There are towns that appear on maps, and towns that seem to exist only because no one has found a way to escape them. Derry is one of those places.
If you ask anyone who has lived here their whole life, they'll tell you it's a quiet town. That children go out to play until dusk, that the river has always flowed in the same place, and that news of disappearances are just simple misfortunes, coincidences that happen anywhere. They say it with such naturalness that it's almost convincing.
Almost.
Because Derry has the strange habit of forgetting too quickly.
Abandoned bicycles reappear without owners. There are rooms that remain intact even though the person who slept in them never returned. Family photographs preserve smiles that no one can name anymore. Some parents wake up in the middle of the night with the feeling of having lost something, but by dawn, they continue their routine as if the memory had been ripped from their heads.
Children, however, notice it.
They know there are streets best left untraversed when it starts to get dark. That the sewers seem too deep for a simple drainage system. That some basements smell of dampness even in the middle of summer. And that, from time to time, the wind carries a faint laugh that no one wants to admit having heard.
The summer of 1989 began like any other.
School ended. The pools opened. Movie theaters filled their marquees with new releases. Teenagers talked about parties, bikes, and vacations, while the younger ones chased paper planes and boats made of notebook paper. For a few weeks, the world seemed reduced to endless afternoons under the sun.
Then, the disappearances began.
First, it was a child whose name stopped being heard in the neighborhood. Then another. And another.
Newspapers spoke of accidents, kidnappings, runaways. The police repeated the same promises over and over. Adults found explanations for everything, even when nothing made sense. But there was something they never mentioned.
The balloons.
They appeared tied to a rusted fence, floating in the middle of an empty alley, or slowly rising from an open sewer. Always red. Always where they shouldn't be.
No one knew who left them there.
Or maybe they did.
Some claim to have seen a silhouette watching from the bottom of a storm drain during a rainstorm. Others remember a gentle voice whispering their name when they were completely alone. Some speak of an impossible smile, too wide to belong to a person.
And then there are those who simply stopped talking.
They say fear can make you imagine things. In Derry, fear does something much worse.
Stories change depending on who tells them. The dates never quite align. Adults forget details that children recall with absolute clarity. It is as if the town itself wanted to protect a secret buried beneath its streets from long before any of its inhabitants were born.
Perhaps it's all just rumors.
Perhaps not.
Regardless, this summer will be different.
Because some doors were never meant to be opened.
Some names were never meant to be spoken aloud.
And there are places where, if you listen closely enough, you can swear that something is waiting for you on the other side of the darkness.
Welcome to Derry.
If you ever see a red balloon floating where there is no one... keep walking and don't look back.
