Saving Ben: sequel to What I can see

Prey stalking Prey.

I am still in hospital being poked and prodded and surveyed. 

I answer what I can.

Omit what I need to,and play the part of recovering patient well.

I am fed, watered, and drugged when I can no longer ignore the pain in my leg where it hit the dash of my car sometime during impact.

I am drifting off to sleep when my phone announces someone wants to talk to me or at me.

I know what to expect. This is another ploy orchestrated by none other than those shadowlings.

I answer like I am in complete control of my emotions and self as a whole.

"Mom? " Mom? "

"Ben!" I exclaim losing ground for an instant.

I can not make mistakes here.

I have to keep that in my mind at all times.

"So the rotton wanna be humans allowed you to call me?  I am delighted at this unexpected turn of events, " I say calmly, cool as ice.

"Mom we need to talk, right away, " Ben proclaims earnestly.

"Yes Ben we do need to talk. I have some things I should have told you a long time ago."  I breathe deeply and hold my ground.

"We can talk here mom, they won't release me. I don't think I will ever escape these shadow people, things, whatever. "

I assure Ben that a mistake has been made. I tell him I know the rules of the shadowlings. 

I tell him I know he would never do anything that required for him to proclaim something he did not understand in the first place. It was I who first, without thinking, caused the confusion in him that later led him here.

He is silent for a beat. Thinking. Trying to come up with an easy way to tell me that he has made a terrible mistake. That he has in fact renounced Jesus and all His commands.

I wait. I can wait. I'm in no rush to hear his secret.

I can hear the shadowlings talking to Ben, coaching him in whispered and deceitful tones, for the por purpose of deceit and to strike fear inside his heart.

When he has thought their words  over, and played it in his mind what he wants to say,  he clears his throat, a habit that is 100 percent Ben, and he carefully tells me what he decided to do for the good of his selfish nature.

I nearly lose it at that, not in a fit of helplessness but in a full on fit of hysteric laughter. 'Selfish nature!' I struggle to hold in a guffaw.

Ben, on his own accord, never had a single shread  of selfishness in him.

He chose, when he could, to give away his lunch or his lunch money.

He often snuck his own clothing into a plastic bag and spirited them away to school where he split then up according to who needed what.

But here he is, telling me he has a selfish nature.

'Ben are you listening? I need you to stay with me on this,"I told him.

He acknowledged my question and I started to spin my elaborately wicked lie.

I had to convince even myself that what I was about to say is the truth. I can make it be the truth.

"When you were very small Ben I tried to teach you so many things that were as far from the way your father had learned them. I could not allow you to become anything like he was. I made it my personal mission to mold you into his polar opposite.

"What is his name? " Ben said softly, not sure if it was acceptable to ask about him at all. Even after all these years.

I had not said the name of Ben's father in 15 years.

Saying it would feel foreign on my tongue.

"His name is, Christof, " I told him.

It actually didn't feel as dirty as I assumed it would.

All was quiet on the telephone lines. Were even  the shadowlings were at a loss for words?

That meant one thing, some heavy thinking was taking place inside those black, oozing heads. Let them think, or at least let them  think they were capable of such a human skill.

As close as they could get would be mimicking the behavior of humans.

Reciting what they picked up by stalking and studying who they chose as prey. And by lusting  after who was untouchable, and therefore more appealing.

Creatures of everything that is vile, sinful, and tempting to all of human nature.

"Mom, I did not like that man, I was ashamed to admit he was a part of who I am. I wanted to cut, destroy and kill the parts of him I imagined were his contribution to the making of me.

I wanted any feature or gene that was  prominent in him that I inherited destroyed.

"Of course you did Ben. I drummed it into your brain to despise that man. I was also younger and held grudges," I told him.

I was wrong in the way I handled things.

I never said I was perfect.

It's not something I'm proud of.

It was the time to tell Ben the absolute truth about his conception.

No matter how painful and disturbing it may be, he had to know.

He had a right to know from what he had been conceived in.