Late into the night, Blake lay stretched out on the RV’s sofa, asleep.
However, his face was pale, his brows knit tightly together in a troubled expression.
(Inside Blake’s Consciousness)
“Where am I?”
Blake blinked, looking around at the desolate, pitch-black forest surrounding him.
A sudden, piercing chill seeped into his bones, prompting him to call out louder, “Hey!
Is anybody out there?!”
The surrounding wilderness remained dead silent.
He shouted into the gloom several more times, but his voice only echoed back to him, entirely unanswered.
“So…
what, did everyone in this place leave to go to a party or something?”
Just as Blake was beginning to assume he was completely stranded alone, the frantic, crunching sound of rushing footsteps broke the silence, accompanied by a girl’s choked, desperate sobbing.
“They don’t care about me!
They never cared about me!”
Following the sound through the dense underbrush, Blake finally spotted the source.
Standing a short distance away was a black-haired teenage girl, her cheeks completely stained with tears.
While that alone wasn’t unusual, as Blake stepped closer to get a better look, a shock wave rippled through him.
The girl looked remarkably like Ben.
In fact, calling it a resemblance didn’t even do it justice.
Aside from her ink-black hair, her facial features and physical build were a flawless, mirror image of her.
Moving quickly, the distraught girl scrambled down into a fresh, steaming crater left by a fallen meteorite, trying desperately to suppress her tears.
Yet the moment her crying subsided, a familiar, metallic wristwatch suddenly leaped out from the debris, clamping itself tightly around her left wrist like a steel vise.
After a chaotic, panicked struggle to tear it off, the girl accidentally depressed the faceplate.
A blinding flash of light consumed her, transforming her into Heatblast.
Right on the heels of her transformation, a terrifyingly familiar voice echoed from the edge of the crater.
“Ben!
Ben!”
It was jarring enough to see a perfect look-alike of Ben in a strange dream, but hearing his own exact voice coming from the shadows sent a jolt of sheer panic through Blake’s chest.
(???
What is going on here?)
Hearing the voice call her name, the Pyronite girl seemed absolutely terrified of being seen by the dream-version of Blake.
She spun around and bolted into the darkness.
“He can’t see me…
I can’t let him see me like this…”
Muttering under her breath, the girl bypassed Blake completely, sprinting in the direction of a parked Rust Bucket.
Driven by sheer curiosity and confusion, Blake quickly gave chase, following her through the woods.
A short while later, the girl burst through the doors of the RV, desperately trying to explain the terrifying alien tech fused to her wrist to this world’s version of Grandpa Max and Gwen.
However, her frantic explanations were met only with cold, mocking sneers and absolute, callous indifference.
The biting rejection shattered whatever hope the girl had left.
A dark, toxic fury began to simmer beneath her skin.
Ever since the day she was born, nobody in this miserable world had ever shown her a shred of affection.
Nobody except for him.
Watching the scene play out from the shadows, Blake felt a sharp pang of profound sympathy squeeze his heart.
He had never imagined that the version of Ben inhabiting his nightmare could have such a tragic, miserable life.
(Man…
where exactly did the dream-version of me wander off to mess around?
How could I let things get this bad?)
As the girl’s internal rage boiled over, the flames cloaking her Pyronite body flared with a violent, erratic intensity.
The extreme thermal radiation instantly set the surrounding trees ablaze, a wall of fire consuming the campsite.
“Since you all don’t care about me…” she hissed, her voice distorted by absolute hatred.
“…then I won’t care about you either!”
With that final roar, the resentful fury she had suppressed for years detonated completely.
Conjuring a pair of massive, white-hot fireballs between her palms, she hurled them straight at the sneering faces of Grandpa Max and Gwen.
Just as the two were about to be turned into a pair of charred corpses, the dream-version of Blake suddenly lunged out from the brush.
He threw his human body directly into the path of the flames, desperate to prevent Ben from crossing a line she could never walk back from.
Yet he failed to realize that this final act of self-sacrifice would be the exact catalyst that would drive her completely insane.
The massive fireballs slammed directly into Blake’s chest.
The intense heat instantly ignited his clothes, the flames melting his flesh and causing his skin to blister and char as he collapsed heavily onto the burning earth.
“No!
No!
Why…
why would you do that?!”
Horrified, the girl dropped her transformation, her human form rushing forward to scoop Blake’s smoldering body into her arms.
She frantically beat at the flames with her bare hands, her voice cracking with terror.
Feeling her touch, the dying Blake offered a weak, heartbreakingly tender smile.
He used the last of his strength to reach up, his blistered fingers softly brushing against her tear-stained cheek.
“It’s…
it’s not your fault, Ben…
Just promise me…
don’t do this anymore, okay?”
The girl completely ignored his plea.
She spun her head toward the RV, screaming at the top of her lungs at the onlookers, “Where is the fire extinguisher?!
Are you both just going to stand there and watch him die?!”
But this world’s Max and Gwen didn’t care.
They didn’t even blink at the horrific scene, turning their backs to board the RV, clearly preparing to abandon them both to the wildfire.
The betrayal pushed the girl past the brink of madness.
With a flick of her wrist, a towering wall of hellfire erupted from the earth, completely encircling the vehicle and trapping them inside.
Just as she prepared to march forward to tear the vehicle apart, Blake’s weak grip tightened around her wrist.
His voice was barely a ragged breath.
“It’s too late, Ben…
Thank you for everything…
I…
I’ve always loved you…”
Hearing his final confession, the girl dropped to her knees beside him, her entire frame trembling violently as her voice shook with denial.
“You’re lying to me…
open your eyes…
please tell me you’re lying…”
“I’m sorry…
Ben…
the road ahead…
is going to be a little lonely…
but promise me…
you won’t be a crybaby anymore…”
Gathering every remaining drop of life left in his failing body, Blake raised his scarred, blackened hand, gently caressing her cheek one final time.
“It’s so warm…”
The moment the words left his lips, his hand fell limp, sliding off her face.
His eyes went entirely glassy, his chest stilling as the residual flames slowly consumed his body, reducing his form into a pile of cold, gray ash right in her arms.
“No…
NO!
DON’T LEAVE ME!”
“This isn’t real…
it’s a joke…
wake up…
please wake up…”
The unimaginable agony shattered her mind entirely.
She desperately clawed at the pile of ash, trying to hold onto the remnants of his body as a piercing, hysterical shriek tore from her throat.
Yet even amidst her absolute despair, the two figures trapped within the ring of fire couldn’t resist throwing one last malicious taunt over the roaring flames.
“He got exactly what he deserved.
He was a freak, just like you.”
The insult acted like liquid oxygen thrown onto a forge.
Her grief mutated instantly into an absolute, apocalyptic wrath.
A pillar of white-hot fire erupted from her body, expanding outward with such terrifying force that it instantly incinerated the forest, the RV, and the two individuals inside, reducing everything to absolute nothingness.
Amidst the endless, roaring inferno, the girl remained knelt in the ashes, her mind retreating into the few precious memories of warmth she had left.
Within her fading memories, she was sitting alone at a splintered, graffiti-covered school desk, her head bowed low as she silently packed away her textbooks.
If one were to look closely at the wooden surface of her desk, it was completely covered in deeply carved, vile insults and slurs.
As she sat there in isolation, her classmates stood by the lockers, throwing disgusted glances in her direction as they whispered maliciously among themselves.
“Hey, did you know?
That girl is an absolute freak.
I heard even her own parents can’t stand the sight of her.”
Though they spoke in low murmurs, the sharp, cruel words still cut deep into her heart.
Fortunately, she had already grown numb to the pain.
“Get lost, all of you!
You think your mouths are funny?
Keep talking and see if I don’t punch your teeth in.”
A sharp, handsome teenage boy suddenly stepped through the classroom doorway, his authoritative voice instantly cutting through the cruel gossip.
Seeing Blake arrive, the bullies scattered like rats, muttering under their breaths as they ran down the hall.
“Hurry up, let’s go before Freak Number Two does something crazy.”
The moment the girl saw Blake walking toward her, the dead, hollow look in her eyes slowly began to clear, a faint spark of life returning to her gaze.
“Hey,” Blake said, flashing a bright smile.
“Want to grab lunch together?
My treat.”
Though she desperately wanted to say yes, the girl didn’t want her toxic reputation to ruin his life.
She forced herself to look away, trying to brush past his shoulder to leave the room.
“Hey!
That wasn’t a request, it was an order.
I’m not negotiating with you.”
Seeing her try to slip away, Blake reached out, firmly grabbing her wrist and gently pulling her along until they reached a secluded, quiet corner of a nearby park.
Once they settled onto a bench, Blake unzipped his backpack and pulled out a plastic bento box.
When he opened the lid, the arrangement of the side dishes inside looked incredibly messy and slightly burnt.
Blake rubbed the back of his neck, his cheeks flushing red with embarrassment as he offered a sheepish explanation.
“Uh, sorry about the presentation.
It’s my first time ever making a bento, so I’m still kind of a rookie at this.”
“My nagging mom caught me making it and threw a total fit.
She said I wasn’t allowed to give you any food, and threatened to stop cooking for me altogether if I did.” He let out a stubborn huff.
“Who cares about her anyway?
If she won’t cook, I’ll just make it myself!”
With a proud, determined grin, Blake shoved the bento box firmly into her lap.
“You better eat every single bite.
If you leave anything behind, I’m taking it as a personal insult.”
Staring down at the warm box forced into her hands, the girl glanced at Blake’s open backpack, noticing there wasn’t a second meal inside.
She looked up at him, her voice tiny and incredibly hesitant.
“I…
I can’t take your lunch…
you’re going to go hungry…”
She tried to push the bento back into his hands, but Blake firmly pushed it back, giving his stomach a theatrical pat.
“Don’t worry about me, I already ate a massive meal before I came over!
I made this specifically for you.
Trust me, it’s completely organic, toxin-free, and crafted with 100% manual labor!”
But Blake was a terrible liar.
In reality, he hadn’t eaten a single bite all day.
He had secretly stayed up late to prepare the meal for her, and had nearly gotten grounded into oblivion by his parents when they caught him.