Chapter 14: Nightmares

I Don't Own Ben 10 or Any of the Respective Characters, The Rights Belong to Man of Action Studios and Cartoon Network

Author's Note:

* Hello and welcome to Chapter 14 of CWN Version II!

* So if you guys remember the nightmare chapter that happened about halfway through the original story, that's what this chapter is, however, there will be a couple of changes this time around.

* I don't have anything else that I need to say, so enjoy the chapter!

Ben

Wednesday, April 11th, 2018

Madison High School

Life resumed as normal the following week after my encounter with the alien werewolf in the woods. I went back that Saturday morning just to hide the creature's body and used the surrounding brush and trees to hide it. And as I said before, after that everything went back to the way it had been. The school day had just ended and I was currently at my locker to unload a couple of textbooks before I left for the day. As I began placing textbooks on the top shelf of my locker, I heard footsteps approach and stop as they reached my locker. I turned to my right to see Gwen standing at my side.

"Oh hey, what's up Gwen?" I asked as I turned back to my locker.

"Hi, Ben!" she exclaimed in a cheery tone.

I shut my locker and picked up my backpack, putting it back onto my back.

"So, what brings you here today?"

"Do you want to go to the movies?"

"What, like right now?"

"Yeah, right now."

I gave her just a slightly funny look.

"Aren't we going to that circus thing this weekend, though?"

The cheery look on her face slightly faded.

"Yeah, but I wanted to hang out today. Do you not want to hang out with me?"

My face flushed as I thought I had potentially upset her.

"Oh, no, no, no, no, no!" I said as I waved my hands out in front of me. "I didn't know you wanted to hang out beforehand!"

After I explained myself, Gwen smiled again.

"Well, that's a relief!"

"What movie did you have in mind?"

"Um, I've heard some things about this new Tomb Raider movie. What do you think? Are there any movies that you're interested in?"

I temporarily dismissed her question to ask my own.

"Are you sure about that? Tomb Raider is based off of a video game series of the same name. Not that you would need to play the games to enjoy the movie, but I know that you don't really do video—"

"Ben, it's okay. I'm sure. But seriously, do you have any ideas?"

"Actually, I've had my eye on Ready Player One. I read the book and it was great, like a love letter to pop culture."

"Oh, yeah, I read that one, too. It was really… interesting."

I gave her a sympathetic look.

"It was kind of hard to wrap your head around it, wasn't it?"

"I'm willing to admit that maybe I found some parts of it to be confusing. Maybe."

I chuckled.

"Well honestly, I could go for either of those movies. How about you?"

"Flip a coin on it?"

"Sure."

Gwen reached into her purse and eventually pulled out a quarter. She flipped the coin and I waited to see what side it would land on.

A Few Hours Later

The Movie Theater

We were currently standing in line at the concessions stand in the theater. The results of the coin flip dictated that we were seeing Ready Player One. Gwen told me she'd pay for the tickets if I paid for snacks, which worked fine for me. I got a large popcorn bucket for us to share, while we both got a large drink, with me getting a Barq's Root Beer and Gwen getting a strawberry lemonade.

We were heading into the theater, but I felt like something was off. I felt like that I had already experienced this, like déjà vu. Or maybe I felt as though none of this was really happening? I don't know.

"Hey," Gwen spoke after noticing me staring off into space. "are you okay?"

"I don't know. I'm suddenly getting this weird feeling, as if I've been here and done this before already, like déjà vu. Or maybe none of this is really happening. I don't know, I can't quite put my finger on it."

Much to my dismay, she only chuckled in response.

"What? You actually think you're in dream? Relax, Ben. You probably just dreamed about this or picking up on a vague memory of one of the times that Grandpa Max took us to the movies when we were little."

I had to give her credit, that did make a little sense.

"Yeah. You're probably right."

She then walked ahead, leaving me behind as I thought about what she said, as I stood there, watching the gentle sway of her hips as she walked.

Wait, gentle sway of her hips? That's not appropriate. I shouldn't be picking up on that, right?

While I was standing there thinking to myself, she also stopped and turned around once she noticed that I was no longer at her side.

"Hey, are we seeing a movie or not? Are you okay?"

I mentally shook my thoughts away and rejoined her.

"It's nothing, I'm fine."

"Alright, then." She said as we continued to our seats.

We picked our seats and after sitting down we commented on a few previews here and there. Once the movie had started and about an hour into the feature, I was reaching for the popcorn and wouldn't you know it, so was Gwen. Our fingers both touched and for a very split second I felt as though a tiny spark had arced on my fingertips. We both turned to look at each other and I could tell that she was beginning to blush, as well.

"Um—" I began to speak, but Gwen interrupted me.

"Sorry." She replied.

Even though she apologized, she didn't remove her hand from mine and so I did the same. I felt her fingers begin to intertwine with mine as we continued to stare at each other. We were now holding hands, no longer interested in the movie. After a few more seconds, she began to move closer to me and out of instinct, I moved closer to her, too. As our hands remained intertwined, I lifted up my other hand and lightly ran it through her hair.

I began to gently massage her scalp with my fingers and as I did this, I could have sworn I heard her let out a light moan as she slipped her tongue between my lips. I continued massaging her scalp, much to her delight, as I slipped my tongue into her mouth. We continued like that for another fifteen seconds or so before we had to separate to catch our breath.

"Wow." She spoke at last while squeezing my hand in hers.

"Um, yeah. What you said." I replied, not wanting to let go of her hand.

For the rest of the movie after that, we remained sitting there holding hands, while she rested her head on my shoulder. Once the movie had ended and the credits started rolling, we both got up from our seats.

"That was an alright movie, though not as good as the book. They never are." I said. "But that kiss was even better."

She chuckled.

"Yes, that was good, too."

I picked up the nearly empty popcorn bucket and put the empty movie theater cups inside it.

"Well, let's go then."

I was about to lead the way to the theater's exit, but she stopped me.

"Um, Doofus?"

I turned to look at her and saw that she had a smile on her face.

"Take my hand."

I stared at her as she offered me her hand with a smile on her face. After a few seconds of standing there, I switched the popcorn buckets and empty cups to my other hand, then took her hand in mine. She continued to smile as we walked out of the theater hand in hand. However, this wouldn't last for long. Once we were out of the building and in the movie theater's parking lot, I noticed that she suddenly had a depressing aura.

"Gwen?" I asked with a concerned tone. "Are you alright?"

The smile on her face had disappeared. She just stood there as if she were thinking. Next she began muttering too quietly for me to understand, which only worried me more.

"I can't do this." I finally heard her whisper to herself. "This isn't right."

She finally looked back at me.

"Ben, I'm sorry, but I can't do this."

I shook my head in confusion.

"I don't understand. You can't do what?"

"I can't pretend that I care about you."

"What are you talking about?"

"I kissed you. But I didn't mean it."

"You didn't mean it? Then what was the point of all that back there?!"

"Ben, please don't make this more difficult than it needs to be."

I got the sense that she really did find this difficult, as she was tearing up as she spoke. But if she found this difficult, then why was she doing it? She took a deep breath and I saw tears begin to run down her cheeks.

"This whole thing was nothing. I wanted to get into the popular girls' clique at our school and for my initiation, they told me that I had to break a boy's heart. I just couldn't keep this charade going any longer. I'm so sorry."

I just stared at her as I felt like I might cry myself. Sure I was sad, but I was more angry than anything. I couldn't believe that my cousin, my intelligent and caring cousin, would actually do something like this.

"I can't believe you'd actually do this! And for popularity of all things!" I shouted at her, having given into my anger. "You should be ashamed of yourself! You—"

I hurled every name in the book at her, but it didn't make me feel any better. By this point, I was beginning to feel sick to my stomach. Not only did I feel like I was going to throw up, but the world around me seemed to be spinning out of control. I couldn't see anything any thing anymore, the world around me was nothing but a white haze. And just when I thought I was going to be sick, I woke up.

I bolted upright in my bed in a cold sweat and feeling like I was going to throw up. I jumped out of my bed, ran to my bedroom door where I threw it open and ran down to the hall to the bathroom. I rushed inside, shutting the door behind me and quickly pulled up the toilet seat. I fell to my knees in front of the toilet and just like that, I threw up in the bowl. After looking at what used to be my dinner inside the bowl for a split second, I flushed the toilet and put the seat back down, before resting my back against the wall to catch my breath.

After throwing up, I felt almost completely better. Well, at least physically. My stomach wasn't doing somersaults anymore, to put it lightly. But how I was feeling mentally? Now, that was another story. I had just woken up from the strangest dream I had ever experienced. I had never felt so betrayed, so sad. But I didn't understand why I felt like this.

For one, I knew for a fact that Gwen would never do something like that. She would never hurt someone she cared about just for popularity. She was a nice, outgoing person who just wasn't like that. And lastly, why did I feel so hurt because of the dream? It was just a bad dream, none of this ever happened. And yet, I'm not even disgusted about what Gwen and I did in the dream, considering that were related by blood.

Do I actually have those kind of… feelings for Gwen? My cousin?

I let out a sigh of frustration.

"I hope Gwen is having an easier morning than I am." I found myself muttering aloud.

Gwen

Frank and Natalie Tennyson's House

I had just woken up from one of the most uncomfortable dreams that I've ever had. In my dream, life was pretty much normal as it is in the real world. Except in this version of reality, Ben had gotten another girlfriend. From what I could recall, I believe she had copper-colored skin and black hair, but I couldn't for the life of me remember what this girl's name was. But in the dream, he was with this girl most of the time and whenever I'd ask if he wanted to hang out with me or if I could tag along with them, I'd get the same answer. I could even clearly remember one particular moment from the dream.

The school day had just ended and I went to find Ben to ask if he wanted to hang out for the afternoon. He was with his new girlfriend and they were just chatting by his locker. I had a feeling that he'd turn me down just like he had the last few times, but I had to try. I walked up to the two of them and spoke.

"Hey, Ben, do you want to hang out for a few hours?"

He briefly turned away from the girl he was with to look at me.

"I can't, actually. We're going to see the new Tomb Raider movie this afternoon."

"Oh, awesome! I've been wanting to see that one! Can I go—"

"Sorry Gwen, but it's more of a couples thing. Maybe another time."

And with that, they walked off without another word or before I could think to say anything else. As I watched them walk away, I felt a little sad. But more than anything, I was angry. I was angry that Ben was choosing to spend time with a girl he'd only known for a couple weeks over choosing time with the girl that he's known for his whole life.

Even after realizing that it was all just a dream, I still felt kind of angry, bitter. But why? Why, even though it was just a dream, did I feel angry about it? After all of this, one question remained. Did the idea of Ben spending time with another girl seriously make me jealous?

Author's Note:

* And that's it for this chapter, I hope you enjoyed it.

* So, what do you think of the change that I made to this chapter? Did you like that this time around Ben and Gwen have similar nightmares, and not the exact same one? I thought it made for a more interesting development.

* Either way, I hope you guys enjoyed this one. Next chapter may be another filler type chapter and another shorter chapter at that, so I apologize in advance if that's not your thing.

* Anyway, I don't have anything else that I need to say. Thanks for reading and I'll see you in the next chapter!

Review Responses

adriandragonus (Chapter 13): Although I want to say that your mental and physical health matter more than finishing the story, I salute you for your dedication to finish this story! Thank you!

Thanks, Adrian. I'm happy that you're glad to see me back. Thanks for the review, as always.

Next Chapter: Ben and Gwen face each other at school. Gwen offers him help when hearing about his situation, but Ben stubbornly refuses help.