Little Dark Age

The Lovers

  The outerior of Ben's house was what you would've expected to be: normal, plain and neat. It looked just like any other cookie-cutter houses in Derry, but what threw me off when I had entered his home was how lavish the decorations were.

  Everything were beautiful; a shoe-rack, despite the dark wood of its material, was shining. The vase atop of it, along with a porcelain bowl of clutters almost made me want to rummage through it. But I held myself back, reminding myself that I was a guest.

  Even though he wasn't doing a house tour, I could just tell that Ben's parents were a bit wealthy. It wasn't a normal sight for me to see another house that was beautiful.

  Just as I'd thought to ask Ben of his parent's backgrounds, he had sprinted up toward the staircase in a hurry, his footsteps heavily thudding along with him.

  The others seemed unperturbed with this, and as we rode up the stairs, I saw portraits of Ben and his parents; from them posing in what seemed to be a carnival to school award ceremonies, I would've never guessed that Ben was a genius.

  "I think your house might be the second nicest now, Stan," I whispered to him, not expecting a reply.

  Stanley doesn't seem to disagree, as he was also marvelling at the sight around us. When we had reached Ben's room, only then did Richie and Eddie had stopped their conversation as they shamelessly gaped at the sight. 

  On Ben's bedroom walls were countless newspapers, plastered next to each other like framed photographs, along with notes with some of the paragraphs circled in red. There were a few missing posters of the kids of Derry, to which I ignored all of them. There was a poster of the moon on top of his bed, but my focus went to the table beside his bedroom's door.

  It was cluttered with books and other knick-knacks, and when I'd looked up, there was a disconnected rack also filled with books. In that moment, I wondered if Ben would've been interested in reading The Hobbit.

  "Wow!" Richie loudly let out, and I turned back to see Ben grinning with pride. 

  "Cool, huh?"

  Richie slightly snorted, weirdly embarrassed by his reaction, "No, nothing cool."

  "How much hours did you put into this, Ben?" I said, and after I had glanced at Bill's direction (he was inspecting a piece of film under the peeking sunlight through the bedroom's window), Ben answered my question with slight hesitation.

  "Just before summer started."

  I stared at him, "How many weeks?"

  He didn't answer immediately, but I didn't need to know the exact number, I just knew the work wasn't easy. Especially when it had just been him doing it all alone. 

 Ben was only spared from answering my question because Stanley had cut in.

  "What's that?" He pointed to one of the long notes plastered on the wall. I didn't bother to read most of it, but the small green note under it caught my attention.

  '91 Vanished' written in a red pen. I frowned at the note. 

  "That?" I tore my eyes away from it as Ben answered, "That's the charter for Derry township."

  Richie slightly scoffed before he fixed his glasses, "Nerd alert."

  "No, actually, it's pretty interesting," Ben calmly refuted, "Derry started as a beaver-trapping camp."

  "Still is, am I right, boys?!" Richie loudly exclaimed with a snarky grin.

  My hand moved on its own. I smacked his head with a bit of force behind it, and just as Richie whipped his head to my direction — surely about to curse profanities at me —, I gave him a stern look. He rolled his eyes at me and merely blew a raspberry.