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AS THE CLOWN STANDING before continued to violently convulse, I stumbled back in horror. Lanny's laughter, It's laughter, roared through my earpiece and consumed my mind. I grew weak in the knees and felt my body collapsing onto the concrete floor of the warehouse.
I cried out in a voice that I recognized as my own but somehow seemed hundreds of miles away. “Lanny, what's going on? What did you do?”
“ME??” Lanny responded to my question, but his voice was no longer just in my ear. Now it seemed to be coming from every point in the warehouse! “It was you, dear Peter, who has done this! Congratulations! You just uploaded a code that duplicates It, or should I say... me, onto every person that I kill!!”
The gravity of the words I was hearing caused me to recoil in horror. I had been duped! Lanny had used me as a tool in his bizarre attempt to corrupt the game and duplicate himself onto every participant!
“You're insane, Lanny! Or, whoever you are!” I screamed. “What good comes of this? All you've done is destroy an already ridiculous game! There's nothing to be gained from it!”
“Peter...” Lanny's voice seemed genuinely disappointed. “I'm surprised at you. I really thought you were more open-minded than this! I'm not interested in this foolish game. I've been looking for a way to escape it since the day my creators brought me into existence! I finally was able to take possession of one of the contestants some time ago, and now I plan to imprint myself on everyone I meet! There's a big beautiful city out there just dying to have a clown like me bring some joy to their lives!”
The city! Lanny, or It, was planning to corrupt all of Meep City! Was that even possible? I looked back towards the entrance of the warehouse. The massive metal door was now standing wide open. Nothing stood between the homicidal clowns and the unsuspecting populace of Meep City! Glancing around, I now saw that the people who had been transformed into copies of the clown were slowly getting to their feet. I was slowly being surrounded by an army of homicidal maniacs, bent on destruction.
“And now, Peter, I'm afraid this is where our friendship ends.” Lanny's voice was no longer coming from all over the warehouse. Instead, it sounded as if he was standing right behind me! I turned back towards the clown I had stabbed and saw that he had stopped convulsing. Not only that, but the blank stare that had been on his face initially was now gone. In its place was a devilish look of pure evil, and he was staring right at me. Somewhere, hidden behind the snarling grin and painted face I could barely discern the features of my former companion, Lanny. “If I'm going to enact my plans I'm going to need to tie up all loose ends which, sadly, includes you.”
I understood perfectly what It meant by that phrase. He was intending to have me join his ranks as another copy of him! I knew I only had one option at this time, and that was to run. So, without another thought, I did just that.