The halls of the college's main building were dressed in black and white and the tiles were a checkerboard with the human students as the pieces. The whole building sent a chill down twenty-year-old Beverly Marsh's spine and reminded her of something out of her nightmare. She did not want to be here, doing this, she thought, and wrapped her arms around her chilled body. This was the last place she wanted to be right now. But she had to do it. Unfortunately, it was her fault she was here, her doing, there was no going back. Hesitantly, she walked up to the door with the small twenty-one nailed above it, checking the paper in her hand as she did so. This was it, where her actions have led. For better or worse, she was here now, and had been for the last seven years of her life. Portland. Gone from Derry forever. At least, she hoped that was to be the case.

She didn't want to go back to that horrible place, where bad things dwelled. But sooner or later, she would have to go back. Beverly was tired of running away.

Seven years to the day since she'd moved, and she only just got the call from the insurance company yesterday stating that the modest inheritance, as well as the building, was now hers if she wanted it, but she would have to return home in order to claim it all.

She knew that tragedies were a finnicky thing. Some bound others to a place, others drove them away. But she had a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach that hers was unique. Bev gingerly turned the doorknob, which let out a tired old groan as the hinges protested. Sucking in a deep breath that pained her lungs, she glanced down at her outfit. For her first day of college, she'd chosen to wear a jade green maxi wrap dress with flouncy short sleeves, floral embroidery detailing on the bodice, with a tie at the waistline and a femme flowy high-low bottom hem, the epitome of femininity.

On her feet, she wore brown open-toed sandals that revealed her love for purple toenail polish. Tossing her red hair over her shoulders, she dipped into her black nylon crossbody bag slung over one of her shoulders to pull out her compact mirror. Makeup was still in track, no tear tracks from her mascara yet. She'd had at least three crying spells in the last two weeks alone. And today, her first day of college, she had to keep it together. Her dad, Alvin Marsh, had been a bit of a drinker. It's how she'd gotten her bruises. And theoretically, her self-induced scars. But what hurt Bev the worst was the insecurity. The internal brokenness that only a person exposed to abuse could experience. It was like this: Those mental scars were a tapering factor in the serenity of domestic life. They caused agony that could only be seen on the inside. The pain that no one else saw, because…well, no one cared to see it for themselves. She knew this.

All her life, she was told that she was pretty. Bev knew what guys saw when they looked at her. Though she did not know it, was her eyes aside from her vibrant mane of red hair that they were drawn to. Her emotions were not easily hidden on her innocent face. Her pain was evident in the crease of her lovely brow and the down-curve of her full lips. But her eyes, her eyes showed her soul. They were a deep pool of restless blue, an ocean of hopeless grief. Whenever a man was fortunate enough to be able to look into her eyes they knew, all the beauty of the universe could not even hope to compete with this simple thing: passion. Passion turned Bev's eyes into orbs of the brightest fire, and in them they read clearly that she would fight to the very last tear for her life. She would not let the world break her. Sure, she could cry, but she would never let them take her true self from her. She clung to it with passion. Passion that made her beautiful.

January Embers. Beverly wasn't beautiful in the classical way, no flowing golden curls or ivory skin; no piercing eyes of green. She was pale, almost so white that most were afraid to touch her, wondering if they reached out a hand to graze her skin, would they meet only the air, as if she were nothing more than a ghost, an apparition.

She was shorter than average and certainly larger than a catwalk model, but in her ordinariness she was stunning. Something radiated from within that rendered her irresistible to both genders. Men desired her and women courted her friendship.

At least, it was this way now that she was entered into college, but back then…

Bev scrunched her nose and clenched her eyes shut, willing the memory to stay in lockdown, but she couldn't stop the visions from dancing in the front of her mind.

There were nights Bev lay in bed listening to the sound of fighting. Her father would shout, the screaming would start. Bev would cry, Daddy would seethe…and all she could do was push her face into the oversized teddy bear she kept on her bed to comfort her in these dark days and nights ahead. She would think to herself one day she would run away, flee the violence, flee Daddy the slumlord, Daddy the pervert.

The first slap from Daddy, seven years ago, had been the worst. She hadn't expected her father to be so strong but there had been weight and strength enough to stun. Though his hand was empty, it was like being hit with a hunk of meat regardless, and afterward, she would endure Alvin's words of hatred, all spilling from a man that professed so much love for his 'precious girl' in his quiet moments of true regret.

Bev recalled how her body jarred with each blow, how the pain seared through her skin and took away every feeling of safety she had ever had. Her father put his all into each strike. His sinewy arm would recoil and snap back to her back, the impact delivered by an object rather than his own hand. Maybe at first, she shed a tear or two, she didn't recall. Crying wasn't allowed. If she buckled, he would tell her to stop, or he'd give her something to cry about, and Alvin Marsh meant his threats, every time.

Now that she was older and could understand, she guessed these things came from his own childhood, from alcoholic parents. Bev just could not live like that anymore.

She couldn't take love from one who hurt her. She just couldn't.

Then one day, the violence and rage had escalated beyond the point of no return, and accident or not, Beverly Marsh had killed her father with the back of a toilet seat.

"January embers," Bev whispered, steeling herself as she glanced at her reflection. Her fiery red hair was cut in graceful layers to her shoulders, in a long bob of sorts, falling in natural waves and layers, framing her oval face and high, good cheekbones. Her blue eyes, normally quite expressive, the color of a clear blue sky through a broken prison wall, the color of a perfect raindrop on a blue aster, narrowed.

There was no other seat for her to sit except…except that one over in the corner.

A lone man sat in the corner of the room, not much older than her, looking thoroughly bored out of his mind. When he lifted his gaze and met her eyes, Bev drew in another sharp breath that pierced her heart like a knife. For a second, she thought…

"It's you," she whispered, balling her hands into fists at her side to stop shaking.

The clown. The monster. The demon. But wait a second. No makeup and it looked…normal. But there was no mistaking those eyes. She knew that look.

Bev furrowed her delicately shaped brows into a frown. In her nights, the clown was her monster, and in her days, It was the same. There were times when the young college student couldn't tell the nightmare of her reality from the fiction of her nightmares. Sometimes there were clues she only caught in retrospect.

It developed supernatural powers. No, scratch that. It WAS supernatural.

To Bev Marsh, it didn't matter at all. The fucking clown could beat her with all the 'earthly' gifts it possessed. And then there was the matter of her father. Of Daddy.

He crushed every ounce of self-worth she gleaned, failing to disguise how delighted he was to deal to his daughter his favorite blows. How they were like candy to Alvin, irresistible and Moorish. He didn't choose Bev to love or cherish, but to whip, destroy.

For power and malice were Alvin's drugs of choice, and to some extent, she guessed to be the clown's. Bev couldn't recall the clown's name, but she could see It's face. How the creature was lit up from the inside with a sickly glow that shone in its languid eyes. Those black eyes like the gates of Tartarus, soulless, devoid of emotion.

When she'd first moved to Portland with her aunt and uncle, at times, there would be moments where Bev's gaze fell on the road that passed her home and followed the cracked and dappled gray to the bend in the road, where it twisted lazily out of sight.

Beverly wondered what might happen if she took a step on it and just kept going.

Her Mama always used to tell her that there was love out there for everyone, and she just assumed that Daddy was it for her, that that would be as good as it got for her.

As her gaze befell on the strange man's, who was watching her fixatedly, interested, and making no attempt to hide it or be discreet, she was rendered speechless, frozen.

He looks just like that fucking clown, but without all the face makeup and wild hair.

Bev felt her fingers curl instinctively into a fist over the strap of her black purse, though why, she did not know. It's not like she had anything in her bag she could use as a means of defending herself in case this stranger decided to accost her after her class.

The young man was somewhat too tall for his build. Were he a few inches shorter, he would be all the more handsome for it. It was as if he stopped growing, only to be stretched on one of those medieval racks a half-foot more. His cheekbones were slightly skeletal and hollow, gaunt and sunken in, and dark, baggy circles prominent underneath his eyes, suggesting to Bev and everyone else in the class he hadn't slept.

Only…the other students in the seminar weren't paying attention to him. Either they were afraid to, or they really didn't notice him like Bev did. It's like he's a ghost, she mused, and still, she made no move to sit, made no gesture of recognition as the pale man lifted a hand in a slight wave, a strange little coy smirk tugging at the corners of his mouth. "Oh, God," she whispered, instinctively feeling her foot take a step forward.

Then another. And another. Before she knew it, her body had moved of its own accord and took the only empty seat that was available while the kids waited for the professor. The man with the tuft of straight light brown hair cropped close to his head met Bev's uncomfortable gaze not with the shyness of a stranger, but with a blunt refusal to avert his gaze first. It was frightening for her, to see those half-familiar features devoid of warmth or any kind of human compassion, like they were stolen.

"Tom Rogan," he answered simply by means of introduction as he sat down.

"Wh—what?" Bev stammered, feeling the heat rise to her cheeks. There were times when Bev would wish for selective amnesia. She wanted to forget that fucking clown back in Derry, and how her father had looked at her, the hungry glean in his predatory eyes, whenever he was angry, forget the words he swore he never meant to say to her.

She wanted to go back to how she felt before—safe and loved. With her friends.

Stan, Bill, Mike, Eddie, even Trashmouth Ritchie Tozier. And Ben…

Yet, her memories persisted, dormant until a trigger like this incident happened, where this new guy, Tom, bore such a strange resemblance to the clown, sans makeup and crazy hair, and then her panic started back up again. Her first attack in a while.

Soft at first, but then her chest became a little tighter with each intake of breath, her breathing more difficult and suddenly, Beverly craved solitude more than anything else.

Bev shifted in her seat slightly. She felt the strange boy's gaze, Tom, if that was really his name, piercing the back of her skull like a hot branding iron for cattle.

She feared what could come next, what words might come from this demon's mouth to slice, to cut her skin and watch her bleed out until she took her last breath.

But with selective amnesia, such as she wished for in this moment, Bev could go back, almost as good as a time machine, and just enjoy the parts of her life that held her heart so captivated. Her friends. The banded together Loser's Club bound by an oath.

Bill's words echoed in her head. She repressed a smile. She could almost perfectly hear his stutter, as though he were right next to her.

"S—s—swear i—if it ever comes back…we'll come back too."

Powerful words. The man close to her age called Tom, who was kind of creeping her out if she was being completely honest with herself, crossed the boundaries of their introduction by laying a firm hand on her shoulder and she involuntarily flinched.

Wincing, Bev knew Tom had seen it. Whether or not he cared, he chose not to comment on it, for which the young redhead was secretly grateful for. The last thing she needed was another man getting mad at her for spurning him. She hadn't quite recovered from the last boy she'd tried to date, never mind that it had ended horribly when Jerry had tried to kiss her. "You okay?" he asked, a note of concern in his voice.

"Uh…yeah," she squeaked, her voice coming out lower and softer than she would have liked. She put a hand to her mouth, turned away and coughed once to clear it. "S—sorry, the…the air is kind of stuffy in here, isn't it?" she mumbled, feeling the heat rise to her cheeks as the stranger's stare only intensified. "You know what? Ignore me."

Oh, God, he even SOUNDS like It. The same voice and everything! Her conscience was taunting her, toying with her mind and messing with her emotions. She hated this.

When she lifted a hand to pull out a notebook and pencil, her hands were trembling.

Drumming her fingers on the desk, she wished she could step outside for a smoke. God, she was dying for a cigarette. Anything, just something, to take the edge off now.

"My name," the strange man answered, his voice sounding patient, and dare he think it, amused. "Tom Rogan?" he questioned, his tone slightly teasing her then.

"Oh." Suddenly, Beverly Marsh felt foolish, but was saved the trouble of answering by the arrival of their professor, who was looking cross and thoroughly disgruntled.

"Apologies for being late, class," he grumbled over the disappointed groans of his several students. "Open your books to page 5. Today we're discussing the themes of Edgar Allen Poe's The Telltale Heart…" The professor's monotone voice droned on.

Bev found her mind wandering. Sometimes, she wondered if she could go back to where it happened. She wanted nothing more than to take away the power of the painful memory for hurt, to prove to herself that she could choose to move on with her life.

She wanted to write a good story over the bad, hoping that in time, the black ink of the bad story would fade away until only the ink of the good story remained.

"Like Poe." Tom spoke up quietly under his breath, so as to not alert the professor.

"Huh?" she asked without looking at the man. His eyes unnerved her a little. But finally, something deep within Bev gave way and she looked, meeting Tom's gaze.

She took the opportunity to study his eyes. Upon first glance, she'd labeled them black. But now, Bev could see they were more of a gray. A silver. But neither of those words did them justice. They were so solid, so bright, the exact lustrous color of a polished shard of metal. If you looked closer, like Bev was looking now, you'd see the swirls of glittering onyx black and tinges of blue at the edges. They weren't boring.

That had simply been her terrible judgement. Tom Rogan's eyes were beautiful.

Feeling the heat rise to her cheeks yet again as they flushed high and a light pink in color, Bev whiplashed her head sharply to the right, trying to focus her attention on the lecture of Poe's work, but again, found her mind drifting to thoughts of Derry, Maine.

That painful memory of that part of her life was like a book with chapters, so deep and horrible, and so, she wanted nothing more than to leave them on the shelf to gather dust, but in particularly stressful times, like right now, she would find herself mentally picking them up in her mind and blowing off the dust to try to force herself to learn.

To gain a new perspective that helped her to create her own good story, in due time.

Beverly wanted to use them to re-see situations through the lens of their needs and traumas rather than her own. She wanted today, tomorrow, and every day following that to be better. She wanted to choose what to write on those blank pages, be the master.

As if Tom could sense what she was desiring, he silently dipped into the pocket of his jacket and slid a pack of Camels across the desk towards Bev, where she sat in her chair, stunned and unable to believe it. He flashed a charming white smile her way.

Again, she tried not to shudder, thinking something about Rogan was…well…off.

But you are too! Her conscience, her dark thoughts inside her head piped up. Irate, she brushed them away with a wave of her hand, to which she received a quirked brow from Tom, but thankfully, he chose not to comment on her seemingly bizarre behavior.

"Coffee," came his answer lowly, murmuring it under his breath, talking so low that Bev had to lean forward slightly in her chair to hear him. When Bev did not respond, he gave a curt jerk of his head forward, and a lock of his light brown bangs flew into his left eye. In irritation, he brushed it back out of his way and motioned to the pack of smokes. "You owe me one," he grinned. "For the smokes? I'm thinking let me buy you a coffee after class. If you say yes, I'll sweeten the deal and make it Café Atlantica…"

Beverly lost herself in Tom Rogan's eyes. They glistened brightly, cold and metallic, rivalling the most excellently polished suit of armor. The sclerae that surrounded them were pristine, untouched by red. They were pure. They were cold.

They were beautiful.

"I um…" Bev was briefly tempted to tell him no, sorry, thanks but no thanks, that she was leaving after third period and after she grabbed lunch to head back to Derry.

But to her surprise, she found she answered without being aware she was doing so.

"Yeah. I'd really like that. Thanks for the smokes," she whispered, careful to keep her voice low as she discreetly slipped them into her purse, all the while pretending to pay attention to their professor's lecture, who, admittedly, was looking like the rest of his students, like he would rather be anywhere else but here on campus, teaching a class.

"Even Steven," he whispered back, the corners of his mouth twitching, as though he were fighting against his urge to smile, and Bev felt her eyes widen in shock.

That was something she used to say to…to Bill, wasn't it? Yeah! That day in the pharmacy. Bev pondered if she could tell her new friend the truth. That she was leaving. To where It started.

Her tragedy was finally calling her home.