His eyes opened to a horizon of thick darkness.

The uniform black saturated the space around him in all directions.

His knees were folded under him. Neatly positioned.

What… he had been somewhere similar before…

Suddenly, the ground shook. It knocked him off his seating position and planted him shoulder first into the infinitely wide black ground. Without any features to keep his bearings, the shaking made it impossible to get up.

After a minute or so, the shaking stopped, and Patrick stood up to reset his bearings.

A featureless void. He had been somewhere similar. Similar to what attacked him just the day prior. It was where some unknown attacker pulled him outside the shops.

He could feel sweat forming on his palms as he recalled.

At least *this* desolate void looked safe, he thought to himself. But, avoiding that wasn’t the problem here.

He had broken into Ben’s room through his window, to enter a mysterious dimension, like the one he fell into outside of the shops. From Ben’s sudden vanishing from John’s mind coinciding with hostile shadowy beings popping up around campus, he concluded that something supernatural must have erased Ben’s presence.

Whatever attacked Patrick outside the shops, something similar could have attacked Ben as well.

Looking around. Not a sign of him to be found.

He walked around the darkness, but the isotropic void looked as if the darkness was following him. It made it feel as if he was on a treadmill, giving him a dizzying case of motion sickness.

A sudden drop of sweat dripped from his armpit down his side, scaring him slightly.

If he doesn’t find Ben… would he be gone… forever?

He tried to flick his mind off of the thought, but the slimy scenario lingered. It was hard to imagine anything capable of doing such a thing. Brushing against his chest was a crystal. A crystal capable of doing just that.

His anxiety and uncertainty tightened his chest, noticing his breathing speeding up and shallowing. He clutched his chest and tried to force deep breaths into his lungs, but adrenaline would slip his focus before the breath would complete.

He took off the crystal and stuffed it into his pocket to take it off his mind.

He had to be somewhere…

What happened to him?

“Help.”

A voice?

He turned around to see a spotlight cast through the black. At the centre was a hospital bed with folded sheets, freshly laundered. At the centre of the bed was a boy, young enough to be seen in a playground.

He looked familiar. His legs were pulled up into his chest, hiding his face between the knees. But still, Pat saw an uncanny resemblance.

“B-Ben?”

A prepubescent voice spoke subdued, as if he had just finished sobbing. “You said you would remember me. You promised me.”

“Promise?” Patrick could feel his eyes darting.

“You don’t remember… typical. I should have known.”

“But, you are Ben right?”

He rocked around, turning his back without breaking his foetal curl. “Why should I speak to you right now?”

“Wha…”

“Tell me, or I am leaving.”

“L-leave? But… we are in the same… same place.”

“I invited you to help me, and what help you’ve been.”

Patrick didn’t know what was going on. The boy looked like Ben, but he didn’t act like him. Regardless of whether he was or not, if what he’s saying about cutting his presence from him just like that was true, then he had to go along with him for now.

Even if this wasn’t Ben, he had to be the key to finding him.

“O-okay, I’m sorry. Are you okay?”

The boy sulked, deliberately turning his shoulder away. “You tell me.”

“…”

“Go on, tell me!”

“Sorry! Sorry! You look angry, and I’m sorry!”

He chuckled to himself, but pulled the smile off his face when he realised it.

“Well, it doesn’t matter. I was stupid to ask for a promise you can’t uphold.” He tipped himself over, poofing on to the folded sheets. “A man can dream, can’t he?”

“I’m sorry for asking, but what was this promise? Can I do anything to fix it?”

He glared at Patrick. “That’s not for you to know. Not the you that’s here today at least. If there was something you could so, you would fuck it up anyways, so why do I even bother?”

“I…” Patrick took a breather to reset his mood. He’s saving Ben. He can handle this. “Is there someone that can help you instead?”

“…”

“… yes?”

The boy gets off the bed, walks over to Pat, then kicks him in the shin.

“Owwwwww”

“I didn’t think you would get me back so quickly. Clever, even if it was just a fluke.” He walked back to the bed, waving his fingers. “I think I’m done with you for the day. I’m going to leave.”

As he waved, him and the bed began to fade.

Desperate, he cried.

“I’m trying to save someone, okay!?

A tear had beaded up in his eye. “I’m really sorry I made you angry and sad, but I’m trying to find someone that means a lot to me right now. I don’t know where he is, but you are the only one I can find in this stupid stupid void. Please, can you help me? Please?”

“…”

“Please.”

He stared at Patrick, with tears smeared across his face. He looked away, to shield himself from the tears, and also to hide his reaction.

After a couple glances at Pat, and sighing. “Fine, I’ll bite. Happy?”

Patrick nodded.

“Who’s this lucky guy?”

Before he could reply, another earthquake rocked the blackscape. Much harder than before.

Two planes of darkness sheared at the blackened seam, lifting one above the other and sending another round of quakes throughout the void.

Patrick was almost flipped over his head from the tremor, tucking his head at the last moment and hitting his shoulder instead. He planted his body as flat as possible, face down.

“Help.”

Turning his head up, the scene had changed again. The bed had disappeared. Standing in the middle of the light was a child. His face was towards the floor, holding against his chest his right arm, which was discoloured purple.

He notices Patrick standing there, and cries. “Help!”

Patrick remained flat on the floor. The boy avoided leaving the light.

“Help, please!”

Patrick could barely hear his voice through his heartbeat. Was this Ben? Is this another younger version of him? Why was his hand purple? What is going on? With what was at stake, despite the cries, he found his body refusing to take him towards the light.

“Help! Argh!”

In an instant, he collapsed on the ground. Patrick, between tremors, leaped into the light to see the purple on his arm begin to spread. A cloud of purple miasma started to form around, as finger-like tendrils slithered down his arm with each pulse. They looked like purple tapeworms slithering within his skin. Every inch of movement from the markings sent the boy contorting in pain.

“Are you okay?”

Another involuntary pain contortion pushed a knee deep into Patrick’s stomach, winding him.

Rubbing his eyes, he looked again at his limb trying to assess the situation, but something strange was going on. No matter how hard he tried to raise his arm, he couldn’t find his hand. Surely a hand should be at the end of an arm right?

Patrick realised his hand was being erased.

The spotlight from above began to flicker, and the purple cloud had grown to permeate the void around them.

The skin tendrils made it to his face, grabbing both of his eyes.

“It… it hurts…” Blood pooled from his eyes, as both turned into empty beads of white.. “No… don’t leave me again…”

The light from above went out, and at that instant, the floor around them fissured. The same slimy purple hands rose from the cracks, surrounding them like coiled barbed wire.

The hands began to coil around them like a bird nest. The entire void took on a deep purple hue.

In front of him, the boy’s right arm was gone. His left hand scrambled around blindly for help. Patrick pulled him into his arms, and grabbed on tightly as the purple hands circled them.

What could he do?

What was there to do?

Patrick hasn’t felt so motivated, in sight of absolute impossibility.

“Ben… do you have any ideas?”

The boy was barely responsive, murmuring at best as his right ear had too been taken by the miasma. Still, by his words or coincidence, he hugged him tightly around his shoulders. His legs were now dangling, with all their energy sapped from them.

*clink*

His foot taped up against his pocket.

…

No, it couldn’t work…

He didn’t know what it would even do, if it was to happen.

Hugging Ben as tightly as could be, he pushed his hand into his pocket and pulled out a crystal. He held it high at arms length staring at the miasma crystallising above. and from the bottom of his lungs and heart, he bellowed.

[Erase]