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[germhating_hypochondriac]

[Eddie paces as he talks. There's a cast on his arm with the word loser written in black, with a red V written over the s to spell lover.]

Hello? Can you hear me? We're all kidnapping victims here; you guys know that right?

This nanite stuff sucks. There are tiny germ sized robots crawling around inside us! Something's gotta be powering them. They could be hanging out in our stomachs eating our food. Or they could be eating us and making tiny little holes inside our bodies. They could all build up in one place and block off the blood flowing through our arteries and our veins. Or build up in our organs, our lungs and our brains! And, our bodies are mostly water. They could be rusting inside us.

[He stops pacing and starts scratching his face with his cast-free hand]

I think I'm allergic to them! Everything's itchy. I'm gonna break out into hives!

[He starts wheezing and rubs his chest.]

I could be allergic to the tattoo too. I'm just a kid. I shouldn't have one. I think it's starting to swell up. I could have an infection. Or a blood disease. I don't trust these government people to be clean.

[The wheezing continues and his voice becomes strained with each word. He takes his inhaler out of a fanny pack and uses it, only speaking again when he's breathing is back to normal.]

How are we supposed to deal with this shit?

Comments

[continuousgroaning]

Ugh, that sucks. Luckily this world is pretty normal. ... although that doesn't help when we all come from different places, does it? If you're from Earth, though, that gives you a frame of reference.

[Tina wrinkles her nose at that.]

That's awful. I mean, really, REALLY awful. Did you end up being able to beat him? [She nods.] Horses are prey animals, so it's rare for them to just up and decide to kill someone. Of course, that doesn't stop some of them from just being mean.

Oh, there's a lot. I mostly play dating sims, but there's puzzles or shooting games... anything you can imagine, really.

Bullies suck. I try my best to be kind to everyone, myself.

[drivesadesk]

Um...no? That's not the kind of thing my species would disguise ourselves as. We tend to be more likely to try and pass ourselves of as CEOs or politicians. You know, rich people who get away with a lot of stuff other people don't. Not clowns.

video

[germhating_hypochondriac]

That's good.  I don't want Richie to ever be alone again. [Eddie doesn't want to be alone either.]

Yeah?  Other than my friends, people back home never helped. Not even when kids when missing.

[cantgetanyworse]

Maybe your mother was just a bit too protective of you. Parents can be that way. [Said quite gently, because... mothers...]

Have you ever seen a jackalope? I have one, if you'd like me to fetch her.

[germhating_hypochondriac]

So you're trying to trick adults and not kids?  [That actually makes him a bit better in Eddie's mind.]  Clowns get away with too much shit if they're monster clowns.  'Cause they fuck with people's heads.

[germhating_hypochondriac]

Yeah, she had a hard time after my dad died, especially cause I get sick a lot.  [His mother made him think he was sick.] She doesn't want to lose me too. 

Wait, what? Like a rabbit with horns?  Those are real?

[slapfight]

Yes. Probably. I've never met a human with metal inside them. Ugh.[That sounds horrible.] I generate my own magnetic field, so it would probably just repel them. I've never really experimented with them.

[drivesadesk]

Well...yeah? I mean, adults have the money and power. We might study and observe kids sometimes just to get a better idea of what a human childhood is like, but that's mostly just asking them questions so we can create a more realistic background when interacting with humans. They weren't the targets, so we'd just leave them where we found them.

[mortalweapon]

Acknowledged.
It is an admirable feat, for such small humans to kill a monster.

[ She doesn't question the fact. Maybe monsters are normal where she comes from? ]

[germhating_hypochondriac]

Cool. Probably cool...Wait, what about iron in the blood?  Does that count?   And when people wear jewelry and stuff?  I have to wear a watch, would that mess you up? Or get messed up by your field? 

[germhating_hypochondriac]

Aliens are into Earth money and power?  [Pennywise was never into anything like that.  IT lived in a sewer and dilapidated house.] You didn't use kids' imaginations for...anything?   [A pause.]   Do you eat people?

[cantgetanyworse]

Ooh, stay right there.

[As if he's going anywhere.

He gets a good view of her ceiling for a few minutes, and the sound of her chattering to someone or something in the background, then she leans the phone against a glass so she can hold a wiggling jackalope with stunted horns in her lap.]

Here we are. This is Sylvi.

[slapfight]

[this is a lot of questions she has never thought about.]

I could levitate the watch. Or use it as a projectile weapon! But other than that....

[Wow Eddie, don't make her think about her limitations.]

[germhating_hypochondriac]

Had to be us.  Pennywise messed with the adult's heads - made them not realize what was going on and not give a shit when other kids went missing.  My friend, Bill, he was the one who convinced us to kill It.  Bill always knows what's right.

Did you ever fight a clown monster?

[drivesadesk]

I can't speak for all aliens, but Reptilians generally tend to be. Whatever you want from Earth, it's generally easier to get it if you have money and power. There are a lot of Reptilians in governments around the world on my home universe's Earth.

[The other questions seem so...strange. What sort of aliens did this kid's home universe have?]

What would we use kid's imaginations for? And no...we don't eat people. Honestly, when we're on Earth we mostly eat the food humans make. It's some of the best food in the galaxy.

[mortalweapon]

No.
But I have fought monsters.
That is how I know that it is admirable for you to have done the same.

[germhating_hypochondriac]

[Eddie thinks too much, always finding new worries.]

Don't.  I need my watch.  It beeps when I have to take a pill.  Plus, there's gotta be better weapons.

[germhating_hypochondriac]

What kind of monsters did you fight?
Are they here?

[germhating_hypochondriac]

[Eddie grins.  His mom tried to make him fear animals for their potential to carry disease and she'd probably warn him about the horns too, even over the phone.  But he has a fondness for cute.]

Cool!  Hi Sylvi!  I bet you're a good girl.  A really good girl.

Re: video

[perfectlyhuman]

Yeah. [ Although people do disappear or go home sometimes. But Adam doesn’t really want to bring that up right now.

He frowns a little, mostly confused, at that last part.]

Kids went missing?

[mortalweapon]

Many kinds.
Even gods.
But they are not here.
Not presently.
Though it is always possible that the Porter will change that.

video

[germhating_hypochondriac]

Yeah.  All the time.  There were so many missing kids posters that they'd be hung up on top of each other.

[He manages a small smile.] 

But that won't happen anymore.  My friends and I found the monster that made kids go missing and we killed IT.

[germhating_hypochondriac]

Gods are monsters?  My mom says there's only one god and he's not a monster.  

The porter needs to get fixed.  It's like it fucks everything up.

[germhating_hypochondriac]

That's weird.  You can make spaceships and shit to get to Earth, what do you want from Earth have that's better than that?  You know, if you're really not eating people. Or you could sell the instructions on how to make spaceships to like NASA or something and just get rich without doing a lot of work.

[He looks at him suspiciously for a moment, wondering if he's genuinely asking or if it's a trick.]

'Cause kids have better imaginations than adults, so they can get scared easily.  Pennywise said fear was tasty.   

[Another pause.] 

You really eat the same stuff we do?

[drivesadesk]

Fear isn't really...a thing we can taste? I don't think? Whatever Pennywise is, I think he's got to be a different species than us.

And yeah, we're omnivores, so we eat the same stuff pretty much. I mean, we're more likely to want to eat insects, but overall whatever a human can eat, we can eat, too. But there's a lot of reasons to come to Earth. I don't know why the Reptilian government is interested in it, but they are. And then not even counting that, it doesn't do any good to have ships that go through space if you don't visit the planets you end up at, you know? And Earth is pretty neat, and has a lot of novel foods you can't get anywhere else, like coffee and chocolate.