Creatures of Unknown Worlds

Chapter II - Benjamin

I picked up an old camera I found in my garage. I opened the screen and the video started playing.

"Is this thing on?" I heard. The video was dark but it lightened and revealed a boy and a girl sitting on a couch– both looked young– after another moved their hand. That person came into view as they sat down on the left-hand-side of the boy. She looked young too.

They all looked at each other and the boy covered his face with his hands. Both of the girls looked at the camera and the one on the right started speaking.

"Ben's about to tell us who his crush is!" She exclaimed. From what I could see, she had tan skin and dark brown wavy hair. The overall theme of her clothing was black and yellow; she had yellow eye shadow on as well.

The boy was still covering his face, but I could tell he was smiling widely behind his hands. He was wearing a black jacket and beanie. He finally uncovered his eyes, the most prominent blue that I could see even through the blur of the camera static and looked at the camera.

The girl on the left– she too had dark skin, but her hair was a fiery red and worn in dreadlocks, she had a red jacket and a white crop-top shirt on and red eye shadow and lipstick on– looked at him and nagged him to tell.

His hands fell from his face to his knees and he said:

"Taylor."

Both of the girls looked at him in disbelief.

"Taylor?!" The one on the left said.

"Yeah, yeah. I know. Surprise! I'm gay." He said. The girls were still shocked, but they both smiled and pulled him into a hug. Now he looked surprised.

"We support ya, Benji!" The one on the said, took off his beanie, and ruffled his already messy blond hair.

The video restarted and I flipped the camera off. I sighed and put it back where I found it.

I smiled, remembering the girls in the video.

And that I was Ben. All the memories came back to me as I walked up the stairs to my bedroom. The girl on the left was named Jo; the one on the right, Regina. They were my best friends. I remember Taylor, too. He was my whole world. And he was mine, but only for a little bit. Then something ripped him away from me. Not something, but someone. I still regret not being there for him. I swore I would never love as I loved Taylor again. And I haven't.

Yet.

As I opened my bedroom door and walked in, I wondered what happened to Jo and Regina. It had been years since I'd seen them, since the accident, but it was weird that I didn't really miss them.

I laid in my bed, hands behind my head. I'm tired, but I'm wide awake– why? I've been like this for a while now. I don't know why though. I hadn't slept in, I think, maybe two days? I didn't know. I'd been living off of coffee and adrenaline.

God, what am I doing? It's not even that late. I should be working or planning or doing something productive, I thought to myself. But I couldn't stop thinking about him, Taylor, their beautiful dark skin, black hair, brown eyes, their perfect complexion... and just him.

Rather, how much I miss him. Still. I know it's been years and I should let go, I mean we were 15, but it was so... sudden. And he was so suddenly taken away.

"I'm getting up." I say as I continue laying on my back.

Very productive, the voices were talking again. That was enough to convince me to get on my feet. I walked over to my computer and opened it, but I didn't do anything– just stared at the screen.

"Sir?" A boy's voice came from my doorway, and it startled me so much I practically jumped out of my socks. I turned around, to find my... Er, friend, Jasper there holding a clipboard and a file.

"Jesus– Hi, Jasper, what do you need?" I asked him. He looked confused, then sympathetic.

"Sir, are you okay? I didn't mean to scare you."

Despite after many attempts, Jasper still calls me sir...

"Yeah, no, I'm okay. What's the file for?" I asked, trying to get off the subject.

"The file is about the latest bullshit our enemy is creating. I think you should take a look." He said, hesitating, but as I got up and walked over to him he held the file out. I took it and tried to ignore how he looked at me. Alas, I failed.

I looked back at him. "What?"

"Um, sir, you're holding it upside down... are you sure you're okay?" He whispered to me. I sighed.

"Yes, Jasper, I'm okay. I just can't get my mind off of someone and I need to distract myself and possibly forget about it. Can you help me with that?" I muttered.

"Of course I can," he reassured as I opened the file to find photos of various scenes– crime scenes.

"What is he up to?" I mumbled. His shenanigans were getting out of hand. I thought I was bad enough with the shit I caused, but his shit was insane. More than I am. It was that moment that I realized something.

"Oh, oh my god. Jasper, he isn't a hero... we're the real heroes. Er, in a sense anyway."

"But how? I thought we did worse than him."

"We fix his shit. But we're not heroes because we don't care about the city. Our enemy might."

Jasper finished my thought. "...He cares about Laipen differently than we thought."

"Do we know where he is now?" I asked. Jasper thought for a moment, and something in him clicked. He grabbed my arm and pulled me to his small surveillance room. He sat down at the monitor and started typing.

"We do know where he is. Last time you came face to face with him, I managed to shoot a tracker onto his suit. He shouldn't have felt it." I watched the screen, and a location appeared.

"Jasper, you genius, this is where he lives!" I say. "Oh, oh my greatness, I'm so proud of you kid!"

"I- Thank you," he says, and I run out of the room to suit up and try to make peace with our anti-hero. I didn't want the city to turn into ruins, I just wanted it to be mine. Personally, I looked up to Dr. Doofensmirtz and wanted to get back at the mayor for... uh, protecting the city. I was dumb.

I made a mental note of the coordinates our soon-to-be friend was.