1.2

"What happened? Did the car hit me?" Beneath him, Ben felt something hard and cold. Was he lying on the street? So he wasn't dead. Close by he heard two voices. They were whispering and Ben had to focus to understand what they were saying.

"Now look what you have done! Another dead civilian!"

"Don't blame me; I wasn't the one who got lost on the way here!"

"Well, we certainly would have made it in time if you didn't forget to bring the map"

"Well, it can't be helped anymore so arguing is pointless anyway. What are we going to do about this guy?"

"Let's take him away before someone else comes and finds him. The deterioration will only start in a couple of hours"

Ben felt how he was grabbed by somebody. He wanted to resist he couldn't muster up the strength to move.

"Don are you sure he’s dead? I think I just saw his arm twitch."

"Of course he is. You saw how he grabbed the defector, why would he be alive?"

"Can you please check anyway?"

Ben felt two fingers that were carefully checking his neck. Then the first voice gasped.

"Silvia you're right, he still is alive. Hey Boy, can you hear me?"

Ben tried to answer but he could only moan quietly. Before he fell back into the darkness he heard the first voice ask: "What are we going to do with him now?"

When Ben regained consciousness the first thing he realized was that the ground below him was much softer and warmer. Slowly he opened his eyes. Everything was white. He got up and looked around. He was lying in a bed. But this was not his bed. He was in a hospital room. After asking he was told that a man with short black hair and glasses carried him here the last evening, claiming that Ben's life was in danger. But after the doctors examined him they couldn't find the reason for his unconsciousness. After unsuccessfully attempting to call his mother, he was put in a hospital room in hopes that he would wake up soon. His pulse and blood pressure were normal so there was no real reason to panic.

When he asked who exactly the man that brought him was, the nurse couldn't give him an answer. Was he one of the people he heard that evening?

After spending the rest of the morning in the hospital and being declared perfectly healthy, he was discharged in the Afternoon.

As he stepped outside he was instantly blinded by the sun. Has it always been this bright? He didn't know. There was so much he didn't know. What happened to the man? Who were the people he heard? Did they even exist? Or was that all just another dream? A raindrop on his forehead interrupted his thoughts. Ben sighed. He didn't have his umbrella anymore.

When he got home soaking wet, both the fridge and the apartment were empty. disappointed, Ben changed clothes and went to work. “I guess I’ll buy food tomorrow after school.”, he thought.

This night, Ben dreamed very restlessly.

First that he was a young man lying in a trench. He shot at a group of soldiers storming towards him. All of them were wearing steel helmets. Unfortunately, he recognized the grenade next to him way too late. Instinctively, he closed his eyes and braced himself for the explosion.

When Ben reopened his eyes, he was lying in a bed. The wrinkled skin on his arm told him that he was now an old man. While the beeping of the machines around started sounding dull his breathing slowed more and more, his eyelids started to feel heavy. Then he closed his eyes and let out one final breath.

At last, Ben was a small girl playing with her friends on the street. Above he saw a single plane flying over the city. Everything was peaceful until a few minutes later Ben was blinded by a bright flash. Moments later he saw a cloud in form of a mushroom rising in the sky.

In the following days, Ben dreamed how he died. Though he could never recall the exact details after he woke up but every morning he felt as if he had just run a marathon. This took a toll on Ben and affected every part of his life. It was so bad that he barely passed the exams at the end of the month. Eventually, he got a letter from his school.

It was a rainy Sunday afternoon and Ben’s mother even was home for once. Originally Ben planned on using the day to study but now he just sat on the couch trying to muster up the courage to open the letter. After some time he pulled himself together and opened the letter with shaking hands. It was a warning notice. If he couldn’t manage to improve the grades until the end of the semester he wouldn’t be moved into the next grade and instead, be kicked from the school.

Ben slowly put the letter down. Then he sunk his face into his hands and started sobbing. This was the first time he cried in years. If he was kicked out of school he would lose everything. The apartment, his job, and his future. When she heard him crying, his mother came storming into the room and started to calm him.

“Don’t worry, everything will be okay.”

This was only the second time Ben remembered being soothed by his mother. After a while, he calmed down and decided to go to bed early to get more rest for the next day. But soon after he laid down, he fell into a deep restless dream.

Ben found himself on a forest clearing again. But this time, he wasn't alone. On the other side of the clearing, a strange figure was standing. The darkness radiating from it was unlike anything he had ever felt before. The tree it was leaning on was dead and rotten. With a distorted voice, it said: "So you're the next one. Are you ready?"

Ben wanted to say something but his mouth wouldn't open. He wanted to run away but his muscles wouldn't move. The figure slowly started to move towards him. With every step it took the grass below its feet turned black. Am I going to die now? , Ben thought. He felt cold sweat running down his body. When the figure reached Ben it made a grimace that probably was supposed to be a smile. "Well, have fun." As it said that it grabbed Ben's forearm. Pain flashed through Ben. Then the forest fell apart leaving nothing but darkness.

When Ben woke up he could barely recall his last dream. It was as if he tried to look through a fog. Every time he came close to the answer it slipped away. He looked at the clock: 16:04. He slept through an entire day of school.

Slowly his memories of the previous days returned. How could he improve his grades? He had no idea.

As he got out of bed he realized something strange. His whole forearm was covered with a grinning skull. Ben was perplexed. "What is this? I don't remember getting a tattoo. How is it even possible for a skull to grin this wide?"

As he rushed into the bathroom to wash off the white skull with its red eyes, he realized something else. His previously pitch-black hair was completely white. Shocked he looked at his reflection. "I'm probably still dreaming." He pinched himself as hard as he could. But apart from the fact that he started bleeding nothing changed. After attempting to wash the white out of his hair and scrubbing the skull from his arm for almost an hour, he gave up.

How did that happen? He was sure that he looked perfectly normal yesterday. Had this something to do with the events of the past few days? Ben had heard that he could get white hair from stressing too much. But wasn't this a little extreme? Or maybe, was this related to his accident a few weeks ago? He didn't know. Because he couldn't think of anything else he decided to go to the street where he fell unconscious trying to save that man.

It was a nice and cloudy day, very unusual for this time of the year. When he arrived at the street, where he tried to save the strange man, disappointment was waiting.

The street was empty and unfortunately, there were also no cameras close by that could have recorded what happened that evening. "What should I do now?" The skull on his arm was no problem he wore only long-sleeved shirts in school and at work. But what about his hair?

As he went on deeply lost in his thoughts he neither realized the dark clouds forming above him nor how a woman, that stood still up until a moment ago, turned and slowly started to trot after him.