Benjamin

It was a little after 9 pm, and the house was quiet.

I couldn't get the raging thought of what was on that tape out of my head, and nor could Bella. We practically ignored each other the rest of the day, and it had finally gotten dark outside.

It started to rain, and the faint noise of raindrops hitting the windows, which were now uncovered and dusted, made the whole situation only a little less aggravating.

I had a terrible headache that pulsated like drums in my head, making the rest of my body ache, so I watched Bella take herself to her room, and I went to mine.

I took some aspirin to ease my headache, then changed my clothes, brushed my teeth, and slipped under my bedsheets.

I dared to ignore the fact that it felt like someone was watching me as I drifted off to sleep.

I grunted and sat up in my bed, and the room seemed to be at a slant. What was once my headache had now turned into a heartbeat within my head, and my ears continued to ring loudly.

I could tell I was dreaming, but it still felt so real, especially when I could feel cold hands around my ankles.

I didn't want to freak out about it, knowing it was a dream, but my heart raced as the grip tightened.

The ringing in my head grew louder and louder, till I was groaning in pain from its shriek and the clod hands grip until everything broke out with what sounded like the cry of a woman.

It was loud, and I could hear the pain in her voice, as she eventually started screaming.

"who- mmf, mmmf!" I muffled, and I started panicking. The cold hands that once gripped my feet were now covering my mouth and pushing me further into the bed, and I couldn't speak.

I started screaming, but they were no louder than the silence that filled the room, and I wriggled around, but I couldn't seem to move either.

Before I knew it, I felt another pain in the back of my head, and I could feel it hitting the cold wooden floor. Whatever had me had dragged me out of my bed and was dragging me throughout the hall.

"mmmmf! mmmmf!" I tried yelling, but it still didn't work. My heart pounded as my eyes glanced over the windows, and multiple shadow figures, tall short, feminine, and masculine. I tried screaming for help, but they all just watched.

I started to feel dizzy, and the room started spinning. I wasn't one for fainting, but everything that was happening felt nothing like a dream at all.

Whoever was dragging me stopped, and the sudden end of motion made me almost throw up. Looking to my side, I relaxed all my muscles, and it felt like I sank into the floor. I squinted my eyes as I saw a figure next to me, and I could see a woman's shape, but I couldn't seem to recognize her.

She sat there, completely scream, then let out another terrible shriek like what I had heard earlier. It pitched with the ringing in my ears, and eventually, from all the pain, I started screaming too.

I jolted forward, and I could feel hands on both of my shoulders, but they weren't cold at all, they felt warm, and my vision cleared to see blue hair, which alone made me feel relieved, but I soon saw how panicked her face was.

"Benji... you have to wake up" she pleaded. I could see the concern on her face and I started to get worried.

"You're ok, right..?" I said, lifting an eyebrow, or I at least I tried to. I sucked at doing it.

"Your mother is home..."

***

As his mother ranted and raved about my father's actions, Benji folded my arms and slumped back on the kitchen chair. It was all starting to give him another headache.

Since the couches were still covered in dust and covered in sheets, Bella sat on the kitchen counter, which probably wasn't any cleaner. She simply held her head and listened to his mother.

While most would find it odd for his parent to be away for so long without a call or a message, Bella and Ben both knew exactly why it happened, and it happened a lot.

he started to think about when he was younger, he and Bella would be playing in the tall grass meadow that was by the old house. They would pay out there when his parent s weren't home.

About eighty-percent of the time his parents went on a date, it resulted in an annoying argument in which my mother would go to her mother's house or a friends house to sulk, and my father would go to his brother's house to be a slob.

Regardless of where they went, they seemed to be too caught up in their selfish lives to care about the well-being of their son.

This was a key reason why Ben never really listened to his mother when She came home from these events, but Bella was different. He assumed it was because she related to his mother on a 'despise all men' kind of level.

He eventually went to his room at the end of the hall and snatched the camera that was almost catching dust laying on his desk.

Ben walked outside of the house, the floorboards creaking with each step he took. He passed Bella hugging his mother but didn't feel much for it.

Once he was outside, the gentle breeze made the yellow grass around him flow. The grass went up to about his thighs and covered most of the mountain that the house stood on.

In the distance, saw what looked like an old truck, but there was something odd about it. It was slanted as if part of it was in the ground. Ben decided to take high steps over the grass, going towards it.

Once he arrived, the rust on an old blue truck became visible, and he was correct; half of the truck was in the ground.

The weeds had grown around its tires, pulling it into the earth. The grass almost reached the top of it, and Ben toward over it. At one point, this truck was taller than him.

The signs of olf age and abandonment would have made the truck a bit more eerie if it weren't for the small blossoms that grew around the weeds. The windows had been cracked and slightly rolled down, so he could peer inside. Beige leather covered the interior, but it was worn and ripped and smelled foul. This was probably a result of any animals that had gone in there.

Ben held his camera up to his eyes and snapped photos of the truck, but he eventually had to back away. The terrible smell filled his nostrils and almost made him gag. he took one more look inside the vehicle to see if there were any actual evidence of animals, but he couldn't even see in the backseat, which made it useless.

He had walked a good distance away from the truck and decided he would look at the photos later on.

The wind whistled as he went and sat on his front porch, and he felt like it was going to collapse from under him. The wind whistled, like faint whispers, and he continued to watch as the grass moved with it.

It would have felt almost soothing, if he didn't spot a faint person in the far distance, standing right behind the truck.

Ben immediately got a sudden headache watching, and he wasn't sure if he was seeing things or not, so he lifted his camera to take a picture.

But the second he looked away from the figure, it vanished.