Courtney's POV
I glanced over at BEN again. He seemed to finally be waking up, 90 minutes after getting out of bed; his eyes were now completely open, and he seemed alert. He seemed very tired this morning, which I didn't really understand– we had gone to sleep at the same time, hadn't we? And I wasn't particularly tired.
But today, he was hard to rouse, and stumbled his way through dressing. His eyes had been half-lidded as we left the motel and started down the street. He had gradually shook of sleep, I suppose, and now his sleepy expression was replaced with one of apprehension.
I figured he was a bit nervous about the transformation; we were heading up to his aunt's house right now, after all. He had been an entity since five years old; he hardly knew anything but this form. I figured if I was to become an entity from a human, I would be just as nervous as he was; apprehensive of the unknown.
I pulled the paper taunt to lift the creases from it, as I looked back down at it. The next turn was Greenworth Street; we were at the intersection of that street right now. That meant we turned right, and then turned again at Yelton Street.
I folded the paper again and slid it into my back pocket. Today we had slipped into the local library for a short time to get directions to Aunt Iris's house off the internet; though we had the address, we weren't exactly sure of how to get to said address before printing this off at Thompson's Corner's library.
I glanced up at BEN once more. He seemed absorbed in thought, and seemed very unnerved, rubbing the pad of one thumb over the top of the other. He stopped the repetitive action briefly to drag the back of his wrist over his forehead, and I noticed he was sweating. His hair stuck slightly to his forehead, though the morning was hardly warm yet. His breathing was also rougher; not labored by any means, but still not the kind of breathing that typically accompanied simple walking.
I frowned, mulling this over. He hadn't ever seemed nervous in the least in the past about transforming; now he was actually showing anxiety physically, with his thumb thing. And was this unusual sweating and breathing also connected to it?
Well, he probably hadn't been thinking about transformation most of the time we were running around. We always had some task that was right at hand, and of high immediate importance, such as jumping a train or hacking into city files. He probably had been so occupied lately that he hadn't had any time to think much about transforming, much less fret about it.
I was pulled from my contemplation of my traveling companion's anxiety at the intersection of Yelton Street. I pulled the paper from my pocket once more, and we turned left.
As we continued to walk, the houses and businesses thinned out, until we were in a very rural area, the sidewalk ending, leaving us to walk along the shoulder of the road. Next to us, hills rolled like ocean waves. BEN stared at them, eyes squinted, looking intense.
"You ok?" I asked.
"Yeah…I'm just trying to see if I can remember…any of it…" He trailed off.
"Can you?" I asked softly.
He shook his head.
"Oh."
It was understandable; of course, that over ten years later he wouldn't remember the landscape he drove past. Especially when he was still so young, and memories were harder to form.
But it would have been nice for him if he could have.
We walked for a while more, eventually turning up a dirt path that was lightly flanked on either side by trees. Through this light flora barrier, I could see a dense forest behind the few houses along the street.
We walked for a bit, before finally reaching a mailbox at the head of a driveway that bore the address that sat at the bottom of the page.
Our destination.
I turned to BEN.
"We're here."
Catz:They're there.
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