I hid out in my cartridge for a few days—the cartridge, I should say. It was never mine. Just my prison. But I suppose the warden had other plans for me.

I wasn't exactly asleep in there. Static filled my ears and vision until I felt like only a hollow version of myself. Then, after a couple days that felt like centuries, I woke up to something different. Something frightening.

I looked groggily around the room. I didn't recognize this place. I should've expected that; after years of being tossed from player to player, naive prick to naive prick, waking up in someone else's house was your average Tuesday for me.

But this wasn't Avery's house.

Years of trauma and lies and murder and pain started building up in my chest, threatening to explode outwards. This was a mistake. It had to be. Yeah—somebody just stole it from their pocket at school, and decided to leave me here. Or maybe Ave had a secret basement, or storage room they forgot to tell me about. But by now, I knew every inch of that house like the back of my hand.

I was being recycled. Thrown back into the loop. Forgotten.

Sold.

It shouldn't have hurt me as much as it did in that moment. It shouldn't have hurt.

"Guys, do you see this?"

I tried to move when I heard that voice. I tried to run, or fly, or at least face whoever was talking. Nothing.

I reached out a hand. Something was blocking me. It was trapping me; something cold and glassy.

I squinted from inside the TV, trying to read backwards. File 1. BEN.

Of course.

"No, wait," the person said. "This is probably the file Ave set up to scare me..."

That's the last thing I heard before BEN came out to play.

—

BEN stays dormant for another few years. Ben is awake now.

He paces around the new house like his human self used to, occasionally walks through walls, spies on neighboring houses when he has nothing better to do. He's free. Not from the violent and senseless other half of him, of course, but the game. The loop.

He's free. So why does he still feel so terrible?

He sits on the bloodied kitchen counter as Max sips some tea beside him. Ben expected him, of all people, to clean up the mess he and Jeff left since this house came into their ownership. But it seems neither of them will ever get around to it. Maybe he simply doesn't want to think about death anymore, and so ignores the stains.

Ben could find out why so easily. He could take another trip into his mind, find out all his darkest secrets...

"Benjamin, was it?"

Max says this without looking up from his drink. Ben jumps in his seat and accidentally phases through the counter. The heat of embarrassment overtakes his face in a wave, quickly making way for confusion. He dusts himself off (more out of habit than necessity; he is a ghost) and floats to sit on the counter again, edging forward by an inch.

"You"—he clears his throat—"you can see me?"

Max looks concerned. "Was I not supposed to?"

Ben brings his knees up to his chest and folds his arms with a scoff. "...maybe."

"I don't believe we've talked before."

Ben blinks as Max jumps straight into conversation. He's right; they haven't spoken more than five words to each other, at least, not since BEN...

"Uh. No. I guess not."

"You seem to get along well with Jeff."

Ben finds a smirk fighting its way onto his face. "You seem to get along extra well with him." A jolt of panic shoots up his spine not one second after, though, as he realizes something. "Hold on, does—does this mean he can see me too?"

Max stares blankly at the wall in front of him, seeming to think about it. "Well, he must. Or I'm losing my mind."

Ben groans and buries his face in his hands. "Of course. Listen, never mention this to him, okay? Guy probably thinks I'm some lost, clingy kid who doesn't know what to do with himself—"

"I don't think he minds having you around, Ben." Max stirs his drink and takes another sip. "If he did, he would've said something by now."

Ben scooches back to sit cross-legged on the counter. He narrows his eyes at nothing. "Oh, yeah? What about that thing he said..." He drops his voice to match Jeff's gravelly drawl as best he can: "That bastard, he runs from his problems too much."

"You heard that?" Rather than nervous or annoyed, Max sounds fascinated. He quickly shrugs and makes a vague, dismissive gesture with his hand. "Well, either way, I know he doesn't think badly of you. Trust me; I've seen what happens when he thinks badly of someone," he says with a poorly disguised chuckle.

He's closer to him than me.

Ben takes a good, long look at Max. He seems so...calm. So at peace with himself. All those painful memories of the past—he's shoved them down now, of course, but he also dealt with them at one point or another.

This man is standing in a house with Jeff the Killer, drinking tea and talking about him like a close roommate without a care in the world. Ben can't help but wonder how the hell he managed to get here.

He clears his throat again. There was nothing stuck there.

"Hey, Max—Masquerade...?"

"Oh, I don't use that name anymore. But thank you."

"Sure. Uh, Max..." Ben hesitates, then holds his head and tangles his fingers in his hair like he might rip it out. Here it goes.

"How did you do it?"

"Do what...?"

"Move on. Be happy. How did you get with Jeff, of all people, how did you get it to work?" He takes a shudder of a breath and looks up. "I mean, no offense, but you're both pretty fucked up. So how come I couldn't...how come I couldn't get the life I wanted? How come I can't go back to them, no matter how much I want to? How come I spent so much time looking for them, just watching from a mile away, watching them be happy and have friends, maybe even someone new to—"

"Watching who?"

Max leans forward to catch Ben's eye while he spirals. Ben lifts his hands from the countertop—he's started gripping it so tightly, he wonders if his claws are coming back—and sighs.

"A...a person. That's all. A person named Avery."

Max nods with narrowed eyes. Avery. That name sounds vaguely familiar. The boy had muttered it, horrified, in a half-lucid state after coming back from his corrupted form, and just before disappearing on him and Jeff.

"And you were looking for them. That's why you..."

He gets the feeling he doesn't need to continue that sentence for Ben to get the gist. He doesn't really know what to continue with, either way. Ben throws him a passing glance.

"Sure. I was looking for them. But also for...I don't know. Something else. Something more."

Max speaks gently.

"Well. Did you find it, whatever that was?"

Ben looks down at his hands, face almost blank except for a sliver of disappointment and grief.

"...no. I didn't."

Max looks at him with sympathy—no, empathy. He knows this feeling. He sighs, rests his cup of tea on the counter, and looks ahead.

"I was once separated from a person I loved. Many of them, really. I made it my life's purpose to find them again." He furrows his eyebrows in thought. "Five years. That's how long it took. And when I finally got back, it somehow didn't feel like enough."

Ben nods, though he doesn't have the heart to tell Max he already knew all that.

"It felt like an empty victory. Then I had to leave them all again, and that hurt me even more, even though I chose to. I realized it was a lost cause. Things were never going to go back to how they were before. I knew things now, things that changed everything about how I viewed them. But later...much later, it took me a while...I realized I wasn't giving up five years of work and tears and hope. There wasn't a second wasted there, because I'd found somebody new. Someone who loved me, not because I was 'valuable' to him, he just...did. I was looking for my—um, the people for the wrong reasons." He turns to Ben. "Why were you looking for this person?"

Ben laughs ironically and shakes his head. "I guess that's the difference, huh? I wouldn't even try to stay with them, I just..." He tries to hold back bloody tears.

"I just want to say I'm sorry."

Max nods in understanding and takes a long, slow drink.

"I'm sure you'll find whatever you're looking for with Avery, Ben. If they really mean that much to you."

There is a tense, somber pause.

"Are you feeling okay?"

Ben lies.

"Yeah. I'm fine."

—

I was in a nightmare now. I'd blacked out, that I already knew. How long it'd lasted was what I had to ask myself now.

I heard a garbled, distant voice like a choppy radio signal through static.

"Not even trying...isn't making anything better..."

Ave?

I tried to call out, however weak I was.

"Ave!"

No.

Something talked back. It wasn't them; this person, this creature was cold and silencing. I breathed heavily and tried to burst free. I was still locked inside of something.

"Ave! Can you hear m—"

I was hit across the face with what felt like a stone. Tears—no, blood started flowing from my eyes. It was him. That twisted thing was talking to Avery instead of me.

What happened? How could he have gotten free? I trusted Avery. I loved them.

What did they do? What did I do?

I heard their voice again.

"What do you mean, 'no'? Are you just going to ignore me now?!"

"No, Ave, you don't understand," I heard muffled from what must have been outside my body.

I was trapped inside my own head.

Desperate and overwhelmed, I punched. I kicked, I bit, I tore myself apart from the inside. I could barely seek comfort by saying it wasn't really myself; I was only trying to force BEN out. I wanted to cry. I wanted to scream for help.

"Ow!" the thing said, turning inward to deal with the thorn in its side. I couldn't care less what it would do to me; I kept fighting. I wanted out. Needed, even.

"What's going on?" Ave asked.

"Christ! Are you serious?"

"What...?"

"No," it said when I didn't give up. It said it as if it expected me to stop.

I could feel one of my arms again. I was half-separated from my own body, fighting to regain control.

First the arm, then part of my neck, then both of my shoulders...

"S-stop it!"

"No!" I yelled.

No, it said back to me, hushed and hurried and deep into my skull like I was the only one meant to hear it.

"No, no no no no—"

BEN kept going, this time out loud, repeating the same word over and over again like I would never come back if it just kept talking.

I had to come back. I knew it had hurt people, I knew I had hurt people somehow.

I wondered, horrified, if Avery hated me because of all this.

Cold air hit my face as I woke up.