At this point, I was pretty sure that Ben Lawman, a dead teen who was complaining about his 7 years spent trapped inside a video game, had little to no concept of how time actually worked. Because I saw almost zero sign of his existence for another month of him being in my house.

Seriously? I agreed to help you and now you literally ghost me. I would've even made a joke about that if you were actually willing to come out again.

Somehow, even as the days went by, I became increasingly more aware of what was really happening around me. It was like time was going backwards. Each day, a new little topping was being added to my grand paranoia sundae, which was only made worse by the fact that I don't even like sundaes.

After weeks of me wondering if Ben was even real or if what I saw was just some weird hallucination, a tiny spark came from the TV when I tried playing the game again. It felt like he was wagging a finger at me, or just disappointed. I glared at the screen and jammed the A button anyway. What else am I supposed to do if you just go and disappear like that?

I heard a faint, staticky sigh come from the television and the files finally popped up.

T H E R E S N O
P O I N T I N
P L A Y I N G

I furrowed my eyebrows. "I know that. But you're not even talking to me," I muttered through clenched teeth. I tried pressing another button and I felt a tiny static shock.

"Ow!"

"I'm sorry, okay? But your mom is home all the time! Also, you sleep like a goddamn baby so it's kind of hard to keep in touch, like...ever."

I tilted my head, a tad bit confused and still very annoyed. "I've woken up in the middle of the night about 5 times this week, what do you mean?"

"Well, you don't answer your phone. You know I can't see anything past the stairs."

"You don't just...!" I narrowed my eyes at the TV and sighed. "Whatever. I'm not doing this right now. Can we just--"

I stopped dead when I heard my mom call from the second floor, probably still groggy from sleeping.

"Ave, are you talking to someone?"

I reluctantly kept my eyes on the screen and replied, "No. Just getting a little annoyed at my new game." I glared pointedly at one of the files, not exactly sure if I could even look Ben in the eyes with a screen blocking us. "It's all good."

"You know, if there's something frustrating you, it's probably best to turn it off for a while and go outside."

"Fine. Just let me finish something." I widened my eyes and motioned for him to get out and in the open before I decided he was a lost cause. There was a long pause before the screen blacked out and a faint silhouette of him almost popped into the room.

Okay. I'm here. What do you want.

Although I almost fell backwards from hearing his voice in my mind, and had a whole other shitton of questions I could've dove into at that moment, I decided to answer him first.

Well, first of all, it's going to be kind of hard to help you if you just avoid me all the time. We probably need some sort of system to do this.

He wordlessly pointed to the N64 beside me and I fixed him with my deadliest glare.

Don't try me. I mean a kind of contract, or some agreement so we don't get on each other's nerves too much.

I can get inside your phone, I think.

Yeah, so can my personal FBI agent. Can't I just carry your cartridge around? Like a portable, mini-Ben?

Extremely bad idea. I'm going in your phone.

"Wait, but—"

I didn't get the time to explain why that was an even worse idea before he disappeared and I heard a very loud ping from upstairs. I groaned to myself and rushed up to my mom's bedroom, snatching my phone from off her nightstand before anything happened.

"Who's texting you now?"

"Just this guy from school. Project stuff."

"Hm. Is he cute?" My mom smirked from inside her closet and raised an eyebrow at me. I decided not to pander to her today.

"Pretty mediocre, actually. Bye."

I walked out and to my own room, shutting the door before entering my passcode and narrowing my eyes at the front-facing camera.

"Life lesson number one. When I tell you something's a bad idea, maybe listen to me. Sound good?"

Didn't know your mom was some heteronormative control freak. I'll try.

"Good. Cool. Nice. Does brainstorming how we can get you out of digital purgatory sound like something you'd want to do right now?"

I can't tell if you're being serious.

"You were supposed to say 'yes,' but I'll take what I can get." I drew a shaky breath and glanced at the doorway, about to reach my peak paranoia level at any moment. I turned back to my phone and saw that it'd timed out. Setting it down and assuming he could still hear me, I racked my brain for solutions. Is it even possible to get him out of the internet?

What would Jadusable do, what would Jadusable do...

"Okay. Gonna ask again. Who is Jadusable."

I jumped where I sat and looked up. Ben was just standing there, looking impatient. I furrowed my eyebrows, not sure if he was joking with me or not. "From all your years spent living inside the web, you don't know who Jadusable is. Scratch that, do you even know your story?"

He narrowed his eyes, and I suddenly felt...weird. Like my emotions were being turned on me, and we had somehow switched places. So that's what people mean when they say he's manipulative.

"First of all, I heard that. Second, that's kind of a poetic way to put it but of fucking course I know my 'story.' Whatever that means." His gaze flickered to the side unsurely. "And I'm not repeating it."

"That's not what I meant. Ben...you're famous."

"I'm what now."

"You have this massive fanbase. 75% of girls—hell, even some guys on the internet would bang you for a quarter any day of the week."

Ben froze, then looked disgusted. "I'm a minor!"

"Yeah, and some people prefer to see you as not that. Anyways, you've got a story, like I said. This one guy made an ARG about your game. Made these videos on an emulator where he could make the game look haunted. Everybody who read it lost their shit."

"B-but...how...how do they know anything about me? Did..." he paused, and something in him seemed to shift. "Jadusable...that's not their real name, is it?"

"His name is Alex. College student. He..." Ben's hands curled into fists, and his entire body started shaking.

"Alex, you little shit! He's the one who got me stuck here! I'm going to ki—"

"Woah, dude, calm down!" I held up my hands when his voice turned from normal to absolute Satan spawn in less than 2 seconds. "I don't think he meant to hurt you...that much. But he couldn't have known this would happen."

"Oh, he couldn't have known? Then what did he think burning me alive would've done? Did he think I was all safe and secure, did-did he think that was going to make everyone happy?"

"Probably!"

Ben froze, and then sighed, dropping down next to me on my bed with his head in his hands. First day and we're already getting all feelsy. Not a good sign.

"I heard that," he mumbled, looking like he was trying to hide his face. "Do you even know anything about me, really?"

"Dude, did you think I'd jump into this if I didn't know anything? Try me."