A/N: Not sure why I started this; it came to me around February after reading three or four particularly heavy angst fics (only a few of them were in this category; you'd be surprised by how few Torture!Ben fics there are out there,) and after watching Ben 10 for the first time (I was sick and at six A.M. on a Wednesday, you'd be surprised by how little is actually on,) I came up with this. Anyways, I didn't decide to write it until now.

Rating is due to probable torture, violence, and language (that will get progressively worse.) Characters will also probably be a little OOC while I'm at it (apparently, I needed to screw with this continuity even more.)

For some reason there's not a lot of dialogue in this chapter. It's also rather short-ish. Not my original intention...it just...happened.

Disclaimer: I do not own Ben 10.

"Cracks in the concrete are just reminders that you fall apart no matter how strong you are."
-Unknown

Chapter One

Ben had been having a bad day, even before he crashed the car.

Come to think about it, he'd been having a bad week. The crash was just the coup de grâce; the worst possible conclusion he could've been subjected to.

He should've known something bad like this would happen.

The last three school nights had been spent staying up until close till two in the morning. The two before that had been spent staying up all-night without even the slightest buffer between crime-fighting and his education. The lack of sleep seemed to finally be getting to him; that week alone, Ben had bombed two of his tests, had fallen asleep in almost all of his morning classes, and despite being universally known as a hero, he'd somehow managed to annoy his history teacher enough to get himself a detention (not that he showed up; the Forever Knights had made sure of that.)

His parents weren't being very supportive, either. The downward spiral of his grades hadn't come as much of a shock to him, but they refused to accept his current nosedive and were pushing him harder than ever now. Finals were close, (along with Ben's last chance of passing several of his classes,) and his mom and dad had become more controlling in trying to make sure he did nothing but study in the little free time he had.

"It just downright sucks," he muttered to himself from behind the wheel.

That very day, Ben had missed Julie's party, and besides having her mad at him, Gwen had also been furious (seeing as she had organized the whole damn thing down to the last invite.) Even after all the ridiculous apologies had been made, his cousin still wasn't talking to him. Morosely, he glanced at the cell phone in the passenger seat, thinking about trying to call either her or Kevin again. He was pretty certain all he would get was voicemail; neither of them wanted to see him, more or less speak with him. Their cold shoulder had been part of the reason why he had been forced to take out his own car that night.

Ben yawned, the action interrupting his wandering thoughts. His gaze drifted towards the odometer; he was going at a speed probably illegal in this area (Kevin would still beat him hands down,) but, frankly, he didn't care. Despite it being a Saturday evening (or was it Sunday morning now?) he hadn't gotten much sleep the night before.

He yawned a second time, and shifted his eyes to the small clock. Two A.M. So it was Sunday. Jeeze; he was beginning the week feeling like crap.

"And this is why I let Kevin drive me places," Ben muttered again. Drifting off in front of the wheel and crashing was not his idea of a nice Sunday morning drive. Despite the unpleasant feeling the very notion brought him, he still couldn't shake the drowsiness away from his brain.

His eyelids were just beginning to droop when something slammed into his car and pushed him off the road.

"Shit!" All thoughts of exhaustion halted as Ben struggled to regain mastery of his vehicle as the car swerved off of the road. It took his sleepy mind several precious milliseconds to realize he had hit something (or, rather, something had hit him,) and that there was basically no use in trying to stop the skid.

By that time, the car was already out of control. The blacktop had flown out from under him and gravity shifted along with it. Something shattered and slashed at his forehead and something else wet and slimy dripped down his face. Metal crunched, broke, and screeched as the car flew out into the desert sands.

Then, almost as soon as it had started, it stopped.

Laying in the driver's seat, Ben felt almost paralyzed. The whole experience had been disorienting, and his world was spinning. The liquid from his forehead dripped down into one of his eyes, and he had to rapidly blink to expel it. He realized he should get moving, (whatever had pushed him off the road certainly wasn't going to wait for him to get his bearings,) but he felt too dazed; too shocked.

Ben never got a chance to react. In his stupor, something raced across the sand before coming to a halt in front of his car. From his upside-down vantage point, all he could see was the shadow of its boots. A hand reached through the front window and grabbed him by the collar. Roughly, he felt himself yanked out; something sharp scratched at his arm while his head was jarred violently against the crushed metal of the roof.

In an instant, Ben was out from the wreck and beneath the stars, staring face to face with a very ugly, very familiar, very triumphant looking alien.

"If it isn't Ben Tennyson. How nice to see you again."

So, what did I do decently? What do I need to work on (because there has to be more than one thing.) I had to post it when I did, otherwise, it never would've been posted.