AWAKEN ; benny weir [2]

twenty-four

Sarah and Ethan pulled up to Ellie's house before school, waiting for her to jump in. "Today is going to be awful."

"Hey, at least it's Ellie and not Benny," Sarah explained. "But, Benny would've stayed home."

"He'd also be sneezing fire," she argued to him.

Ethan and Sarah both stopped talking when they saw Ellie walk out of her front door. They could tell she tried to make herself look presentable, but without her knowing it, Ellie just made herself look worse. Her face had a white-ish tint to it, along with the red circles around her eyes and her teeth chattering. "Hey..." she groaned.

"Let me try again first: are you sure you don't want to stay—"

"Just drive, Sarah..."

——————

Ethan, Sarah, and Ellie were walking down the hall heading to their next class, and Sarah just wanted to keep trying to get Ellie to go home.

"El, I'm gonna keep bugging you if you don't listen to me," she told her. "You need to rest! We can just call Benny and he can pick you up."

"For the last time..." Ellie began, slowly turning with the minimal strength she had. She left her sentence hanging, and also left Ethan and Sarah to look at her confused, waiting for her to finish. Ellie just stared at the lockers behind them, and making them start to freak out a little. "Ellie? You gonna finish?"

Her eyes flashed to the purple colour they were more than familiar with, and every stopped. Literally.

Sarah and Ethan circled around themselves, seeing every student and teacher standing perfectly still in hallway. Some were in the middle of walking to their next class, and some were talking to their friends, but stood frozen. "What the hell just happened?"

They looked back at Ellie and saw her eyes still glowing purple, with her shoulders shivering and her breaths escalating. "Ellie? El!"

She blinked quickly and out of nowhere, everything began to move normally. The people who were stood still continued to do what they were doing before, and Ethan and Sarah were more than confused. "Okay, El, you can't argue anymore."

"What?" she blanked.

"We are taking you home even if it kills us— Ow!" Sarah went to grab Ellie's arm, but the touch sent a tiny spark to her hand, jolting Sarah away. "What the hell was that for?"

"I don't... I don't know what just—" Ellie stuttered, but her words couldn't come out. Everything she saw was just mushing together like one giant blob, and she couldn't see anything but swirls of purple. "Woah... I'm gonna vomit..."

"No, no, no, you're not," Ethan quickly answered, pulling his shirt sleeves over his hands and guiding Ellie through the halls. "Not yet, at least."

——————

"Benny, would you hurry up with that stupid ibuprofen?" Sarah yelled through her phone, while Ethan and Ellie were huddled in the backseat of her car. Ethan found a paper lunchbag in the cafeteria, and it was serving as a makeshift vomit bucket for Ellie. He had his arm over her shoulder and scrunched his nose at the sight of her throwing up.

"It's not ibup— whatever," Benny said through the phone. "How's Ellie?"

Sarah said nothing and only panned the phone's speaker to the back of her car, getting sounds of Ellie vomiting into the plastic bag. "Does that answer your question?"

"Sadly, yes," he answered. They could all hear the disgust in his voice when he talked.

"It's getting worse, B," Ethan told him from the back. "She's casting random spells without even saying them, and I don't think that seeing purple swirls is necessarily good."

"Holy shit..." they heard Benny mumble to himself through the speaker. "J-Just get here, alright?"

——————

"So, I made the thing and all she has to do is drink it," Benny explained when Ethan and Sarah walked through the magic room. "Where's El?"

"In the washroom destroying her small intestine," Ethan told him. Benny inhaled deeply, feeling really bad about her and slightly guilty for leaving her with Sarah and Ethan all day. "Just go- uh, bring her back in here. She has to drink this in here so I know it works, and so I know if I did a good job or not."

Sarah ran out of the magic room and came back with Ellie, looking like she either killed someone or she just died inside. "I think I'm good now..." she croaked, coughing a little bit to swallow the rest of the puke that sat in her throat.

"You're definitely not good," Benny tested. "I finished the anti-potion, so all you have to do is drink it and you'll be fine—"

"—Benny, I don't need that crap," Ellie argued, wiping her nose with her sleeve. "You know how bad an anti-potion can be when someone who doesn't need it drinks it."

"Are you serious?" Ellie turned and saw Ethan with his arms spread out in dismay. "You need it. You definitely need it."

"No, I don't..."

"El, just drink the damn potion—"
"Please just take it—"

The three of them saw Ellie's breathing deepen as she stared at the back of the room and swayed from side to side. Her eyes flickered off and on to magenta, and suddenly, a million things from the bookshelf flung out and hit the other side of the wall. Ethan, Benny, and Sarah shielded themselves from the objects, while Ellie just stood staring off into space.

Ellie was shaking from the cold sweats she was getting, contradicting her sweaty hands and her heavy eyelids. "Do I have to drink it...?"

"Do you want to live?"

——————

Ellie bounced up to her locker at school the next day, smiling at Ethan. "You look a hell of a lot better."

"Yeah, I don't feel like Satan smacked me in the face anymore," she told him. "And I don't really remember much of what I did yesterday, to be honest."

"Let me just break it down for you," Ethan began. "You threw up in an old lunchbag in Sarah's car, and stopped time for like thirty seconds."

"Wait, wait, I stopped time?" Ellie chuckled. "Oh my god, I'm awesome. I should be sick all the time."

"...Speaking of sick."

Ethan pointed to the other side of the hall, and Ellie saw Benny slumping down the hall with his hands jammed in his pockets. His face was flushed pure white and his eyes were inflamed. "Are you kidding me?"