Benjamin's P.O.V*

After the Morning's events and having breakfast me and Pico had wanted to try something new that could combine both our styles of art together and as we were on our way outside Pico had briefly stopped me before telling me he had a surprise for me before we went outside and proceeded to walk over to where his drawer was that stored his mask he used when he spray painted and had pulling out two brand new masks. One mask was in forest green and the other in his hands was light blue with hints of yellow highlights.

It was pretty obvious that both were made with a much better filtering system compared to Pico's old one just by the size of the filter inserts and as Pico helped get mine set up he had explained that he had wanted to try doing compilation art with me for a while now as he had seen how I tended to stare looking awe struck when he worked on his projects and had also explained that he has seen my desire to paint with him though he knew I kept my distance sense I didn't have a mask which made it so I couldn't get near without inhaling paint fumes in the process.

He had explained that he had gotten me my own face mask when he had gone shopping to get himself one as he had came across a buy one, get one half off sale while we were at the store a few weeks ago while I was busy getting paint supplies and he explained he figured he'd show me the surprise today as he had thought my brush and his spray paints could compliment each other really well and that was why he had decided to buy me a mask as well so we could do just that.

After he finished explaining on why he suddenly had two masks on hand I had gone over and kissed him which was soon followed by Pico drawing me in closer and looping his arms around my middle before deepening the kiss ever so slightly which in turn made me feel really light. It was only after a few moments went by that we finally broke apart from each other and looked at one another with love and adoration for each other in our eyes. It felt amazing knowing that this was something I've been given after so many years of being in darkness. Though I still had my concerns something told me that I wouldn't be coming across my parents any time soon and I was going to hold on to that. I was going to enjoy this day and make Toughie's idea a reality to do a compilation art piece together and so after getting set up we went outside and to the alley nearby and got to work.

Timeskip to midday*

It was around one in the afternoon when I and toughie had finished the piece we were working on and I had to admit that Toughie had been more than correct on his idea of our art styles working seamlessly together. As we both backed off still wearing the face masks to not breath in the residual spray paint particles we admired our work which was absolutely stunning. We had agreed on recreating the starry night sky that we were under when we had gone on our date together and had decided this particular piece would be ours alone and would not be added to the roster of sellable art pieces that the public could buy for that reason. This painting was to be a physical representation of that beautiful night together under the stars where Toughie had shown me the various constellations and galaxies that were visible from where we were and where me and him finally kissed after Toughie's father called him up to ask if he was wanting to come over for the holidays. I had agreed and shortly after our kiss a shooting star flew by.

Back in the present as we waited for the paint to dry both mine and Toughie's phones suddenly went off with a message from Grace telling us to look at the news right now which concerned us greatly. Soon enough both I and Toughie had pulled up the news on our phones and saw something we never thought possible. On our phones was a missing persons alert for the two people I never really wanted to think about again. On our phones in the article both my parents had been reported missing with the headline reading Fairest couple missing: was it foul play or otherworldly interaction?

As I and Toughie countinued to watch we stood frozen in place as the live feed turned to the sight of what appeared to be animalistic claw marks through the walls, some parts of the pavement had been deeply cracked and in the background there were multiple destroyed dumpsters that appeared to have been crushed by a hydraulic press. The most concerning part was that the crushed dumpsters and the pavement had indentations of massive footprints that looked to belong to a heavyweighted taloned creature that had purposely crushed them and finally the most concerning fact was that there were massive burn marks all over everything within the vicinity which looked exactly the same as the burn patterns that I always saw during particularly bad 'lessons' when I finally woke up in my parents basement.

In seeing those all too familiar marks I had dropped my phone and luckily Toughie had caught it before I felt myself get lowered carefully to the ground as my legs decided to buckle under me. After I was lowered to the floor I felt myself get pulled in against Toughie where I proceeded to hide my face against his shoulder and started crying though I didn't know if it was from relief or fear. All I knew was that my chest felt tight and that toughie was my anchor as he rubbed circles into my back and tried to help me stabilize my breathing and sudden shaking.

In the background the news on Toughie's phone continued though it felt like I was hearing it through a tunnel I tried to countinue to listen wanting to find out what had happened to the best of the news reporter's ability as it seemed it had switched to witness reports. Every single witness that was asked had meantioned giant shadows being cast on the walls, the screeching sound of crushed metal followed quickly by two beastly roars alongside blows making contact and finally the sound of pained screeching before everything had reportedly gone deathly silent.

It was only after the news report went to commercial that I finally felt calm enough I looked to Toughie and saw that he had a rather complex look on his face and it honestly scared me a little bit because I couldn't tell what he was thinking but, soon enough he grabbed his phone and shut the news off before putting both mine and his into his pocket. After he was done doing that he had pulled me back against him before picking me up which elicited a sound of surprise from me as I wrapped my arms around his neck so I didn't fall before he picked up the now dry painting and went inside with both it and me in tow.

Soon enough I heard him finally speak after his uncharacteristic quiet and say that we should get cleaned up before the paint on us fully sets though I could tell he was purposely trying to dodge the other elephant in the room but, for the moment I will let it slide especially since he had just helped calm me down however, I was not going to drop the subject anytime soon.