The Bonus Book

Lost Boys

I hid out in my cartridge for a few days—the cartridge, I should say. It was never mine. Just my prison. But I suppose the warden had other plans for me.

I wasn't exactly asleep in there. Static filled my ears and vision until I felt like only a hollow version of myself. Then, after a couple days that felt like centuries, I woke up to something different. Something frightening.

I looked groggily around the room. I didn't recognize this place. I should've expected that; after years of being tossed from player to player, naive prick to naive prick, waking up in someone else's house was your average Tuesday for me.

But this wasn't Avery's house.

Years of trauma and lies and murder and pain started building up in my chest, threatening to explode outwards. This was a mistake. It had to be. Yeah—somebody just stole it from their pocket at school, and decided to leave me here. Or maybe Ave had a secret basement, or storage room they forgot to tell me about. But by now, I knew every inch of that house like the back of my hand.

I was being recycled. Thrown back into the loop. Forgotten.

Sold.

It shouldn't have hurt me as much as it did in that moment. It shouldn't have hurt.

"Guys, do you see this?"

I tried to move when I heard that voice. I tried to run, or fly, or at least face whoever was talking. Nothing.

I reached out a hand. Something was blocking me. It was trapping me; something cold and glassy.

I squinted from inside the TV, trying to read backwards. File 1. BEN.

Of course.

"No, wait," the person said. "This is probably the file Ave set up to scare me..."

That's the last thing I heard before BEN came out to play.

—

BEN stays dormant for another few years. Ben is awake now.

He paces around the new house like his human self used to, occasionally walks through walls, spies on neighboring houses when he has nothing better to do. He's free. Not from the violent and senseless other half of him, of course, but the game. The loop.

He's free. So why does he still feel so terrible?

He sits on the bloodied kitchen counter as Max sips some tea beside him. Ben expected him, of all people, to clean up the mess he and Jeff left since this house came into their ownership. But it seems neither of them will ever get around to it. Maybe he simply doesn't want to think about death anymore, and so ignores the stains.

Ben could find out why so easily. He could take another trip into his mind, find out all his darkest secrets...

"Benjamin, was it?"

Max says this without looking up from his drink. Ben jumps in his seat and accidentally phases through the counter. The heat of embarrassment overtakes his face in a wave, quickly making way for confusion. He dusts himself off (more out of habit than necessity; he is a ghost) and floats to sit on the counter again, edging forward by an inch.

"You"—he clears his throat—"you can see me?"

Max looks concerned. "Was I not supposed to?"

Ben brings his knees up to his chest and folds his arms with a scoff. "...maybe."