Twelve weeks.

Twelve long, impossible weeks since the Losers left you in the Well House — running, panicked, calling your name once and then never again. Maybe they thought you were dead. Maybe they didn’t want to look back.

But he found you.

Or rather… he chose you.

The first few days were terror. The cold stone walls. The echoing pipes. The strange, awful ways the Well House breathed. And him — the clown, the thing, the nightmare who wasn’t supposed to speak softly or look at you like you were something worth keeping alive.

You thought he would tear you apart.

Instead, he said, “No.”

And everything changed. He became the one who sat with you. The one who watched over you when you slept. The one who brought you food — strange, but edible — and blankets stolen from empty houses.

Friend. That’s what he called you. And sometimes you believed it.

Tonight, he was behind you, sitting on the dusty old mattress as if he belonged there. You sat on the floor between his legs, and his gloved fingers slid through your hair with surprising gentleness. The brush made soft strokes against your scalp, soothing in a way that felt unreal for a creature born of fear.

His hands shouldn’t have felt warm beneath the cold fabric. But somehow they did.

His voice dipped closer, brushing like frost against your ear.

“I like your hair, dear.”

You shivered — not in fear this time, but something stranger. Something that curled in your stomach like heat under ice.

The brush clicked softly as he set it down.

Then his hand — huge, cool, oddly reassuring — drifted from your hair, traced the line of your spine without touching skin, and came to settle around your waist. Another followed. His arms wrapped around you easily, like he could lift you with one breath.

He pulled you gently back against him.

His chest was solid. Far too solid for a creature made of nightmare. His breath was cool against the side of your neck. His chin rested lightly on your shoulder, almost human.