Sanguis • Ben Hargreeves¹

eight

"What is with the bloody footprints?" Eden whispered, following them into Klaus's room.

The room was vacant. No sign of someone in there, although plenty of signs saying someone was earlier. She shook off the bad feeling in her stomach, but went looking for him nonetheless. Eden saw Pogo fixing Grace, which put a smile to her face, and she walked over to him.

"Pogo, where's Klaus?" She asked.

Pogo stopped what he was doing and turned his head to her. "I'm sorry Miss Eden, he left a few minutes ago."

"Damn." She muttered. "Do you know where he went, by chance?"

"I'm afraid not." Pogo told her.

"Well, thank you." Eden smiled and walked back into Ben's room.

Suddenly, in the corner of her eye, Eden spotted a slightly pulled up board in the floor. She shot up from the bed and rushed to the loose floorboard right next to Ben's desk. Pulling it up revealed a small, wooden box with hand carvings of tiny umbrellas on it. Eden picked up the box and sat down on the floor to place it in front of her.

She clicked the two clasps on it and slowly opened the lid. A slight creaking from the hinges was heard, as they seemed to not been moved in many years. Eden smiled at the contents, feeling slightly taken aback by the abundance of items. The first thing she took out was a few polaroid photos of her and Ben, large smiles in every single one.

The next item made the woman laugh, it was her favorite hair tie. She remembers lending it to the boy and she thought he had lost it, but apparently he had kept it the whole time. Behind Eden, without her knowledge, Ben's ghost loomed over her shoulder; watching her ruffle through the small time capsule he put together.

Eden had no idea Ben had made it, it was one of the only things he hadn't told her. One. The longer she pulled things out, the more energy it took to restrain her tears. Ben placed his hand on her head, not that she could feel it, because it was one of the few things he did to make her feel better when they were younger.

This time all it was doing was causing Ben to wish he was alive, even more so than he already did. Soon after he had to get back to Klaus; he is sorta his ghost or whatever. Begrudgingly, Ben left Eden's side and went to his brother. The woman, on the other hand, sat and stared at everything she had taken out for hours.

It wasn't until the next morning when she was awoken, by knocking at Ben's door, did she finally leave the small pile of artifacts scattered around her to open the door. Luther, in his large and burly form, stood at the entrance of the doorway.

"We're meeting downstairs to talk about some things." He told Eden. "Now."

The freckle sprayed woman internally groaned, but complied to the request. "Alright, let me just... Clean up this stuff and I'll meet you down there."

Eden motioned to the spewed contents of the small box she found yesterday. Luther nodded his head, didn't say another word, and walked towards Klaus's room.

✧⁠◝⁠(⁠⁰⁠▿⁠⁰⁠)⁠◜⁠✧

"Three days?" Allison questioned Luther, handing him a cup of coffee.

"That's what Five said." Luther replied, gratefully taking the cup from her hands.

"The old bastard did mention the apocalypse, come to think of it." Klaus chimed it. "He just left out the part about how soon."

"Whoop-de-freaking-doo, we're all gonna die." Eden monotonously said. "Can I go now?"

She didn't care if she lived or died, dying just meant seeing Ben again; if the apocalypse is what causes that to happen than so be it.

"Sit." Luther demanded, pushing the girl back onto the couch.

"Can we trust him? I don't know if you've noticed, but Five's a little..." Allison whistled and pointed at her head.

Klaus chuckled. "Our little psycho."

"He was pretty convincing." The blonde sighed. "If he wasn't trying to stop an apocalypse from happening, those two lunatics wouldn't be chasing him."

"That's why they were after him?" Diego asked.

"Yeah." Luther confirmed.

"What lunatics?" Eden butted in, confused.

"When you were having a nap, two crazy masked people came into our house and started shooting up the place. They were looking for Five." Luther explained.

"They took me instead." Laughed Klaus, taking another sip of his coffee.

"Okay..." She nodded, dragging out the 'kay'.

"What did Five even see?" Allison questioned, leaning next to Luther on the bar table.

"Uh... Apparently, we all fought together against whoever was responsible." He nodded, sounding nervous.

Luther's silence made the rest of them want him to continue on. He clicked his tongue and redirected the conversation. "Okay. So, here's the plan. Uh, we go through dad's research-"

"Wait, what?" The others protested. "Hold on, hold on."

"Wait a tick, wait a tick, wait a tick. What actually happened the first time around?"

"Yeah. What are you not tellin' us?"

"I don't really care, but if I did I would tell you to be a leader and grow some balls." Eden chastised. "Tell us."

"Come on, big boy, spit it out." The rest of the adults stared in silence at Luther, waiting for the man to answer them.

Luther whispered something so quietly no one could hear it, then he took a sip of his coffee. "What was that?"

He coughed. "Uh, I said, uh, we died."

The room went silent and everyone looked at each other in disbelief. Eden wasn't really shocked, per say. Hearing the word 'apocalypse' makes her think of everything dying, the end of the world basically. Still, the woman was proud about her prediction.