Ashi: Huh, this one's new.
Aschlyn: I'm just glad you finished writing chapter 21 of From Songs to Ashes.
Ashi: Wait, you're not happy that I'm back from
New York?!
Aschlyn: Death Hunter's Requiem is set in New York, remember?!
Ashi: Oh yeah...anyway, I've got a one-shot for my two favorite things- Supernatural and BEN (DROWNED)!
Aschlyn: You did it.
Ashi: -Raises eyebrow- Did what?
Aschlyn: Played with him.
Ashi: ...Just do the damn disclaimer.
Aschlyn: Dean?
Dean: Braixen! Brai Brai Xen! (DeathhunterAshi does not own Supernatural or BEN (DROWNED). And I'm actually a Braixen!)
Prompt: Ben Braden remembered a kid his age with his name that died from a drowning and left only a Nintendo 64 cartridge. When people start loosing their minds and one college student makes a log to try to stop "BEN", Ben begins his own case without Dean. AU where Lisa dies and Ben lives with Bobby until he's of age.
Ben was about maybe eight years old when his friend died. Benny died while drowning in a pool a few months after the "Changeling incident" when Dean and Sam Winchester saved all the kids including him. They said that it was suicide, but Ben knew better than that; He knew Benny was depressed from things going on at home, but he never wanted to kill himself. Ben knew that it was murder, but he could never prove it-he was only eight at the time after all.
When Ben was eleven, Dean left both him and his mom for his brother Sam. He knew even then that something was wrong with Sam, but he couldn't prove it then either. He felt like it was his fault that Dean left and felt even worse when a demon eventually came after them and possessed his mom. He couldn't shoot his mom, possessed or not even after Dean had snapped him out of it. No matter how fast they got there, Lisa bled out and died in Dean's arms. At the time, Ben only felt anger and resentment towards Dean for abandoning them and then grief. What was he going to do, he was an eleven-year old orphan and his 'foster' dad was hunting all over the country. He expected to be abandoned, hurt again, but Dean kept him around, visited, but then had to leave him at Bobby's house in Sioux Falls so that he wouldn't be in danger again.
It was then that he found out about what happened to Benny. Ben was just surfing through the internet at Bobby's when he remembered some kids from his Middle School talking about things called "Creepypasta"; short, but disturbing or gory stories. He scoffed at the idea, wondering how they would react if they found out that the supernatural existed, but was secretly curious. So on one drowsy weekend, Ben got on the computer and looked the website up.
He was surprised, a good lot of then were actually pretty decent and slightly scary. Some of them were accurate about the monsters in the dark and made him think that maybe they've witnessed it as well. But there was only one story that made him freeze up and regret it.
The story, called "BEN DROWNED" was written by someone by the username of Jadsudable had every single fact down, with mind-numbing accuracy that made Ben want to yell and quit, but he kept on reading. When he looked up where the author was now, he was surprised to see that the guy, called Alex Hall was in a Asylum back in his hometown, apparently he went insane after he played with a used Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask game six months after buying it. Its said that the game went around to several different people, four being men around 18 to 25 including Alex and a 28 year old female who stabbed herself to death. Actually, all the victims sans Alex died by so-called suicide; the first one set himself on fire, the second one had a seizure, and the third one drowned...
With a frown on his face, Ben decided to try and call Dean about it. The only problem was that Dean was already on a separate hunt for a werewolf with Sam and 'promised' to look into it afterwards. Cursing under his breath, he thought about asking Bobby, but decided against it, he was going to do this "Hunt" by himself.
Ben researched in the best ways he could, including going through chatrooms for the best rumors he could find and found some video evidence, dissapointed that quite a few were either fake or blocked. It was there that he relented and went through Bobby's contacts to find a hunter by the name of Garth.
Garth was...strange to say the least, but he knew what he was doing and didn't discriminate him for being a twelve-year old. With that, Garth went to Jadsudable's hometown and proceeded to investigate. He called back somberly when he talked to Alex and got a lot of info out of the college kid, but it was Ben that felt the worse when he found out.
Benjamin "Benny or Ben" Campbell was the one doing all the killings. From what he remembered, Benny's body was cremated, so that meant that his soul was attached to the game cartridge. But it was more than that, Garth said that it was attached to more than just the cartridge; he was in the computer as well.
Ben was irritated and confused with his next move as he sat silently in the computer lab at his school where he was investigating the case. He looked over everything that both he and Garth had found out and jumped when a message came up. It was a link to Cleverbot, the website that was said that BEN used and blinked slowly. The school should've blocked the site, but it stayed with no problems whatsoever. With a hesitant hand, he clicked on the site and began to type in his response.
Guest: What do you want?
Cleverbot: What exactly do I want? Can't I talk to an old friend?
(It was here that Ben shuddered when it answered that.)
Guest: You're killing people Benny! This is wrong!
Cleverbot: True, but they did it.
Guest: Did what?
Cleverbot: Played with me.
Guest: Is this just a game to you?!
Cleverbot: Why wouldn't it be? I'm having a lot of fun.
Guest: BEN, you have to stop this! Otherwise...I'll stop you myself. I've got all the information on you.
Cleverbot:...
Guest: BEN?
Cleverbot: YOU SHOULDN'T HAVE DONE THAT.
After the conversation, BEN began to harass Ben by popping up disturbing websites along with erasing all of the evidence he and Garth collected (thankfully, he saw this coming and backed it up on a Hard drive). Ben was starting to get frustrated and tired and figured out that was how Dean felt during a hunt as well. Eventually, he relented and decided to call Sam for help.
Sam was the last person he wanted to ask for anything, but he knew how to go about this and keep it a secret from Bobby and Dean as well. He wasn't happy that Ben is trying to hunt by himself with a stranger and keeping a secret from Dean, but said that he would help the best he could. Looking around, he found several different theories on it and told him over the phone rather than using the internet and sent a link via text, telling the eleven-year old to watch out for himself.
Ben reluctantly said thank you and phoned Garth, asking him to look for the game cartridge and surprised that he already did. He couldn't help but smirk at the counterattack he was about to launch before 'Cyanide' by Metallica began to play on his phone, indicating a new message. He froze when he looked at it.
On the attachment was a video of Garth tied up on a chair and bleeding lightly from the head. From the rise and fall of his chest, it was safe to say that he was alive for now, but concussed. He growled lowly when he saw that Alex, aka Jadsuable came into the shot with a snarky look on his face and holding a dagger in hand. From the looks of it, Alex was currently being possessed by BEN's spirit seeing as how the game cartridge was peeking out of his hospital-issued pajamas. He said that he wanted to play more and if he didn't, Garth would be dead by the next message that comes through- which would be 72 hours from now. Reluctantly, Ben began to write his response and sent it out.
With a determined look on his face, Ben packed up the bare essentials for the hunt- a canister of salt, a knife, and a sawed of shotgun; he snuck out after he was sure Bobby was asleep and hopped on his bike, heading towards the outskirts of Sioux Falls. From there, he hitchhiked to the given location, being somewhere in an abandoned farm near Minnesota. There was only 48 hours left to get there.
He barely stopped for sleep, drinking coffee even though Dean told him to wait until he was older and ran most of the money he got up transferring buses until there was only 16 hours left. Ben rushed towards the house and crouched down with the shotgun in hand, glad that Dean had taught him how to shoot without kickback and slowly walked in from the other side.
It was damp in the farm with mold already forming on the wooden beams and making it rather hard to breathe in. In the center was Garth, who was now awake with a semi-panicked look on his face when he saw that Ben was there to rescue him. He tried to motion to the eleven-year old that it was a trap, but jerked violently before going limp again. When he looked up, he saw that BEN, who was possessing Alex, was standing over Garth.
Ben stood up from where he was hiding and shot at him with the shotgun, causing BEN to lose his grip on Alex's body. He shouted out in pain when he was thrown against the wall and then thrown to the other side of the farm, breaking the molded wall down. He heard BEN laughing childishly at his pain as he tried to grab onto the sawed-off shotgun, but it was kicked to the other side by the possessed Alex.
"YOU SHOULDN'T HAVE DONE THAT." He heard BEN say with an evil grin on his face.
He felt a rush of both fear and heat as he began to gasp and choke when water spewed out of his mouth and flames licked at his pants. Was this how he was going to die? In an abandoned place where not even Dean could find him? And his promise to save Garth and Alex... All of a sudden, Alex/BEN screamed out in pain when Ben heard a gun go off. A shotgun...
A bucket of water was thrown over him and his sputtered and got up when he noted that he could breathe again. Though his eyesight was blurry, he could see that both Sam and Dean were there along with Bobby. Bobby set off to free Garth while Sam picked up the game cartridge, throwing it into the bucket filled with both gas and water and held the lighter over. He began to recite the ritual, which was working from what Ben could see and then threw the lit lighter into the bucket, shutting his eyes tightly when BEN began screaming and burnt out of Alex's body. He was alive, barely, but passed out on the ground. Ben was abruptly pulled up by Dean and pulled into a bone-crushing hug.
After dropping both Garth and Alex off at the hospital, Ben got a firm lecture as to how he could've been fucked fifty times over if Sam hadn't told Dean and Bobby about the hunt. then there was the case of running away and running into an obvious trap. Even after all of that, Dean was proud of him following his instincts and said that if he ever did that again, he would kill him himself.
With that, Ben learned something- just because Lisa was dead didn't mean that there wasn't people looking out for him. Especially his dad, uncle, and granddad. Yeah, he calls them that now and even contacts Garth from time to time; He won't forget what happened that night, but he'll always remember that it wasn't angels, it was his family all along.