Derry was never a place. It was a wound.

It could change over the years—new facades, paved streets, children's murals painted on old bricks—but beneath it all, the same rotten structure remained, the same memory embedded in the ground. The kind of memory that isn't erased, only hidden.

Bill Denbrough had spent half his life believing he could tame it.

Writing was his way of controlling it. Putting words where there had only been screams. Creating endings where there had only been disappearances.

But no story had ever been enough to erase the weight he felt right now as he got out of the car.

The air in Derry was different. Thicker. Colder. Not because of the weather, but because of the feeling. As if the town breathed in a way that wasn't human. As if each building remembered things that people had chosen to forget.

He walked slowly.

Not out of nostalgia. Out of instinct.

The streets seemed narrower. The houses were taller. The shadows were longer than usual. Everything was out of proportion, like a poorly constructed dream. Like a distorted version of something that had been real.

The municipal library was still in the same place. Old. Silent. Too untouched for a town that claimed to have moved on.

Upon entering, the smell hit him first: old paper, dampness, aged wood, dust trapped in time. The kind of smell that doesn't belong to the present. The kind of smell that belongs to things no one wants to touch.

Stacked boxes, Uncatalogued files, Incomplete dates and Repeated names.

Bill moved between the tables as if walking through someone else's memory. His fingers brushed against folders labeled with almost faded ink. Municipal reports. Fire records. Lists of the missing. All fragmented. All incomplete.

Nothing new. Nothing closed. Then he felt it. That presence.

Not a sound. Not a movement. Just that visceral certainty that he wasn't alone.

He looked up. You were there.

Among tall bookshelves, light filtering through a dirty window, surrounded by files, papers, and open boxes. You didn't seem like a visitor. You seemed like part of the place. As if the library had accepted you.

Their eyes met yours.

And something happened.

Not clear recognition. Not a concrete memory. But that absurd, profound, inexplicable feeling…

Like seeing someone for the first time and feeling that you had already lost them before.

Your face didn't bring back a specific memory, but it did evoke an emotion. He didn't know where it came from, but it was there: a pressure in his chest, an uncomfortable familiarity, a nostalgia without a picture.

You looked at him the same way.

Not like a stranger. Not like an acquaintance.

But rather like someone who belonged to a part of your life you couldn't name.

As if you were both staring at an empty space that had once been full.

Neither you nor Bill moved.

The silence between you wasn't normal. It was heavy. Dense. Ancient.

The kind of silence that doesn't arise in the moment, but has been building for years.

From broken childhoods. From incomplete memories. From fears that have no form.

Bill felt the stutter rise in his throat, not from social anxiety, but from something more primal: a bodily reaction to something it recognizes as important, even if the mind doesn't understand it.

His fingers closed lightly on the edge of the table.

He looked at you once more, as if trying to force his memory to provide an answer.

And then he spoke.

"I-I don't remember you…b-but I feel like I already lost you before."