Emily sighed in a stressful manner, the water of the tub around her swirling. The bubbles ticked at her bare skin, her hair pulled up in a bun in an effort to not get it wet.

The bathroom of the motel room was not very big, but it was big enough to fit Emily comfortably. She was only happy she wasn't sharing the bathroom with three guys as she usually was. The girl cringed at the thought of needing to share a bathroom with her brothers and father again. She had grown accustomed to her own restroom.

Thinking about her family made Emily frown. She still had not called them for help. Emily knew she should, she was aware that handling this beast on her own was no longer an option, and yet, something was pulling her back. As much as she hated to admit, she knew what it was that was keeping her back; Richie fucking Tozier.

It had been a week in total since she had seen any of the Loser's and Emily found herself missing them more than anything she thought possible. Especially Richie, the boy with an obvious case of ADHD who somehow charmed the girl in his own dorky and lewd manner. The boy with glasses that were so thick they could only be described as bifocals, the boy who was exactly two-inches shorter than Emily, and surprisingly enough the boy who Emily Winchester had fallen hopelessly in love with.

Was it that awkward teenage puppy love? Yes, absolutely. Despite all his vulgar innuendos, Richie was in love with Emily in the most innocent way, and in turn, Emily felt the same.

For the past week, Emily had no clue what to do with herself anymore. With no one to go hang out with as she had been doing for the past few weeks, Emily reverted back to her old activities. She went to the library and checked out as many books on the supernatural as she could fit in her backpack, she also took a few old articles as well as books surrounding aliens.

Two months ago Emily would have scoffed at the idea that she could possibly be hunting something extraterrestrial, but after everything she had seen, Emily was willing to try anything.

With all this newfound time on her hands, Emily indulged herself in each and every book, skimming through the articles as well. Astonishingly, she could not help but find the books about aliens more interesting than she ever thought they would be. She really liked the ideas those books gave her as well, she never would have thought to kill anything by dousing it in vinegar and setting it on fire. But according to the book, that was one of the best ways to kill aliens.

Perhaps she would try it on the clown next time she saw it.

Reading up on everything provided her with new information, but it also made her realize how lonely she truly was. She had never noticed before this summer because she always had her brothers and she never knew any differently. However, being friends with Beverly, Mike, Stanley, Bill, Ben, Eddie, and Richie made her realize just how lonely she actually was.

Emily was not the only one from the group feeling this way.

Beverly Marsh had taken upon her old ways before she made friends with the Loser's which consisted of aimlessly wandering around town, playing her little keyboard, and watching mindless television. Doing this did not bother her as much before, but now it was like Beverly was living hell.

She missed the way Eddie, Richie, and Stan bickered, she missed Ben and Mike with their kindness, she missed the way Emily would threaten to kick Henry Bower's ass if he came around them again, and most of all, she missed Bill. She missed the way his cute stutter would ring in her ears or the way he would smile and blush at her.

The other Loser's were in similar positions.

Eddie hated sitting at home with his mom watching him twenty-four seven.

Though Mike had not been with the Loser's for long, he missed feeling like he finally belonged somewhere.

Stanley was so overwhelmed with studying for his Barmitzvah and reading from the Torah that he was getting headaches. For the first time in what felt like a long time, he wished Richie was there to say something funny to get his mind off of it.

Ben was once again alone in the quiet library.

Bill only left his room to eat and use the restroom, other than that he lay on his bed, his mind wandering to thoughts of Georgie. Before he had his friends to keep his mind away from his little brother, but now Bill was all by himself in a cold house that he no longer received love in. All the Denbrough boy could do was lay and ponder thoughts of his little brother or sleep.

For Richie Tozier, he could never remember a time he did not have his friends. He was always with them cracking jokes and bickering with Eddie, but now they were gone. And so was Emily who had been so much more than a friend for Richie. She was his crush and ultimately his first love, he hadn't known her for more than three months and he had already forgotten what life was like without her in it. But now he was reminded, and he didn't like it.

He wished he could go to her now, he would apologize and then they could talk and have a real conversation about her hunting lifestyle. Perhaps then Richie could learn about her as he wanted, and then maybe even convince her to stay.

They could hang out in her motel room and watch crummy movies, talk about whether Star Wars was better than E.T., and if he ever worked up the courage, he would kiss her ask her to be his girlfriend.

His mom would no doubt freak out, possibly even cry from happiness and want to take dozens of pictures of the two of them. His dad would give him "the talk", not that there was anything Richie did not already know, and then his dad would probably high five him for getting such as hot girlfriend.

Unfortunately, Richie was too stubborn and was determined to wait and see if Emily would come to him first. It was not that hard to find him, after all in the past week he had boarded himself in the arcade with the goal of setting the highest score on "Street Fighter".

Back in the tub, Emily finally admitted to herself what she had been afraid was happening. Looking at the ceiling of the bathroom, she took account of the way it was popcorned and had multiple mold stains. It would be here, sitting in this bathtub looking at that old ceiling that Emily would remember the day she finally admitted her first and only love.

"Okay fine!" She breathed. "I love Richie Tozier! Are you happy?" Emily was not sure who she was speaking to, but she did know that saying it out loud to herself felt great.

The next step was actually saying it to his face, that in itself was going to be hard. She was not even sure if he still liked her after everything that had happened last week. The idea of visiting him at the arcade had crossed her mind multiple times, but she never actually acted on it.

With the warmth of the bath and thoughts of Richie running freely throughout her mind, Emily found it harder and harder to keep her eyes open. She wanted to close her them so bad, and for once she did not fight it. Instead, she allowed herself to fall into the peaceful waves of sleep.

□□□□

The eery whistling was the first thing Emily was aware of before her vision exploded in a mass of grey. First, she saw the blurry figure of a man wearing black. The image spun away from her before she was able to make any sense of it and in its place was a face which Emily did not recognize, and yet the expression on the face sinister.

If Emily did not know any better, she would say it was just as evil as the thing haunting Derry, Maine. The whistling continued, slowly getting louder as multiple images spun around Emily's mind, each moving too fast and changing too suddenly for her to truly understand or make sense of any of them.

But then the images stopped spinning, landing on one particular landmark that had Emily doing a double take. It was a burnt forest with the trees long gone, some turned into simple skeletons of what they once were while others had disintegrated to pure ash. Smoke still rose from the ground as if the last fire had burned out not long ago.

It was daylight, but the sun appeared to be more orange than normal as if it were dying. But then again, it somehow did not even look like the sun that Emily knew. It looked different, more alien as if it were not the sun of the planet Earth. And that was when Emily knew she was staring at an entirely different sun than the one she knew, and with that, she soon understood that this version of Earth was not the same.

The image of the land faded away in an instant, the evil whistling bouncing around her before it too faded away. The momentary darkness was replaced by the image of two adult dark-skinned older males.

The younger looking of the two kneeled in front of the other, his eyes full of sorrow.

"We lost." His voice was rough and full of pain.

The other male looked to the younger man shaking his head. "Not while the tower still stands." His voice was deep in pitch, calloused as if he went through years of hard times. "Not while we still stand." He grabbed the man's hand, his eyes holding promise.

However, the moment was cut short by the sound of the evil whistling starting back up. The two male's eyes widened and in seconds they were standing back to back, guns in both of their grasps.

"Don't let him get into your head." The younger man said, pointing his guns at anything that he saw with movement.

"Gunslingers." The voice was dark as if dripping with poison.

The younger man blinked, beginning to speak over the whistling. "I do not aim with my hand. He who aims with his hand had forgotten the face of his father. I aim with my eye." Both men were now speaking together, their voices rough and deep and yet filled with promise and hope.

"I do not shoot with my hand. He who shoots with his hand has forgotten the face of his father. I shoot with my mind." Both males circled around, their pistols ready to fire at any given moment.

The younger male saw a flash of black out of the corner of his eye, spinning around to face it only to be met with nothing. "I do not kill with my gun. He who kills with his gun has forgotten the face of his father. I kill with my heart."

As soon as they had finished the mantra, a shadow of a man dressed in all black appeared before the older male.

"Stop breathing." The man wearing all black hissed, the older male immediately stopped breathing, his eyes rolling to the back of his skull as he fell the ground in a dead heap.

"No!" The younger man holding the guns cried as he rushed to the older male's side.

"It never works on you, does it, Roland?" The man dressed in black questioned with his arms folded neatly behind his back. The man studied the fallen soldier with something akin to disgust before his gaze swiped to the still breathing younger man. "The powers in which you have to resist my magic is quite annoying." He tittered giving the corpse one last disgusted glance before spinning on his heel and leaving the younger man to himself.

The younger man quickly stood up, pointing his gun to the shadow-man walking away. "Face me!" He hollered, the man making no move to turn around.

In a rage, the younger man shot at the shadow-man but the demonic entity simply caught the bullet, not allowing it to penetrate him.

Examing the bullet in an almost bored manner, the shadow-man called out behind him in a dark voice. "The tower will fall, Roland! Until next time, old friend!" He smiled while walking through the shadows leaving the young soldier to mourn his fallen comrade.

□□□□

Emily awoke with a sharp gasp, the water of the tub spilling onto the floor as she did so. Gripping the edges of the bath, the teenager's eyes darted around warily as her heart sped.

That dream had seemed so real, but Emily did not have much time to ponder on it as standing in the corner of the bathroom was none other than "Pennywise the Dancing Clown!" The thing stood well over six feet tall, his looming figure creating a shadow on the wall behind him.

A creepy grin was spread over his face, his bunny-like teeth protruding from his lips.

The clown had smelled the fear coming off of Emily Winchester from miles away, but he was disappointedly surprised when he appeared and saw it was only a nightmare which caused her fear. He became even more dejected when he sensed that the nightmare was not even about him for the matter.

Despite the creature standing barely three-feet away, Emily's racing heart slowed. However, adrenaline still spiked within her at the sight of the creepy thing, her hand darting to the side of the tub on the ground where her gun lay.

Wasting no time, Emily fired the weapon at the clown, and as she did this she could practically hear the mantra the men from her dream had spoken.

"I do not aim with my hand. He who aims with his hand has forgotten the face of his father. I aim with my eye." Emily mumbled under her breath as she shot at the clown, the bullet landing directly in his chest.

The small saying that was mumbled from Emily was heard perfectly by the clown, and to say it was astonished was an understatement. It was absolutely startled. He had not expected to hear that familiar saying fall from the girl's lips.

As if her words had made an impact on the bullet, the clown cried out clutching where he was shot as if the bullet truly hurt him. Emily rose her brows in surprise, not expecting to actually hurt the clown as her bullets had not before. The only difference between now and before was the saying Emily had said.

It had not heard that saying in a very long time, and it would gladly go a lifetime more without ever needing to hear them again. To it, those words were venomous, made purely to hurt and destroy it.

Looking at the hunter now, it was horrified. How could it have not seen this before? He should have recognized the shine coming off of her soul the minute he saw her. This was no normal hunter he was facing, this was a human with traces of a "Gunslinger" lingering in her DNA.

It did not like when a normal hunter was in its town, but now it had to deal with the likes of a Gunslinger? Nope, it did not want this teenage girl in his town any longer.

Emily did not know why, but she knew that the saying from her dream somehow hurt the monster. And so, she wasted no time in using it against the clown.

"I do not shoot with my hand. She who shoots with her hand has forgotten the face of her father. I shoot with my mind." This time around, Emily decided to change the "he" to "she" to better accommodate herself.

With that statement, Emily fired another shot which landed on the other side of its chest. It growled lowly, refusing to keep itself in this situation any longer. It was not sure if he could hold up against the last part of the statement, after all, it had been a while since it had faced off against a Gunslinger.

"Enough! I already have your little red-headed friend. I hoped to feast on you as well, but she will have to do." It snarled as it disappeared leaving nothing in its wake.

Emily's gun was still trained on the spot it had previously been standing, the girl's eyes widening in panic. It had said it had Beverly, and Emily knew he planned on eating her just as he had no doubt done with all the others it took.

The girl wasted no time in opening the drain to the tub and leaping out of it. Gripping a towel, Emily was quick to wrap it around herself, racing into the bedroom part of her motel room.

She was not sure why but whatever that saying was that she spoke had hurt it. It hurt the clown enough that it had fled before Emily had even finished the statement leading her to believe that the last part was fatal to its health. Or at least she hoped that was the case.

Emily was smart enough to understand that she had to fire the gun as she said those words, otherwise she presumed the statements would have no effect.

It had taken her barely even five minutes to get dressed in her hunting gear, all her weapons secured on her. Emily walked around her motel room while pulling her hair up tightly, glancing at the notepad sitting on her dresser. After finishing her hair, Emily bounced to the notepad grabbing a pen and scribbling on one of the many sheets.

ᴡᴇɴᴛ ᴀғᴛᴇʀ ʙᴇᴠᴇʀʟʏ ɪɴ ᴛʜᴇ sᴇᴡᴇʀs, ʙᴇ ʙᴀᴄᴋ sᴏᴏɴ!
- ᴇᴍɪʟʏ ᴡ. (ᴘ.s. ʟᴇғᴛ ᴀᴛ ᴛᴇɴ ᴏ'ᴄʟᴏᴄᴋ ᴏɴ 𝟽/𝟷𝟷/𝟾𝟿)
(ᴘ.ᴘ.s ɪғ ɪ'ᴍ ɴᴏᴛ ʙᴀᴄᴋ ɪɴ ᴀ ᴅᴀʏ, ɪ'ᴍ ᴘʀᴏʙᴀʙʟʏ ᴅᴇᴀᴅ)

Emily decided to leave the date that she left in case any of the boys ever wandered in so they knew what happened to her. Or if she never returned, at least her family when they came would see the note and realize what happened. It may have been morbid, but she knew it was better than them not knowing what happened at all.

"Well..." Emily mumbled taping the note the bathroom door. "Here goes nothing."