VashonnBenji Baker & Owen Childs
Owen eyelids peeled back from his pupils, sensing that he was no longer alone in his unconscious state. Lying against the bed, his function of movement mirrored his waking life, he lacked any sense of motion. The only thing he could do was watch and observe the only other man in the med bay, Benji.
The surgical gloves he wore implied his operation on Owen's fractured nose. Yet it was not from just Benji's fingers that the blood trickled, his entire torso was caked thick with blood. Other obscure imagery appeared on Benji, an orange Cryonautics flag draped from his mouth. One of his arms was no longer of flesh and blood but cybernetic, while the other arm was tattooed with a winged sword. As Benji wiped away the blood with a rag in hand, a crown was revealed inked against his chest. He unsheathed and lifted his blade right before directly stabbing it through the crown.
Benji gasped instantly, glancing at his hand and searching for his reality check. Once realizing the twisted multi-dream nightmare through the impossible count of fingers steaming from his hand, he obtained lucidity. After spiting the flag from his lips and heaving the sword out from his chest, Benji burst with words, "O-Owen, is that YOU? L-Like, REALLY you?"
Owen didn't know how to respond, although not in the usual sense. Normally, he would've made a quip about how a question like that was completely asinine. It didn't matter how he responded to that, did it? If he said it was him, then it was him. If he said it was him when it really wasn't him, then Benji would have to believe him to be Owen anyway. If he said it wasn't him, then Benji would know that it was him being a jackass. No, not knowing what to say wasn't the problem here; Owen quite literally did not know how to respond. He couldn't get his lips to move, or his vocal cords to vibrate, or even his brain to construct a sentence. It was like someone had come by and told him that he was now aware of his own breathing. All he could focus on now was what used to be a normal, automatic function turned into a manual operation, and as if he had thrown behind the wheel of a stickshift car he had no clue how to control it.
Wait, wait, wait, not being able to talk wasn't the only thing wrong here. He didn't have to be very astute to realize that—there was something about seeing a person yank a magical sword out of their chest that instantly raises ones awareness that something was off. Owen blinked, still too confused to quite get what was going on. The last thing he remembered was standing in a hall in his briefs arguing with Benji. No, no, no, that wasn't the end of it. Benji had, like a bratty child running to a teacher over a schoolyard spat, sicced his alien goons on Owen. Then he remembered seeing stars, and they weren't the kind out in space. And now he was in the medbay, alone with Benji, hallucinating. Well, this wasn't alarming.
What did you inject me with? he thought, unable to move his lips to ask Benji the question.
"Hm...," Calculating his next thought, Benji dragged his fingers through his curly jet black beard. He assumed the reason why Owen was not speaking was because of shock. Whatever he just witnessed could only be described as a nightmare. Benji predicted it be best if he simply stated it directly, "Errr... None of that and this is actually... you know... real. Except you... I hope. N-No-no-no, I know you're real! Because this is a... nightmare. Which a nightmare means you hate my guts. Which makes a lot sense given the circumstance. And I don't blame you." The more Benji spoke, the quicker the odd imagery vanished from his person till the Benji that Owen most recognized remained. Furrowing his brow and folding his arms Benji barked with bitterness, "I-I caused your coma. I'm a damn son of a bitch... a real asshole..."
A nightmare was right. Owen didn't remember his dreams too often, but he knew for certain that none of the good ones involved him on a gurney being poked at by another guy (especially if that guy had effectively been the one who had put him there in the first place). Still, that explained all of Benji's extra features. It was odd that Benji was talking to him as if he wasn't just a part of his nightmare, but Owen didn't dwell on it. If he was dreaming, then there was something he had wanted to do for a hot minute now.
He just had to remember how to move first.
Bit by bit, wiggle by wiggle, Owen got feeling in his body back. His toes, his legs, his fingers, his hands, his arms, all forms of basic motor functions came sweeping back to him as he became more aware of his surroundings. There was darkness at the edge of his peripheries, and when he moved his eyes there was a moment of viewing nothingness before his imagination filled in the details of the world around them. However, in those details were minute discoveries that showed that he wasn't in the real world: the door was in the wrong spot, the room stretched on to far, and when he looked away and then back again things had shifted ever so slightly. So, if this was a dream, then he should be able to move just fine, even if his real body was still out cold.
Owen bolted to his feet with a shocking amount of quickness, took two steps forward, and then swung his fist in a wide arc towards Benji. It felt as if his arm was swimming through molasses, and all momentum was lost as his body stumbled as he followed through, missing the Doc by several inches. Owen grunted. He never could throw a proper punch, but this one had that unmistakable feeling of unreal weakness that he had only felt when he was dreaming, like how even all of his strength would be unable to even bend a pencil. Owen straightened himself up and adjusted his tie, uncertain of how or when he had put on a suit. He glared at Benji with a fiery intensity.
"I think the word you're looking for is backstabber or traitor," said Owen, crossing his arms. "But I'll take asshole."
"After what I did, is it best that I leave for good?" In his every bone of his body, Benji wanted to explain himself, but what use did it have if Owen did not want him there anymore? "I could stay until you wake from your coma, but if you are against me even doing that. I can try making arrangements with Pseudo to get a medi-bot to monitor you." Benji was against the medi-bot route because he felt strongly that a human patient should be tended by a human doctor, but he still let be an option for Owen to exile him sooner. "It's completely up to you, Owen."
"Why does it even matter?" said Owen, tossing Benji's suggestions away with a flip of his hand. "Stay, go, it's not going to change a damn thing. You're still going to do as you please and throw around your weight without ever considering a single consequence."
As Owen spoke, the walls around them had shifted from those in the med-bay to that of a dystopian novel, giant screens surrounding them as if they were being entombed by an old-time cinema. Invisible projectors splashed images on the screens of Benji, some true and some fabricated, and all colored jaded through Owen's eyes. The Doc's features were exaggerated, as if he were in some vaudeville act, and marionette strings seemed to pull his limbs in short, quick bursts of flailing in a mockery of his skittish nature. The man on screen wasn't necessarily Benji, then, but rather a pseudo-Benji. There was pseudo-Benji pulling them out of cryo, pseudo-Benji running when Rend and Tahlia got into a fight, pseudo-Benji dropping from the ceiling and skewering a robot, and pseudo-Benji ordering the aliens to take out Owen.
The final clip was of not of Benji but of Owen as his face was slammed against the glass by Benji's goons. The image looped, the crack of something breaking echoing throughout the room that had lost all color during the transition until it was almost deafening. As the violent image looped the aliens slowly crossfaded into Benji, grinning with a sadistic satisfaction, as if he were enjoying the act of smashing in Owen's face. Owen had little reason to believe that the Benji in front of him was anything but a part of his dreamworld, but even then, a little guilt-tripping would be nice. They were in a nightmare, but whose it was was no longer certain.
"I'll tell you what," said Owen, his glasses reflecting the screens and nothing else. "Put yourself in my place. Why don't you tell me what you think I would want? It'd be a good way to see if you have anything empathy left."
To answer Owen's question, Benji reminded himself of an old agenda of his when Rend was still considered their main threat. "I-If we rev-reversed the r-r-roles...," He began speaking, voice shaking while at the same time he paced in a circle to observe each screen at a closer look. "And you did to m-m-me, what I d-did to you..." For him to ponder this thought and minimize all distractions, Benji stopped moving and closed his eyes. Taking a deep breath, Benji finally opened his eyes and turned around to face Owen. Before answering his question Benji had a few things to say first, "I-I-I'm sorry...O-Owen, I never wanted that to happen to you... I never knew that was going to happen to you." The reason why Benji compared himself to Rend was because the two of them have put the life of another on the crew in direct harm. But the difference between Benji and Rend was that a gun guarantees death to whoever's heart faces its barrel, but the Britheians guards never guaranteed Owen death, nor did they guaranteed that Owen would simply be removed or even handcuffed.
"Remember that we both knew that if I could, I would have dragged you out of there myself. That was all that I wanted, that was all that I expected-- well, the worst case scenario I could have actually thought of was, they hand-cuff you. You didn't resist their grasp, so I didn't think you would give them any reason to beat you. But I don't say that now to j-justify what I did." Benji knows that his greatest error of it all, was to put Owen's well-being in the hand of the Principality. "But I was desperate and scared. I feared that if I didn't report back to Pseudo with information about Rend's escape through Echo, they would interrogate her themselves. And who knows what would happen to her then, especially because she is already on thin ice after the stunt she pulled in front of the monarchs? I was determined to speak to her first because I felt it could be... somehow... some way... m-m-my f-fault... f-for why she helped Rend escape." Owen was not the first to multi-dream with Benji, Echo was. And Benji blames himself, because he regrets that he never went lucid and stopped the dream before progressing. Though he did not know at the time when dreaming with her, that she could become attached to Rend in waking life.
"But to answer your question, Owen... if I were you, I would want me r-removed. That is why I left that decision open, because that is what I would want if I were in your shoes." Benji spoke the absolute truth as he recalled when all of the crew were reunited in the living area. He remembered that it was there that he began the process of a long-term goal of his, separate Rend from everyone else. He did so by declaring that Rend remain on the ship while the rest of the crew venture out into Katex on their trip to a tailor for a new set of clothes. "Though, the position I am in now, do I want to leave the crew-- no, not at all... I will be completely cut from Yaz... Echo... Tahlia... and you, Owen..." With each solemn step, carefully approaching Owen, Benji walked as if he were stepping on holy ground. "I... c-care about every single person whose name I just called out..." Benji squinted, using his lower eyelids like dam to barricade the overflow of his tears. "Look," he tried raising his voice, but only strained it and croaked, voice cracking. "Y-you want the whole t-truth, just the truth... O-okay... I've been working behind the scenes, made an offer with the Principality: pardon the rest of the crew from this crime we never committed, and in return they can use me to hunt down the Velbenan queen... So, if you tell me now that it is best that I cut my ties with the crew, I still intend on completing that mission and freeing us, but Tahlia will not go with me. Because, just before everyone went to their rooms for rest, I told her everything and after some arguing... I gave her the option to join me, she took it. Yet, if you say that it would be best I remain connected with the crew, she will accompany me. Though keep in mind, as do I, that any mistakes on my part could possibly lead to her death..."
"No, no," said Owen hastily, shaking his head. "I wanted you to tell me what you thought I would want, not what you would do in my position. I wouldn't want any of us, not you, not even Rend, to leave the crew, because, as much as it sucks, we are all we have left, and it's a lot easier to keep us all from doing something stupid if we're under the same roof." Owen stepped forward so that he could tower over Benji, his eyes glaring down at the Doc. "But if you think for a single second that I'm going to let you drag Tahlia into some suicide mission so you can stab in the back the only alien that was on our side in the first place then you are sadly mistaken."
"Plus, even if you somehow do manage to track down the Queen Bee, it's not like that's going to acquit us of our crime because, face it man, we are just guilty for even existing. Do you really think that just because you give them Frankenstein they aren't going to go after Frankenstein's monster as well? How did you not think of that?" asked Owen, shrugging his shoulders in bewilderment. "Seriously!"
"You see all of this could be avoided if the Velbenan queen never pulled us out of Earth. She had no right too! In order to do something like that the Principality must to come to an unanimous decision or the Divine Regency must interject and make a decision for them. She knew the consequences if she defied both orders, she knew what would happen to her. But where she now? Oh, wait-- she ran away to avoid her own execution. And with what their guards did to you... I now know for a fact their patience runs thin. How much longer till the Principality gives up on us completely and decides it be better to make an example of us with an execution-- an execution that is rightly the queen's? But fine, if you do not want Tahlia apart of this, then she will not come... " Well, Tahlia is going to be livid. Not only will Benji inform her that Owen is not waking up, that he is in a coma with the possibility of never waking up ever again, now Benji will also cut her out of the mission he already included her in. "However I will complete the task they have given me, even if it means joining their side. What other choice do I have to our avoid deaths? I'm doing this, Owen, even if it means I have to do it alone."
The surgical gloves he wore implied his operation on Owen's fractured nose. Yet it was not from just Benji's fingers that the blood trickled, his entire torso was caked thick with blood. Other obscure imagery appeared on Benji, an orange Cryonautics flag draped from his mouth. One of his arms was no longer of flesh and blood but cybernetic, while the other arm was tattooed with a winged sword. As Benji wiped away the blood with a rag in hand, a crown was revealed inked against his chest. He unsheathed and lifted his blade right before directly stabbing it through the crown.
Benji gasped instantly, glancing at his hand and searching for his reality check. Once realizing the twisted multi-dream nightmare through the impossible count of fingers steaming from his hand, he obtained lucidity. After spiting the flag from his lips and heaving the sword out from his chest, Benji burst with words, "O-Owen, is that YOU? L-Like, REALLY you?"
Owen didn't know how to respond, although not in the usual sense. Normally, he would've made a quip about how a question like that was completely asinine. It didn't matter how he responded to that, did it? If he said it was him, then it was him. If he said it was him when it really wasn't him, then Benji would have to believe him to be Owen anyway. If he said it wasn't him, then Benji would know that it was him being a jackass. No, not knowing what to say wasn't the problem here; Owen quite literally did not know how to respond. He couldn't get his lips to move, or his vocal cords to vibrate, or even his brain to construct a sentence. It was like someone had come by and told him that he was now aware of his own breathing. All he could focus on now was what used to be a normal, automatic function turned into a manual operation, and as if he had thrown behind the wheel of a stickshift car he had no clue how to control it.
Wait, wait, wait, not being able to talk wasn't the only thing wrong here. He didn't have to be very astute to realize that—there was something about seeing a person yank a magical sword out of their chest that instantly raises ones awareness that something was off. Owen blinked, still too confused to quite get what was going on. The last thing he remembered was standing in a hall in his briefs arguing with Benji. No, no, no, that wasn't the end of it. Benji had, like a bratty child running to a teacher over a schoolyard spat, sicced his alien goons on Owen. Then he remembered seeing stars, and they weren't the kind out in space. And now he was in the medbay, alone with Benji, hallucinating. Well, this wasn't alarming.
What did you inject me with? he thought, unable to move his lips to ask Benji the question.
"Hm...," Calculating his next thought, Benji dragged his fingers through his curly jet black beard. He assumed the reason why Owen was not speaking was because of shock. Whatever he just witnessed could only be described as a nightmare. Benji predicted it be best if he simply stated it directly, "Errr... None of that and this is actually... you know... real. Except you... I hope. N-No-no-no, I know you're real! Because this is a... nightmare. Which a nightmare means you hate my guts. Which makes a lot sense given the circumstance. And I don't blame you." The more Benji spoke, the quicker the odd imagery vanished from his person till the Benji that Owen most recognized remained. Furrowing his brow and folding his arms Benji barked with bitterness, "I-I caused your coma. I'm a damn son of a bitch... a real asshole..."
A nightmare was right. Owen didn't remember his dreams too often, but he knew for certain that none of the good ones involved him on a gurney being poked at by another guy (especially if that guy had effectively been the one who had put him there in the first place). Still, that explained all of Benji's extra features. It was odd that Benji was talking to him as if he wasn't just a part of his nightmare, but Owen didn't dwell on it. If he was dreaming, then there was something he had wanted to do for a hot minute now.
He just had to remember how to move first.
Bit by bit, wiggle by wiggle, Owen got feeling in his body back. His toes, his legs, his fingers, his hands, his arms, all forms of basic motor functions came sweeping back to him as he became more aware of his surroundings. There was darkness at the edge of his peripheries, and when he moved his eyes there was a moment of viewing nothingness before his imagination filled in the details of the world around them. However, in those details were minute discoveries that showed that he wasn't in the real world: the door was in the wrong spot, the room stretched on to far, and when he looked away and then back again things had shifted ever so slightly. So, if this was a dream, then he should be able to move just fine, even if his real body was still out cold.
Owen bolted to his feet with a shocking amount of quickness, took two steps forward, and then swung his fist in a wide arc towards Benji. It felt as if his arm was swimming through molasses, and all momentum was lost as his body stumbled as he followed through, missing the Doc by several inches. Owen grunted. He never could throw a proper punch, but this one had that unmistakable feeling of unreal weakness that he had only felt when he was dreaming, like how even all of his strength would be unable to even bend a pencil. Owen straightened himself up and adjusted his tie, uncertain of how or when he had put on a suit. He glared at Benji with a fiery intensity.
"I think the word you're looking for is backstabber or traitor," said Owen, crossing his arms. "But I'll take asshole."
"After what I did, is it best that I leave for good?" In his every bone of his body, Benji wanted to explain himself, but what use did it have if Owen did not want him there anymore? "I could stay until you wake from your coma, but if you are against me even doing that. I can try making arrangements with Pseudo to get a medi-bot to monitor you." Benji was against the medi-bot route because he felt strongly that a human patient should be tended by a human doctor, but he still let be an option for Owen to exile him sooner. "It's completely up to you, Owen."
"Why does it even matter?" said Owen, tossing Benji's suggestions away with a flip of his hand. "Stay, go, it's not going to change a damn thing. You're still going to do as you please and throw around your weight without ever considering a single consequence."
As Owen spoke, the walls around them had shifted from those in the med-bay to that of a dystopian novel, giant screens surrounding them as if they were being entombed by an old-time cinema. Invisible projectors splashed images on the screens of Benji, some true and some fabricated, and all colored jaded through Owen's eyes. The Doc's features were exaggerated, as if he were in some vaudeville act, and marionette strings seemed to pull his limbs in short, quick bursts of flailing in a mockery of his skittish nature. The man on screen wasn't necessarily Benji, then, but rather a pseudo-Benji. There was pseudo-Benji pulling them out of cryo, pseudo-Benji running when Rend and Tahlia got into a fight, pseudo-Benji dropping from the ceiling and skewering a robot, and pseudo-Benji ordering the aliens to take out Owen.
The final clip was of not of Benji but of Owen as his face was slammed against the glass by Benji's goons. The image looped, the crack of something breaking echoing throughout the room that had lost all color during the transition until it was almost deafening. As the violent image looped the aliens slowly crossfaded into Benji, grinning with a sadistic satisfaction, as if he were enjoying the act of smashing in Owen's face. Owen had little reason to believe that the Benji in front of him was anything but a part of his dreamworld, but even then, a little guilt-tripping would be nice. They were in a nightmare, but whose it was was no longer certain.
"I'll tell you what," said Owen, his glasses reflecting the screens and nothing else. "Put yourself in my place. Why don't you tell me what you think I would want? It'd be a good way to see if you have anything empathy left."
To answer Owen's question, Benji reminded himself of an old agenda of his when Rend was still considered their main threat. "I-If we rev-reversed the r-r-roles...," He began speaking, voice shaking while at the same time he paced in a circle to observe each screen at a closer look. "And you did to m-m-me, what I d-did to you..." For him to ponder this thought and minimize all distractions, Benji stopped moving and closed his eyes. Taking a deep breath, Benji finally opened his eyes and turned around to face Owen. Before answering his question Benji had a few things to say first, "I-I-I'm sorry...O-Owen, I never wanted that to happen to you... I never knew that was going to happen to you." The reason why Benji compared himself to Rend was because the two of them have put the life of another on the crew in direct harm. But the difference between Benji and Rend was that a gun guarantees death to whoever's heart faces its barrel, but the Britheians guards never guaranteed Owen death, nor did they guaranteed that Owen would simply be removed or even handcuffed.
"Remember that we both knew that if I could, I would have dragged you out of there myself. That was all that I wanted, that was all that I expected-- well, the worst case scenario I could have actually thought of was, they hand-cuff you. You didn't resist their grasp, so I didn't think you would give them any reason to beat you. But I don't say that now to j-justify what I did." Benji knows that his greatest error of it all, was to put Owen's well-being in the hand of the Principality. "But I was desperate and scared. I feared that if I didn't report back to Pseudo with information about Rend's escape through Echo, they would interrogate her themselves. And who knows what would happen to her then, especially because she is already on thin ice after the stunt she pulled in front of the monarchs? I was determined to speak to her first because I felt it could be... somehow... some way... m-m-my f-fault... f-for why she helped Rend escape." Owen was not the first to multi-dream with Benji, Echo was. And Benji blames himself, because he regrets that he never went lucid and stopped the dream before progressing. Though he did not know at the time when dreaming with her, that she could become attached to Rend in waking life.
"But to answer your question, Owen... if I were you, I would want me r-removed. That is why I left that decision open, because that is what I would want if I were in your shoes." Benji spoke the absolute truth as he recalled when all of the crew were reunited in the living area. He remembered that it was there that he began the process of a long-term goal of his, separate Rend from everyone else. He did so by declaring that Rend remain on the ship while the rest of the crew venture out into Katex on their trip to a tailor for a new set of clothes. "Though, the position I am in now, do I want to leave the crew-- no, not at all... I will be completely cut from Yaz... Echo... Tahlia... and you, Owen..." With each solemn step, carefully approaching Owen, Benji walked as if he were stepping on holy ground. "I... c-care about every single person whose name I just called out..." Benji squinted, using his lower eyelids like dam to barricade the overflow of his tears. "Look," he tried raising his voice, but only strained it and croaked, voice cracking. "Y-you want the whole t-truth, just the truth... O-okay... I've been working behind the scenes, made an offer with the Principality: pardon the rest of the crew from this crime we never committed, and in return they can use me to hunt down the Velbenan queen... So, if you tell me now that it is best that I cut my ties with the crew, I still intend on completing that mission and freeing us, but Tahlia will not go with me. Because, just before everyone went to their rooms for rest, I told her everything and after some arguing... I gave her the option to join me, she took it. Yet, if you say that it would be best I remain connected with the crew, she will accompany me. Though keep in mind, as do I, that any mistakes on my part could possibly lead to her death..."
"No, no," said Owen hastily, shaking his head. "I wanted you to tell me what you thought I would want, not what you would do in my position. I wouldn't want any of us, not you, not even Rend, to leave the crew, because, as much as it sucks, we are all we have left, and it's a lot easier to keep us all from doing something stupid if we're under the same roof." Owen stepped forward so that he could tower over Benji, his eyes glaring down at the Doc. "But if you think for a single second that I'm going to let you drag Tahlia into some suicide mission so you can stab in the back the only alien that was on our side in the first place then you are sadly mistaken."
"Plus, even if you somehow do manage to track down the Queen Bee, it's not like that's going to acquit us of our crime because, face it man, we are just guilty for even existing. Do you really think that just because you give them Frankenstein they aren't going to go after Frankenstein's monster as well? How did you not think of that?" asked Owen, shrugging his shoulders in bewilderment. "Seriously!"
"You see all of this could be avoided if the Velbenan queen never pulled us out of Earth. She had no right too! In order to do something like that the Principality must to come to an unanimous decision or the Divine Regency must interject and make a decision for them. She knew the consequences if she defied both orders, she knew what would happen to her. But where she now? Oh, wait-- she ran away to avoid her own execution. And with what their guards did to you... I now know for a fact their patience runs thin. How much longer till the Principality gives up on us completely and decides it be better to make an example of us with an execution-- an execution that is rightly the queen's? But fine, if you do not want Tahlia apart of this, then she will not come... " Well, Tahlia is going to be livid. Not only will Benji inform her that Owen is not waking up, that he is in a coma with the possibility of never waking up ever again, now Benji will also cut her out of the mission he already included her in. "However I will complete the task they have given me, even if it means joining their side. What other choice do I have to our avoid deaths? I'm doing this, Owen, even if it means I have to do it alone."