I almost scratched my face trying to comb matted hair out of my eyes as I approached the creek. I couldn't help but shiver as what seemed like a bucket of freezing water was dumped on my head from a nearby tree branch. My feet were already freezing, and I'd only walked about five minutes to reach this place. Shutting my eyes, I reached a shaky hand into my coat pocket and pulled the cartridge out.

It was time.

As I was about to drop it into the stream, I felt an icy hand grip my wrist and I yelped in shock, my eyes springing open. My heart felt like it was going to pop out of my chest and not in the good way. I felt a pounding in my ears, and my grip on the cartridge tightened. I didn't move; I couldn't move.

I felt his gaze burning a hole in the back of my head as his voice reverberated in my mind.

What are you doing.

I gulped and closed my eyes again. Whatever was going to happen, I couldn't look at his face.

"I'm sorry," I managed to say, my voice cracking. My throat felt hoarse and dry.
Are you? Because it does seem to me that you're just throwing me away again. Like I won't come back. I heard a distinct chuckle behind me, and found the will to rip my hand from his.

"I'm done with this. I've thought it too many times and never actually did anything. But I can't let you just do this anymore." I rubbed my wrist and almost pocketed the cartridge. But then I stopped myself.

No. I'm in control.

I slowly raised it in the air and turned around to face Ben, holding it in front of his face.

"I've tried stopping you before. Nothing's worked. And...it's my fault. I let you go too far. I pretended like I knew what was best for you. I...I pretended I could help you." I sighed and stepped backwards into the river. The icy water licked at my ankles, and it took all my strength not to step out.

"I can't help you."

An aggravated look grew on Ben's face, and he tried to wrench the game out of my hand.

When he came into contact with it, I heard a small spark and saw a faint circle of light surround the cartridge. He sharply withdrew his hand and ran a fingertip over his claws, looking outraged.

He can't touch it. It would kill him.

He curled his hands into fists, and blood flooded even quicker from his eyes.

"You dirty li—"

"I'm dumping this in the river, Ben. I can't be bought anymore. If you apologize now, I'll still do it. If you try to kill me again, I'll do it."

"Y-you—"

Ben seemed to stumble over his words. Finally, his face started to distort, and he swung both his hands at my neck.
I felt a sharp coldness as they passed right through.

He can't touch me.

I saw his chest heaving desperately as he made wild, violent gestures towards me.

"You—you don't know what you're doing. This won't fix anything in your sad little life. You need me. Don't do this, Av—"

"It was nice knowing you."

Grabbing a sharp stone, I dropped the cartridge into the water and dug the rock through its center.

Coincidentally, Ben looked like he had just been stabbed in the gut. His glowing irises turned to pinpricks in his hollow sockets, and his entire form was disfigured. Black liquid poured from his mouth and eyes.

...but he didn't disappear.

He looked terrible. He looked dead. But he wouldn't go.

I bent to pick up the damaged game and examined it. It was completely demolished. There were sharp cracks in the plastic everywhere, and I could see bent metal poking out from the inside chip.

Gulping, I took it in my hands and snapped the thing in half, and immediately heard a painful ringing in my ears.

Ben became fuzzy. Twisted. Even more, if you could imagine. I heard him choke out, "I lo—"

I blinked, and he was gone.

My eyes widened. What?

I looked wildly around. The river, currently being overflowed with water was screeching in my ears, and I could barely see through the blinding sheet of rain crossing my eyes.

But his buzzing was gone.

Ben was gone.

—

I thought after that I might follow in Alex's footsteps and light the game on fire. Just to be safe. But I couldn't find it in myself to do it. It was already destroyed enough. Nobody would be able to really do anything with it. What did I have to lose by just leaving it like that?

I silently closed the screen door to my house and leaned against it, heaving one final breath. It was finally over. I still couldn't fully believe it. Ben was just gone from my life, and not in a weird, cop-out, "psych he found me again and swore revenge on my family" kind of way. It was oddly calming until I realized that I didn't really have that much of a purpose anymore. If Ben truly was dead, for good, then he didn't need anybody's help now. And even if he wasn't, he was bound to crawl back to somebody else and continue the cycle.

Helping him was all I had up until now. Just a couple months ago, I could have been called selfless. A hero, even.

But now I was nothing.

My mom passed the back door and saw me just standing there. Contrary to what I expected, she just gave me a sad look and walked away like I was a starving puppy on the street. I probably looked like one, to be fair.

I didn't eat dinner that night, and I didn't drink pure water for the next three days. I ended up sorting through all my clothes and putting everything space-related back into the box in the attic.

At school, I heard in the hallways people whispering about the town growing strangely quiet over the last couple of days. It was almost funny; all this time, I thought I was the only one who was aware of anything going on, being that it was more related to my life than anybody else's. But it turns out, maybe other people heard the static too. Or really, its absence. I tried not to think about it too much.

Jason sat at my table during lunch that day, eyeing me strangely. He seemed to notice something was different.

"...you're not wearing a hoodie today," he started awkwardly, raising an eyebrow at me. I sighed and nodded. "Trying not to go down that road again. Those things are too fucking comfortable, if you ask me."

He chuckled and rested his head in his hands. He seemed to hesitate, like what he said next could make or break his weird friendship with me.

"Hey...I'm glad you're okay, Avery."

That made me smile the tiniest bit. "Is Mr. Flores being nice to you?"

"Yeah. He keeps telling me to call him 'Antonio,' so that must be a good sign." He started digging into his food. "I think you made the right choice."

It took me a good, panicked second to realize he was still talking about Meghan's dad and not Ben. "...Oh. Yeah. That." I cleared my throat. "I...guess I think I made the right choice, too." I fortunately got the feeling that whatever questions he had, he wouldn't bring up Ben unless I wanted to talk about it, which made me feel a little better. But everything still seemed empty now. Like I'd slowly turned up the dial on my life all the way to 10 and then brought it back to 1 in the blink of an eye. It was off-putting.

"Listen...I'm sorry I got you mixed into my mess in the first place. I mean, obviously I didn't know you...well..."

Jason nodded. "It's fine. I've known the Children are pretty fucked-up for a long time now. I just didn't wanna upset my parents, plus they seem like they really think they're doing the right thing."

I raised an eyebrow. "What? But you were so upset when the church was destroyed...didn't you literally say, 'Luna, my everlasting queen'?"

"Just because I knew they were wrong to do some things doesn't mean I didn't believe what they told me. One day spent with Antonio, and he managed to get everything out of me." He gave a weak laugh and rested his head in the palm on his hand. "I'm not sure how, but these last couple days...I really don't want to believe all that anymore. It's not good. They kill people. And I've been living with it ever since I was a kid. It's really sad to just...be in the middle of it, and kind of know the truth at the same time." He paused again. "...while we're doing this...I'm sorry about everything with Ben. Neither of you deserved this. I don't really know what had been happening before all the stuff with the base, but it must've been pretty bad."

"Actually, everything was going fine. But then I made the stupid decision to just expose him to all that again, and then..." I sighed. "Yeah. Not that great."

"Where is he now?"

Jason asked it so casually I was taken aback. Then I remembered that I was the only one who knew. I stayed silent before he realized.

"Did you...get rid of him?"

"For good this time. I kept making bad choices so that I could feel good about myself, but this is different. I just wanted a normal life back, and I wanted everyone to be safe. So I dumped the cartridge in the creek by here and broke it in half."
"Hm."

He seemed unfazed, and I looked up at him, unsure if he'd heard exactly what I said. Before I could say anything, he continued, looking like he was deep in thought.

"D'you tell me what happens when the game's broken? Does he die again?"

"No, I didn't, and no, he doesn't. He just goes somewhere else. I don't know how it happens but he just finds another game and lives there for a while. The same thing happened seven years ago."

"Then are you sure it's for good?"

That question got me. But then I remembered two things that would ensure Ben wouldn't be coming back anytime soon.

"Because he loses his memory every time he's reset. He couldn't remember the name of the guy that made him famous for the life of him when we first met. Plus, he can't remember anything when he goes batshit like last Friday. It's like the real him blacks out, and that other BEN thing takes over. That's something else I think he told me; BEN isn't him. It only comes out when he feels like hurting people."

Jason mulled over that for a minute. Then he took a deep breath.

"So that's it. He's really gone."

"You sound disappointed."

"N-no, I'm not. I mean...maybe a little. I just never really got the chance to apologize. Not that it'd do anything, but I feel like he should know I feel bad for everything my parents got mixed up in."

In a weird way, I understood how he felt.

"Yeah. I get it. I kind of never got a chance to say goodbye to the real him, actually. He was so far gone, I just couldn't."

Strangely, after saying that I thought I would start to tear up. But I didn't. All I could feel was guilt and relief. How does that even happen?

When I looked back up, Jason was smiling the tiniest bit. It was almost a sad smile, but it seemed more hopeful. "You know...I know he probably won't, but however he might come back...I have a feeling it'll be better."

He never did.