"Well, let's go." I mutter with a small smile, taking one last look at my room and then Snickers. It makes me happy that Ben is nice to him. Mum and Dad were mean, accidentally kicking Snickers all the time and not even apologizing. They ignored him, and when I talked to them about it, they yelled at me and called me crazy. It's good to see someone other than me pay attention to Snickers.

"Yeah, let's head out." He says, standing up as his smile falls back to indifference. I follow him out of my room and down the stairs, silence hanging between us the whole time. Not a word is spoken as we leave through the back door and trudge our way through the woods, but I'm not complaining. It gives me time to think.

I'm pretty sure we're headed to the mansion Ben mentioned earlier, but I still have no information about it other than the fact that it's a mansion. Does Ben own it? Is he that rich? I never imagined a murderer to be rich and live in a mansion, so this is new to me. He also mentioned 'others'. Does that mean he lives with other people? I'd assume so. I wonder how many there are. Do they know that he's a killer? Or that he can come out of computer screens? Speaking of which, how is that even possible? It's not. How does he do it? This is all crazy. Back onto the topic of the 'others', Ben said that he would protect me from the others that, I assume, live in the mansion. Why would he need to protect me? What would they try to do to me? I don't want to think about it. There are too many undesirable possibilities.

I look up at Ben, studying him as if that would solve any of these mysteries, but the only thing I see from him is a bored expression. I sigh in defeat and look back down to the ground, replaying tonight's events through my head over and over. Ben had called me by name so many times before I even introduced myself. How did he know my name? I recall him saying something about me being on his mission list, so he must have saw my name there. But how did he find me? How did the person who gave him the list know me and my information? I'm starting to get creeped out.

I hug my elbows in an attempt to comfort myself. This is all too bizarre. First a guy crawls out of my laptop screen, then he tries to kill me. After that, I become his slave and suddenly he becomes sweet and nice? I can't wrap my mind around it all.

"Cold?" Ben asks, looking down at me. His voice jerks me out of my thoughts and makes me jump, which causes an amused smirk to form on his face.

I shake my head. "No, it's just..." I pause, looking for the right words to say. "...there's just so much going on and its a lot to wrap my head around."

"'So much going on'? How so?" he asks, tilting his head.

Is... is he really that dense?

"Well, a guy crawled out of my laptop and tried to kill me, then I became this thing called a 'proxy', which basically means that I'm his servant now, and then he randomly starts being nice to not only me, but my dog too." I answer with a hint of sarcasm.

"Wow," he starts. "Sounds like one heck of a guy," he pauses, looking my direction with a small grin on his face. "What do you think of him?"

Oh, I see what he's doing. A smile creeps up on my face as I answer. "Well, I don't know yet. I have mixed feelings."

"Mixed feelings, you say... do explain." he says, faking a thoughtful expression. It makes me giggle a bit, but my laughter just causes my mixed feelings to intensify.

"Okay, so of course I am upset towards him since he tried to kill me. I'm actually a little scared of him still. But at the same time, he's being kind and funny... he's kind of treating me like a friend, so I don't know how to respond to that," he nods in understanding, so I continue. "Part of me can't help but warm up to him slightly, but I really don't want to."

"Oh, and why would that be?" he asks, still wearing his faux confused demeanor while looking straight ahead.

"Let's see. He tried to kill me, he's dangerous, and I know nothing about him, yet he seems to know quite a bit about me."

I look over and see him smirk to himself. "Dangerous, huh..." he mutters. The proud and mischievous grin on his face frightens me a bit, but I try not to show it. "Well, you want to get to know him? Have you tried asking him about himself?"

I open my mouth to give a snarky remark, but nothing comes out. He's right. I haven's asked Ben a single question about himself, yet here I am complaining about not knowing him. "No... I haven't. I guess I should do that," I murmur. I'll just ask Ben now. Where should I start? "Well, I'm assuming that his favourite colour is green, since that's the main colour he wears." I say.

"Correct. He loves green." he says with a nod.

I turn to face him with fake shock written all across my face. "You know him?" I ask jokingly.

He chuckles. "Quite well, actually. You'd be surprised."

"Alright, then I'll just ask you about him instead," I say. "So what's his favourite food?"

"Any kind of pizza or dessert."

"Favourite animal?"

"Dogs or chickens, of course."

"Favourite style of music?"

"Any kind, he just doesn't care for country."

"How many people has he killed?" This time, I'm going to try to learn about less shallow information. But this is only the tip of the iceberg; I have several more deep questions to ask him.

He hesitates before answering, clearly taken back by the sudden change in question. "Too many to count..." he finally mutters. This time, it's my turn to be taken back. Those poor people... The air around us two falls silent as the mood drastically changes. I can't believe I'm being so open and friendly with a killer. It disgusts me. I take a few steps to my side, putting more distance between myself and Ben. He notices this and looks at me, but I refuse to look back at him. He turns back to face forward as he huffs.

"How did he get the name BEN Drowned?" I ask nonchalantly.

He sighs. "I don't want to answer anymore questions." he states plainly, lacking any sort of emotion in his voice. I frown. I must have hit a soft spot. Silence falls between us two again, and it makes me uncomfortable, but I don't say anything about it. We walk in silence for a bit longer, the only sound being heard is the snapping of twigs and dead leaves under our feet.

Eventually, he speaks again. "So this guy that you were talking about... do you think he's hot?"

I choke on air as soon as the last word leaves his lips. My face flushes red. What kind of question is that?! Was that supposed to be some sort of attempt at flirting? "Well, I think he's trying to flirt with me and it's creeping me out." I fire back at him, sneakily dodging the question.

He closes his eyes in defeat as he scratches the back of his neck. "Aw, c'mon. You could have at least had a nicer delivery." he whines. I can't help but laugh at his response. I burst out in giggles, covering my mouth with my hand to try to muffle the sound. When I look back up at him, he just smiles down at me. What a strange guy.

We continue to walk though the woods, him making a few jokes here and there that end up in me laughing each time. He's actually pretty funny, to my surprise. But eventually, a mansion comes into view behind the trees. "Alright, we're here," Ben announces. I don't respond as I am too busy staring at the eerie building in the middle of the woods. "I suggest you stay close to me, okay?" he says, glancing down at me. I look up at him and reluctantly nod, trying to swallow down the new fear rising in my stomach.

We approach the front door, the sound of loud music being muffled by the closed door. A party, maybe? I don't know what else it could be.

Ben opens the door, letting the music double in volume. I flinch away at first, but quickly become used to it. He holds the door open for me, allowing me to go in first. I look at him with pure fear layered over my eyes, but he doesn't seem to notice, so I reluctantly walk in with him following shortly behind.

The first thing I notice is the large amount of people. They're scattered everywhere, each holding red solo cups in their hands and dancing around, a wide variety of faces and clothing flashing before my eyes. The second thing I notice is the smell. It smells like liquor, smoke, and a small hint of blood. It makes me gag. I look up at Ben for some sort of comfort, or anything, but his eyes seem to light up as an excited smile spreads across his face, not even bothering to look down at me but being too distracted by taking in the party.

"Yoooo Bennnn." A deep, slurred voice calls out over the crowd. I look around cautiously for the source, only to see a guy with long black hair and a white blood-stained hoodie walking towards us.

So Ben's not the only murderer, it seems. What else could explain the blood stained sweatshirt? I take a closer look at the man in front of me. He's tall, pale (like as pale as Ben, if not paler), and has two deep gash marks on the corners of his mouth that travel up to his cheekbones, making his smile look wider. That part makes my heartbeat quicken as I step behind Ben. This man is terrifying.

"Eyyy, Jeff! We havin' a party tonight? Where's Slender?" Ben asks, his face stretching into a smile when he sees this so-called Jeff.

"He's finally out onna mission of his own! He won't be back 'till tomorrow," Jeff says, his voice slurred and his lazy eyes never looking away from Ben. "So tonight, we partayyyyyy!" He shouts, holding his half empty bottle in the air. His voice is so loud. I take another step behind Ben, but this time, both of them notice. "Holy fu—" Jeff cusses, but a sound of a glass bottle smashing and cheers erupting from the crowd cut him off. His eyes widen as he sees me, then he pulls out a knife from his pocket and holds it up to my throat. "Ben! Someone followed you in here!"

My heart stops beating in my chest as I freeze in place. The knife is against my throat. The knife is against my throat. The knife is against my throat. He's going to kill me. He's going to kill me. He is going to freaking kill me.

Fear replaces the blood in my veins, causing my head to feel light and my stomach to drop, making me sick. I gulp down the urge to vomit as I stare at Jeff's hand holding onto the knife. My first instinct is to reach up and grab it to push it away, but something inside me tells me that isn't a good idea.

But you know what is a good idea? Confusion.

"No! No, no, no, no. Jeff, it's alright! I brought her here." Ben says, holding his hands up to calm Jeff down.

"Yeah, so if you would, please don't slice my throat." I say in the most nonchalant way I can manage. Both boys stare at me in silent confusion at first, then then Jeff starts laughing and Ben rolls his eyes. What?

"Fakin' brav'ry, I see." He pulls his knife away from my throat. "Iss useless. I can hear yer heart thumpin'. I know yer scared," Jeff says, his words hazing over into the other in a drunken laziness. How can he hear my heart? Over all this loud music too? Welp, there goes my plan of confusion. I'm screwed. "So? Why'd Ben take you back to us?" Jeff asks, pointing his knife at me while wearing a suspicious expression.

I open my mouth to speak, but no words come out. Why did Ben spare me? Just because I said I'd be his proxy? I bet several other people would have done the same thing. Well, that's the only reason I got, so I'll just say that anyways. "I-I-I said I'd be his p-proxy..." I stutter, leaning back away from his knife.

Jeff glares at me quietly for a few more seconds before pulling his knife away from me and sighing. He looks to Ben. "You need to get over your softness for hot girls. Iss pathetic and it makes us look bad." Jeff slurs, pointing his knife at Ben this time.

Hot?

"Whats this?" I hear a different male voice say. I look to the source and immediately jump away to the other side of Ben, hiding from the man and putting more distance between us. His tall stature and blue mask with black pits for eyes looks like something straight out of a horror movie. It terrifies me. I subconsciously grab hold of Ben's sleeve as well.

"Ben, did you bring a normal here?" Another male voice says behind me. I turn around and see a a man wearing a yellow hoodie and a black mask with red eyes and a frown stitched onto it. It's not as scary as the last man, but it's still enough to make me take a few steps away from him. Who knows what these people have done or could do? I back up to stand directly behind Ben as he faces Jeff but still focuses on me.

"Huh. She's definitely not one of us." Another voice says behind me. Do I dare turn around? I'll just be greeted by an unfriendly face, won't I? Still, I slowly turn my head to see the source of the voice.

I'm greeted with a tall (and I mean very tall) black and white clown straight out of a children's nightmare. He has shaggy black hair and a long cone-like black and white nose with arms that hang longer than a normal human's. I notice his sharp shark-like teeth as he gives me a grimace. It makes my skin crawl.

He's absolutely horrifying.

I yelp in fear and jump back, knocking straight into Ben and causing him to almost fall over and onto Jeff's knife, but he quickly catches himself. Snickers and scoffs reverberate around the area as I continue to try to get away from the clown, running around to the other side of Ben, which happens to be between him and Jeff. At this, Jeff sends me another death glare, to which I jump back at, landing straight into Ben again. If I wasn't so distracted by getting away from every-frickin-thing then I would probably feel bad for bumping into him so much.

This time, Ben wraps his arms around my shoulders and pulls me to his chest.

He's warm.

"Calm down!" He scolds, not trying to hide the annoyance on his voice whatsoever. My heart begins to ache at his lack of sympathy for me, but then I remember that he's a murderer who I just met like an hour ago and who made me his slave, and I start to understand why he didn't.

I look down at my hands, afraid to see anymore terrifying faces, and that's when I notice that I'm violently trembling. Oh heck. I clench my hands into fists in a weak attempt to stop the shaking, but it doesn't help.

I hear Ben sigh before he speaks up. "Let's just get you to my room for now." He says exasperatedly. I don't argue. I want to get away from these people, creatures, demons, whatever the heck they are. Ben lets go of my shoulders and grabs hold of my wrist instead, leading me through the crowd of people to a staircase. I keep my head down, ashamed at how afraid I am of everyone and out of fear of seeing any more horrifying disgusted glares.

I silently follow Ben up the stairs, the sound of the party muffling and fading slightly the farther away we go. We keep walking for what feels like an eternity, but is probably just a minute or so, until we finally stop in front of a door with a sign on it saying "BEN".

He opens the door and turns to look at me. "In." He commands.

(Word count: 2940)