"Ben! Come down from there!" James Lichter was looking up at the branches of the ash tree that stood in his back garden, his hands on his hips. Only by looking closer could an eight year old boy be seen, sitting on the branches two thirds up, hiding in the leaves. A casual observer would h...

The announcement for today had come and gone, and Ben had vowed that it would be the last. Someone else who he knew had died, Ben Fields, but he hadn't had grief left to spare. He was gone, like Wade, like Irene, like Noah. The dangerzone was in the basement of the asylum today, so he knew that ther...

Ben now sat outside the library, chair leg in hand, listening to the girls and Johnny talk. They were having a moment, reassuring and helping each other. The reasonable and heartless part of him told him to go back inside, smash a window and get the glass shard he needed, damn their moment. But he c...

Ben very much tried to ignore the scene happening near to him. But it was difficult; the black-haired girl was bawling her eyes out while the blue-haired girl comforted her and Johnny climbed in through the window. Part of him wanted to go over and tell her it would be alright, that she should cry u...

The girl with the black hair looked him over, then told him to do what he wanted. The other girl hadn't protested. Ben would have felt better about it, though, if the first girl hadn't then started rambling to herself, obviously sad about something. That just made him feel like he was intruding. He ...

Ben crept close to one of the broken windows. He crouched low to avoid anybody inside spotting him. The broken glass on the ground made him very glad he had shoes. Slowly he straightened, and peeked through a hole in the soot-covered glass. Then he saw them - two girls. They didn't seem to notice hi...

(Benjamin Lichter continues from On open ground, do not block the enemy's way. ) Ben approached the library from the back. He'd stayed close to the dormitory, to avoid having to walk down the hill and be in the open. As he got nearby he saw more clearly what the fire had done: dark stains of soot c...

Ben saw the swing coming, of course. It was telegraphed to all hell. He dodged out of the way, grabbed the pipe when it hit the ground and drove the boot into Matt's face. Matt dropped the pipe, and Ben hit him again and again and again and again, until Matt fell over, blood running from his nose, a...

Ben held on best he could, knees clamped onto Matt like he was a tree. Though trees didn't tend to move this much, at least, when he was climbing them. Matt was screaming and trying to shake him off, but Ben was also screaming and held on tight, trying to propel the boot in his hand into Matt's face...

(Minor gming approved) Matt dropped the pipe, and started yelling something at him, but the blood was pumping through Ben's ears, and he didn't hear what. He didn't care what, either. All he cared about was hurting Matt, for killing Wade. He might have rationalized it later as doing it to stop Matt...

Matt's reply was a damned lie: "Just a little whack on the head and they ran away. That's all. What's wrong with you?" Ben stood up, incensed and ignoring the fact that Matt had raised his pipe. What was wrong with him? He wasn't the one who had hit someone in the head hard enough to make ...

Matt chuckled, and Ben felt his anger flair. How could he treat this so lightly? Then Matt admitted to having been in a fight, though he claimed that had been yesterday. Could he be telling the truth? Maybe, Ben thought. It hadn't exactly been normal for him to get into fights, but then again, he ha...

A jolt went through Ben at the greeting. Being snuck up on could still get a reaction out of him, it seemed. He wasn't resigned to dying just yet. He turned around to get a look at whoever had greeted him and dully replied "Hey." He sort of recognised the greeter, remembering his name was ...

(Benjamin Lichter continues from Sic Semper Sanguinus ) "All around me are familiar faces." After failing at his plan Ben didn't know what to do, or where to go, so he ended up going nowhere, and doing nothing but wander around aimlessly. At one point he had started walking back up the sl...

Benjamin didn't watch when Mr. Graham was shot. He tried to ignore his limp form, tried to listen to Mr. Danya as he explained their situation to them. But he couldn't. Mr. Danya's voice was nothing to the drip, drip, drip of blood from... what was left of Mr. Graham's head. That, and the ringing th...