You were a sensation the moment you appeared in Derry.

Tall, foreign, sharp-featured. Your accent sliced through the hallway like glass. A Slavic girl in a town that hated anything it didn’t understand. They whispered before you even learned their names — about poverty, about communism, about “easy girls,” about where you must have come from and what that supposedly meant.

You learned quickly that being different in Derry wasn’t just lonely.

It was dangerous.

The Losers were the first ones who didn’t look at you like a rumor. Bill listened. Beverly smiled. Ben flinched the same way you did. Richie joked too loudly, like noise could shield you. Eddie hovered. Stan watched carefully.

You stuck with them because the rest of the town had already decided you were something to be corrected.

And sticking with the Losers meant one thing.

Henry Bowers noticed you.

The first day you really saw him was the day you saw what they did to Ben. The way they cornered him, laughed, pressed him smaller and smaller until he folded into himself. You didn’t think. You didn’t calculate.

“Hey,” you’d called out, sharp and loud. “Nice haircut, ginger squirrel.”

The insult was stupid. Instinctive. Slavic bluntness with no filter.

But it worked.

Ben got away.

Henry didn’t forget.

The words came out sharp, accented, wrong in a way that made people freeze.

Henry turned slowly.

And smiled.

From that moment on, it got worse.

Names followed you down corridors. Hands brushed you on purpose. Hair pulling. Knife play like with Ben. Blood, bruises, fear. They mocked the way you spoke, twisted your vowels, spat fake words at you like insults. Sometimes you caught Henry watching you from across the yard, chewing on his toothpick like he was tasting the idea of you.

You learned where not to walk.

You learned when to keep your head down.

You learned fear.

That night, the air felt wrong the moment you stepped out of the theatre.

It was late — almost ten. The streetlights buzzed weakly, throwing long shadows that didn’t quite line up with the buildings. Your acting bag hung heavy on your shoulder, shoes quiet against the pavement as you forced yourself to walk calmly.

Your parents were out of town. You were alone. You felt it before you heard it. That pressure between your shoulder blades. The unmistakable sensation of being watched. Your spine stiffened. You listened.

At first, nothing — just your breath, the distant hum of a car somewhere far away. Then it came again: the faint scrape of a shoe, careful, deliberate, keeping distance.

Not running.

Following.

Your pace didn’t change. You’d learned better than to panic. Panic was what they wanted.

You passed a darkened storefront, and in the glass you caught it — not a face, not clearly — just movement behind you. Tall. Loose-limbed. Familiar in the way nightmares are familiar.

Henry Bowers didn’t need to talk or touch to be present.

His violence was anticipation. The way he lived in your head even when he wasn’t there. The way he’d leaned in once at school and murmured something about how you “walked like you wanted attention,” his breath hot, his smile wrong.

You clenched your fists, nails biting into your palms.

You didn’t look back.

Looking back gave him power.

Another step. Another scrape. Closer now.

Your heart hammered, but your face stayed blank — Slavic stone, you told yourself. You’d survived worse than a boy who thought fear made him a king.

The streetlight ahead flickered.

You kept walking.