Ben was falling, he felt this for as long as what could only be described as a lifetime. This effect was caused because his life was flashing before his eyes, he was about to die. Ben was completely cut off from the rest of the world, the world he had given up on. He had decided to end it, he didn’t want for his life to end in such a way but he never could escape his own fate.

What felt like a lifetime was only seconds in reality, his body had finally after mere seconds connected with the cold concrete pavement, well, it should have but it didn’t.

Instead of a gruesome splash or a thud that would indicate his death, all Ben could hear was glass shattering as if he had just fallen through a window. Ben who had closed his eyes unknowingly opened them very carefully, expecting to see nothing. Yet instead of the expected darkness he saw the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. He could now see why he had heard glass shattering.

Colored fragments that resembled shattered glass floated around him, red, purple, blue, green, you name them. Every color that he thought possible and even some impossible were present, each shard had its own color but there weren’t two of the same shards.

Sometimes one of these shards would make contact with his body but it was as if they weren’t there at all. They didn’t have any mass, but they felt as if each individual shard held immeasurable amounts of pressure behind them.

Ben tried moving his arm, he was successful, much to his surprise. Due to this he ended up touching some of the shards sending these shards flying away from his body. One shard hit the other, then another and this continued. Sometimes one of these shards would move in ways thought to be impossible.

Ben was in awe, he had completely forgotten that he had just tried to commit suicide. With glistening eyes Ben observed these shards that were dancing around him, some were fast and others were slow, yet they were all equally impressive.

Ben’s awe was interrupted when they all suddenly stopped. Nothing moved, not even Ben’s chest that was normally moving up and down with each individual breath. This silence went on for multiple seconds, yet these seconds felt even longer than a lifetime.

...

First, one shard started moving, then another. They all moved again, only this time they all moved to a single coordinated location, Ben. One by one these shards started penetrating Ben’s skin, but Ben who had expected pain only felt bliss, this feeling only increased the more these shards entered his body.

Each of these shards that had entered his body caused a stir in his body. Thousands of shards were absorbed in Ben’s body, there were even shards bigger than Ben himself that somehow made its way harmlessly into his body.

When the last shard was absorbed everything went silent, except for this time Ben’s breaths were audible. With each breath Ben took the now shardless space around him shook as if it was barely holding it together.

Ben felt safe in this empty space, he was scared to lose this safety as he had never truly felt safe in his life. As such he tried holding his breath, not allowing for it to be the cause of him losing this safety. Minutes went by, and when Ben had finally thought he had saved his safety the space around him started to tremble once more. Only this time with a rhythm of a heartbeat, Ben’s heartbeat.

With each pump of his heart the space trampled once more, only this time more intense than with his breaths. Ben did the only thing that had fixed it the previous time, he stopped his heartbeat, or at least he tried. Surprisingly it worked, he tried to feel his heartbeat by putting two fingers to his artery in his neck but he felt nothing.

Ben was too relieved about his safety that he didn’t think about how it was possible for him to stop his own heartbeat, or to keep himself from breathing for over 5 minutes. Ben had never felt this before, he would do anything to keep it.

Ever since he was young he had to care for himself, that didn’t mean he was alone. He had his mother, yet she was useless to the point where Ben had to look after her when he was six years old. How ridiculous is that, being so incompetent that you had to have a six year old child look after you.

For this reason, and this reason only, Ben couldn’t blame his father for leaving his mother behind. The only thing Ben hated about this was that his father didn’t take him with him, if he did so Ben could have had a normal life, like any other child should have.

Ben was lucky to even be able to attend school, he wasn’t the smartest but he was easily the hardest working student. His motivation for doing so was that the sooner he was able to graduate the sooner he was able to leave his mother behind.

Even if Ben didn’t have the bond between his mother like any other child had, he did feel something when his mother died, leaving him behind. She had died when Ben was twelve years old, she had died of an overdose. He was mad that she left him behind, leaving him to fend off the dangers alone, well, he was used to it by this point.

As his mother was the only source of income and as no one wanted to hire a twelve year old child he went looking for chores he could do around the neighbourhood, simple tasks like mowing grass or cleaning up trash on the beach. Even if he was very responsible for a twelve year old Ben couldn’t keep up and his mentality started to get affected, this was when people started to notice Ben's change and started to ask questions.

When Ben wouldn’t show up to school for multiple weeks at a time and only did so for tests the school called to his home. Only to receive shocking news when they investigated further as such behaviour isn't normal and people started worrying.

Child protection services were quickly called to Ben’s home, when no one answered they started asking questions around the neighbourhood. The people who were questioned all said that Ben was a hard working kid, completely opposite of his mother. They had said that they hadn’t seen his mother for about a month now.

When the CPS were done asking around they had enough information and notified the correct authorities who were allowed to search the house without breaking any laws. When they finally entered the house none were able to find the child's mother, looking through the house one of the people searching the house noticed a small wooden cross in the small back garden with dug up dirt in front of it.

When they came closer to said object to inspect it they found what could only be described as a small grave with no name on it.

As Ben wasn’t home at the time he wasn’t aware of what was happening, he only found out when he came home that evening. His house was surrounded by police and what seemed like a more fancy police van with people in white suits.

Ben was confused when he arrived, he had no clue as to why his house was being surrounded by the police. As Ben had been growing up being neglected and without access to the internet he had no idea about what was going on, and when he tried to enter his house he was stopped.

The police quickly figured out what was going on and Ben was taken away from the home. From this point forward Ben’s life changed, he was put in an orphanage and received proper attention he had never had. Though this didn’t do much to help him, from young he was alone, he had learned to care for himself and he didn’t need others to pity him.

…

Tears started to form in Ben’s eyes, he had his moments where he thought back to his childhood but this time it was as if he was there again. The same flashing lights of the police cars that had frightened him to no end still scarred into his mind. But what annoyed Ben the most out of those memories were the pitying looks people gave him, they didn’t care, all they saw was an abused child but didn’t even try to help him all they saw was an opportunity to look good by helping a “helpless” child, not all people who wanted to help him were bad, but those people were few.

The white space was changing once again, instead of shaking or falling apart it started to fill with water, forming an endless ocean of tears. The water had long since passed Ben’s height but because he was keeping his breath still scared to lose this safe haven Ben didn’t care.

Instead of floating inside this white space Ben was now floating inside what seemed like a depthless ocean. When Ben started to carefully move around, careful because he was scared that a wrong move could end this peace, he looked around with caution.

He started by slowly moving his arms, then his legs and soon he was swimming to the surface. It took Ben what felt like years to reach the surface but when he did, he could see an endless ocean, with a white sky. The same white that had been present all this time.

His body providing the warmth needed to not feel uncomfortable in this ocean, Ben relaxed and spread his body in such a way he kept floating on the surface. As he didn’t breathe he kept afloat with the air in his lungs.

Slowly but surely the surrounding around him started to gain a nice temperature, a warm 37 degrees. The same temperature that his body had.

Ben was fully aware that whatever state his body was in affected the space around him, so that was why he was scared to do anything. He thought that if he did something that he would lose what was his first feeling of true safety.

…

A point far away from Ben the temperature was rising fast, to the point where the temperature would burn anything that came within its vicinity of it. Slowly but surely this warmth took shape, the shape of a ball, a ball that was on fire. This of course was what is called a sun. When the size of this flaming ball barely hit one tenth of a sunmass it stopped growing, staying steady in its place.

…

It started with a red glow, and then a circular shape started appearing above the endless ocean. The temperature stayed the same but when those red glows made contact with Ben he felt as if a new form of warmth entered his body. After mere minutes the small ball had completely risen above the water now.

The white sky was slowly being replaced by a blue color, as if a bucket of paint was spilled on a white canvas. The flaming ball had completely taken over the sky with its majestic glow fully immersing everything.

Ben was staring into the flaming ball, following the ball whenever it moved in the sky. Normally your eyes would eventually feel pain from staring so long at such a great source of light, heck it might even damage your eyes, but Ben didn’t feel anything discomfort and only felt serene. The flaming ball had a somewhat familiar feel to it.

Ben wanted to try something. He willed his body temperature to rise, and seconds later the flaming ball became brighter until it became so bright that the only thing Ben saw was white. The same white he had felt safe in, only this time he felt the warmth that usually came with a sunny day during the summer.

Ben controlled his body temperature, this time instead of heating it up he let the temperature drop down to 0 degrees. When he did so the flaming ball’s glow started to lessen up to a point where every form of heat was gone. Even if Ben felt strange without warmth he decided to lower the temperature even more.

First he lowered it to -10 degrees, eventually it came to -50, then -100, -200 and eventually -273 degrees. He wasn’t able to lower the temperature more than that, as every atom that existed has ceased to move, this is something that happens at absolute zero. The water around Ben had long been frozen solid but Ben was free from its clutches. He stood up, for the first time in what felt like an eternity. Not affected by the fact that every atom should have stopped moving.

The flaming ball wasn’t emitting red glows anymore, the flames had been extinguished and all that was left was a ball of nothingness. Ben could still see the outline of this flaming ball but everything else was gone.

He didn’t feel cold, opposite to his expectations he still felt warm. His body was cold enough to have frozen his blood but instead of doing so the blood moved fiercely through his veins even though he had stopped his heart from beating.

When he tried to look into this ice started breaking all around him, the water that had been frozen just seconds ago started to move. Waves started to form, some bigger than buildings and others the size of an anthill but none made contact with Ben.

Ben willed his blood flow to slow down, immediately the waves calmed down, now threatening to be frozen over once again but this time much slower than before as the water wasn’t stationary like last time.

Ben was currently standing on a piece of ice that hadn’t started moving around, it was stationary not wanting for Ben to fall off. Ben felt that no matter what he would not fall off of this piece of ice thus willed his blood to flow faster.

Waves bigger than skyscrapers started to form and collapse around Ben, forming smaller waves that were still able to hold records back on Earth. With each wave that crashed into another wave the ocean started moving. Ben willed his blood flow back to normal having enjoyed enough of such a spectacle calming the waters down to a point where there were only minor waves that sometimes crashed against the ice on which Ben was standing.

Ben felt that it was safe to breathe again, he had been consciously holding his breath all this time as he had been breathing for all his life he was used to doing so. When his first breath came out from his mouth the water once again started moving, this time instead of waves a giant hurricane formed with Ben in its gigantic eye.

If Ben were to give a quick measurement of the size of this eye it would be easily larger than a large city. Then the size of the hurricane itself would be humongous. How Ben was able to measure such size was weird as if he somehow knew this even before it formed. The ice that had previously covered the whole body of water started to be lifted in the air by the sheer force of this massive hurricane. Ice shards that had been broken for were being thrown around at unfathomable speeds.

Some of these shards entered the eye of the storm but when they came close to Ben they would suddenly lose all motion and fall back into the water creating splashes. Ben was looking around, completely engrossed in the beautiful yet chaotic scene before him, forgetting his past and just letting go.

Ben willed the hurricane to stop but he surprisingly was able to do so without stopping to breathe. Ben felt as if he could control everything, his own little world.

All there was now was an endless ocean and a flaming ball in the sky but Ben wanted more. He had so many ideas he couldn’t wait to try out to build his own little world. It was as if he was… God?

Ben certainly didn’t like the idea of calling himself God, he never believed in the concept of a higher entity and what has happened to him in the last few hours certainly wouldn’t change his mind, for all he cared this was just a very, very realistic dream and he would wake up back in his bed…