’ll have to start a support group. ‘Plushies Against Excessive Hygiene.’”
“You’ll survive,” Astra replied. She switched tactics, scrubbing in tight circles. “You survived being thrown out of a moving car.”
“That was rude, by the way. That baby had no manners. Zero. Absolutely feral.”
They continued in synchronized irritation—Astra scrubbing, Bon Bon protesting—while streaks of diluted red spiraled down the sink. Neither of them flinched at the sight. Blood was inconvenient, that was all. Messy. Hard to remove. Like glitter, but less festive.
Astra leaned closer to the mirror, examining a smear along her jawline. She dragged the cloth across it and sighed when it barely faded.
“Why is this so stubborn?” she muttered.
“Maybe it’s sentimental,” Bon Bon offered brightly. “It doesn’t want to leave you. Very touching. Very tragic.”
“Not helpful.”
“Never claimed to be.”
Silence settled for a moment—broken only by the sound of running water and fabric against fur.
Then Bon Bon stilled.
“…Did we forget something?”
Astra paused mid-scrub.
Her reflection stared back at her: damp red hair clinging to her cheeks, eyes sharp and irritated more than anything else. She replayed the evening in her mind—the bait, the ambush, the smoke trick, the car disappearing act. The climb through her bedroom window. Locking the bathroom door.
Everything seemed accounted for.
“Our plan was to lure it out and catch it,” she said slowly. “We failed. Now we’re cleaning up. That’s it.”
Bon Bon tilted his head, glassy eyes narrowing in exaggerated suspicion. “Mm. I hate when my brain does that. That little tickle. Like we left the oven on.”
“We don’t use the oven.”
“Metaphorically, Astra.”
She rolled her eyes and returned to scrubbing. “We didn’t forget anything.”
“Right. Of course we didn’t.” He nodded to himself. “We are paragons of efficiency. Masters of preparation. Brilliant minds operating at peak—OW! Not the ear!”
“You said to get the blood out.”
“I did not say exfoliate me into another dimension!”
Despite the bickering, they worked with practiced coordination. Astra twisted the tap off and inspected Bon Bon under the light, turning her wrist so she could see him from different angles. The pink had mostly faded back to white. Acceptable.
For now.
From somewhere beyond the locked door, the house remained quiet. The television downstairs laughed at a joke no one upstairs heard.
Astra reached for a towel and began drying Bon Bon carefully this time.
“There,” she said. “Presentable.”
“I expect compensation,” he replied primly. “Chocolate. Or revenge. I’m flexible.”
Astra smiled faintly at their reflection. “We’ll get it.”
In the darkness outside the bathroom, as steam slowly thinned and the last traces of diluted red disappeared down the drain, the only sound left was the muffled, indignant squeak of a rabbit puppet being towel-dried far too vigorously.
______
Sorry for not updating for such a long time. I’ve been really busy with school, and at that time we also entered the most special holiday period in my country, so I only managed to finish this chapter now.
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