Benjamin knew that what was standing in front of him was not real, just an hallucination of his damaged mind, a creation of those mories from his childhood, the traumas where everything was burnt down… she was nothing but a hallucination, but it blocked him down.
The face of her, that burned, unrecognizable face, that fragile little body of hers just… standing there with the flesh lted down, standing there and looking at him without blinking, without saying anything… just staring into the core of him.
The core…. the mory of the flas, every scream, every loss, every burning thing he had seen, it all ca back at once, in the form of her. Benjamin's demon is his childhood love, the demon that has followed him since then and the worst of it is that she held him in place.
Her empty, accusing eyes told him that he could not escape, even if she was just a shadow in his mind, she carried the weight of everything he had lost.
She is not real, you know she is not real, that's why you have pills Benjamin, this is your mind, the trauma, she is not real. He thought, as he once again just tried to push it down, tried his hardest, but it was impossible to not hear the words that were coming from her… the words that were coming from your own mind that the trauma made up.
The words that are not real, just hallucinations, the words that could be spoken… but so… hard to ignore.
Benji, you watched burn… look at , Benji, look at how I am now… do you still love ?
"Hallucination, don't listen." He whispered to himself, his fingernail scratching into his palm, trying to push down, because what she said was not a hallucination.
It was a mory. All of it.
Benjamin saw her burning, he saw her body after it. He was there. He experienced it. All of it. The hallucination was made up by mory, by the trauma, by the pain that had wrapped itself around his heart since then, a pain he could not deal with and perhaps never would.
"Again?" A voice, a different one, an older one… a real one. "She is here again?"
"Y-yeah." Benjamin opened his eyes, looking to the side at Briana, one of the forensic detective he knew from the beginning of his career. "Y-You saved from despair again." He smiled as he looked at her, but his face was drained, his eyes were red…his whole being was shaking.
"Did I?" Briana asked. "She is still here, isn't she?"
"Indeed, she is still here, looking at ." Benjamin answered as he looked forward, and she was still there, still in that burnt state. "... but I can deal with her to so extent. If it were my family, then I would have already been dead."
Briana said nothing for a bit as she watched him looking at nothing, just staring there. "You just need your pills, which I grabbed from the car." She said as she reached out her hand. "You know it is just so visible, Benjamin, whispering to yourself and looking at nothing. If the agents realizes that you are—"
"We all have problems, Briana, don't we?" He interrupted her. "You talk to a therapist four tis every week, trying to understand your pain. So people smoke greenweed to forget, others use white magic to escape from their heads, and the rest… the rest just end themselves because they cannot take it anymore." His eyes drifted away from her and fixed on nothing again. "And maybe we deserve this suffering." He continued in a low voice. "All of us. Every single one."
"Then why do you take the pills?" She asked back. "Why not let the pain stay? Let it tornt you, if you really believe that."
"No." He answered, turning his head back toward her. "I can't. Not yet. First, I need to kill that motherfucker with my own hands. Only after that can I face them."
"Them?"
"If I don't take the pills for long enough… they all co to visit . Every face, voice. Every mory… but let's work rather than getting too emotional." He said with a smile on his face as he slapped Briana's shoulder, but she knew it very well.
Behind that smile, there was just pure terror, hidden deep inside him. That was why Benjamin beca who he is today. That was why he beca the director everyone talks about, the na people whisper with fear and respect at the sa ti.
The worst director in the history of the NSBI, they said. The most ruthless, the coldest, the one who crossed lines no one else would even dare to look at.
But in her eyes, he is not the worst. Not even close. To her, he is the best, in a painful way. He is the one who does what others would never even think about doing. He made the decisions others were too afraid to make. And he did all of that while fighting his own demons every single day, holding himself together with nothing but will and fear.
"God will judge us all in the end, Benjamin… and I hope He will forgive you. I really do."
"I think differently." He replied after a mont. "I hope He won't forgive . I hope He will tornt until there is nothing left of at all. But who knows?"
Yeah, who knows… maybe God is already punishing him with mories that never fade, with faces that co back in his dreams, with voices that whisper when the world goes quiet… maybe that is the real punishnt.
But one thing is certain.
He still has a goal. One single reason to keep living, to keep breathing, to keep moving forward, and he chases that goal no matter the cost. Even if reaching it ans leaving hundreds more bodies behind him. Even if it ans drowning deeper in blood and sin.
Even if there is nothing left of his soul when it is finally over… as long as that goal exists, he does not stop.
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