When IT First Awoke

The story behind this image is:
As the pilgrims were settling in the New World, a husband and wife and their newborn son lost their bearings while traversing the forest. In time, they came to a thick part of the woods where they didn't hear a single bird or cricket. The husband struggled to control their horse as he began to fuss. Then came the sound of howling. In the distant shadows of the trees, the woman could see two glowing yellow eyes belonging to the large dark frame of a wolf. The beast's jaw widened, revealing its mouth filled with rows of large pointed teeth, with saliva drooling off its chin. The horse then went into a frenzy, braying and kicking up its legs, throwing the woman and child from its saddle. The husband was able to catch his wife and child in his arms, but the horse had taken off. The man followed after it, but the ground collapsed beneath them into a giant crater that had been overgrown by greenery. The woman cried into the chasm but heard and saw nothing.
After a moment of silence, she heard a noise in the depths below, like water splashing. Just then, a geyser, red with blood, fired up, spraying hundreds feet high and painting the whole wood crimson.
The woman screamed, and then something else rose from the crater; a body, a man's, with arms and legs and torso long and slender. Its head was large and bulbous, its mouth widened in a fearsome grin with red drool dripping from its lips and its eyes large and yellow, much like that hungry wolf. Instead of falling to the ground, it remained hovering in the air above her.
"My my my!" it spoke "What is this new flavor I smell before me?"
But the woman could only scream.
"Oh yes! Delightful! So lovely! So DELICIOUS! Like nothing I have had before in this world! What is this called? Oh yes, FEAR! It is what gives meat its flavor, and unlike the beasts, your fear gives me form!"
"Vile thing!" the woman cried "Tell me what thou art!"
"How rude I am! I shall introduce myself" the thing then said, outstretching his arms like a bow "I am The Devil Himself! The Red Dragon, the corruptor of the righteous, the soiler of virgins, the devourer of souls, that serpent who tempted Woman with the sweet Forbidden Fruit, that foul horny goat-headed red Devil, he, and now I have come for YOU!"
"NO!" she screamed, clutching her child closer to her breast "You cannot have me!"
"But I will! I will have you, I will have ALL of your kind! I will feast on your fear as I drink down your blood and chew on your meat and suck the marrow from your bones! Or......." he then raised a bony finger pointing towards the baby bundled in her arms "You will give me HIM!"
"NO! I WILL NEVER!"
"If you refuse me, then I will not stop until I have consumed ALL of your people! But....if you give him to me freely, then I can have my long rest, and I will not hunger again until you and your child and your child's children live and thrive and lead happy lives until old age take you all down to the weeds! What will be your choice?"
The woman's eyes and ears remained shut as her lips rapidly muttered prayer after prayer, her hand clutching her cross hanging from her neck. The cross then suddenly ripped from her grasp directly through the air and into the creature's.
"And what is THIS lovely trinket?" it said, hanging the cross in front of its face and took in two sniffs "PEE-YOO! What foul smell is THIS? *Sniff sniff* Ahh yes, I see now- hope! And worse yet- FAITH!" The creature's mouth then widened, stretching open like a snake, and it lowered the cross into its gaping trap. It crunched the wooden cross between its teeth before swallowing it down. "GAH!" it sneered with disdain "Yes, a most foul taste indeed!"
The woman crawled back in fright, and her baby began to scream all the more.
The creature then hovered closer and sniffed again. "Ohhhhhhhhhhhh yesssss..." it said in a voice that rumbled so low and deep it sounded almost like a feline pur "But THAT, that FEAR, is sooooooo wonderful; so PURE, so exquisite! Yours does not even compare! You MUST leave him with me!"
Though her fear threatened to cripple her, she held strong in her faith, remembering how it despised the "flavor" of it, and rose to stand.
"I will never! Not for my life, or for any other in the world! Be gone Satan! Get thee from my sight!"
The creature's toothy grin then stretched all the wider.
"As you wish" it said. It then flew down through the air, ripping the child from her arms. Now it was held in the jaws of a rabid wolf, with matted and ripped fur and yellow eyes. The creature held the infant screaming and squirming in its teeth. Its lips stretched as it held the child in a grin, then its teeth sank into the child's soft belly. The beast's head thrashed about, its teeth shredding into its kill, snapping the child's neck. Blood and strips of flesh splattered across the already-blood soaked trees and grass. Once limp, the creature tossed the carcass to the ground.
The woman wailed in despair as her baby was torn apart before her very eyes. Once the infant was disposed, the wolf turned its sight on her, blood drooling from its grinning mouth. The beast then rose so that it was standing on its hind legs, its head now at least three feet taller than the woman's. Its left arm stretched out to its side while its right folded across its chest and its back hunched, performing a bow.
"Welcome to my home" the creature spoke, and then it was on her.
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In an interview, Bill Skarsgard (the actor playing Pennywise/It in the new film adaptation of Stephen King's IT) discussed filming a scene that was later left out of the final film, in which is shown Its first interaction with a human, a mother and her newborn; It then strikes the bargain of "allow me this one child and i will spare all else and will be fed enough to not return for many years...but refuse me, and none will be spared."
Its dialogue was actually used in the film during the Losers' fight with Pennywise during the climax; "...I'll take ALL of you! Yes i'll feed on your fear as I feast on your flesh! Oooooooooorrrrr... You just leave us be! And i will take him, and ONLY him! And then I will have my long rest, and all of you may grow and live old and lead long and HAAAAAAAAA-PPYYYYYYY LIIIIIIIIIVESSSS, until old age takes you to the weeds!"
The covering in blood was an idea that came after the lines got done 😝 I got inspired by Nightmare On Elm Street plus Evil Dead to coat the forest by blood geyser that spurts out of the hole It rises out of. The hole/crater It comes out of is meant to be the crater that resulted from Its landing on Earth during the dinosaur era.
Because this is an image that requires so much context, i felt obligated to have a companion story to go with it 😁 Hell if i was more motivated i might have done a whole comic illustration 😉😉😉LOL😝💀
Me, i like how this turned out 😊😁😁💚❤