"Would you like power?"

"Of course I would."

"Take my hand."

*Beep* *Beep* *Beep*

Benedict woke to the sound of his alarm and sighed. This would just be another day where he was weak. He pulled on his clothes and stepped out the door. He went through this routine of mindlessly doing everything all day, bored out of his mind. He tried to remember his dream, but he could not. There was a fight, but this didn't matter. Such a thing was not important. He knew that this path he took would lead him to oblivion, but once you enter this path, it takes a step he could not take to escape.

Before he knew it, he was on the bus for the school’s trip. Where to? He hardly remembered. Uncaring, he sat in the back of the bus and dozed off. He dreamt of winning a war, ruling a kingdom, carving his path. As he dreamt on, his dreams gained less and less coherency. His mind seemed to want to reach something. He knew not what that something was. His eyes snapped open as the bus jumped into the air, seeming to hit a bump. 

He looked up, tired. Something was off. Mind foggy with sleep, it took him a second to realize what it was. Everyone on the bus, including the driver, was asleep. This on its own was odd, but the lack of sound was even more so. The absence of sound unsettled him so. As someone who lived a life full of sound, this was not something he could comprehend. He slapped himself, with a weak hit. But he couldn't wake up. So he tried again. And again. And again. But to no avail. This was real.

Still sitting, his mind wrought with joy and anger and sadness and peace and happiness and boredom and chaos and- Stop. In the moment he had been thinking, the world outside of the bus grew less coherent. It felt as if he were just a splash of ink on paper, and the paper was tearing. His eyes shot around like ping pong balls, taking in everything his feeble mind could comprehend. The trees grew elongated, bending towards the road. The grass grew high a few feet from the road, but just a few feet from the road, did not grow at all. And the color, it was one that could never be described. It was not a shade of another color, it was not even one that already existed. As he watched, all faded into oblivion, growing darker, soon encompassing his mind with complete black-that-was-not-black.

Millions of eyes snapped open and stared straight at him. A falling sensation took hold. When he woke up, the glint of steel bars caught his eye. The cage bobbed up and down. After a few minutes, he was dropped onto the ground. A laugh rang out. The room went dark. 

He sat there, confused. As he sat, he caught sight of something shining in the light trickling underneath the door. After a moment, he realized they were eyes. He couldn’t tell what they belonged to. The manner in which they moved towards him was not one of an ally. Then came the pain. It trickled at first, then the dam broke. It flowed like a flood. He grasped his arm. At least what was left of his arm. His arm was gone past his elbow. 

“Fuck, Fuck FUCK!” Tears streamed down his face. This pain was not something he had experienced before. With his remaining arm, he slammed on the door. *Bang* *Bang* *Bang* Nothing. His legs flailed around, his body thrown off balance.

He felt the lightness of his left arm, and the warmness of the blood dripping onto his thigh. He cried until his eyes dried out, his stump hanging limply. He had given up, curled up on the cold, hard, floor. He cried himself to sleep, even with his eyes dried. It may have been a few minutes, or even weeks, he knew not. But once he fell into slumber, sleep quickly embraced him, calming his mind through the pain.