Descendent of a Survivor (BENDrownedXReader)

Chapter Three-Camping

I smile up at the sky, the sun, the surrounding trees, and the lake. It feels nice to have some fresh air on my birthday, especially at one of my favorite places. Monica seems happy about my smile. I close my eyes and feel the breeze through my hair. A leaf falls onto my head, and I open my eyes. I take the leaf off and hear Monica laugh. 

We start setting up the tent and check for a good trail. We find one about a mile away from the site, but it's rewarding to finish it two hours later. Monica seems to savor the sunset as it is eaten away by land and water. We head back to camp, only to find it in ruins. Nothing much, the tent collapsed and the equipment is spread all over.

We're both too tired to think about what could've done it, we just put the tent back up to sleep inside. I'm woken up by the agonizing sound of Monica's ear-splitting scream. I rush out, only to find that she's in the middle of the fallen equipment. She looks as pale as a ghost, or as if she saw a ghost. I look around to see the damage, but nothing has changed from last night. Only that the equipment is soaking wet from an unknown downpour. 

I rush over to Monica and coerce her to help clean up. We have everything packed up within an hour, and Monica drives off for home. I can't help but wonder what happened and what could do that. Not deer, or any natural life in the woods. It could've been human, it was an hour, and bears aren't recorded to roam in the area. Robbie. She isn't in the car, nor was she at camp. Well, she's immortal, nothing can hurt her.

Go back. Go back. Go back.

I shake my head, chasing off the whispers in my mind. She'll be fine, just lost for a bit. I tried losing her at the park, she was back at home the next night. This could be the same, right? Yeah. She might even brag about seeing a waterfall or something. She'll be back to her cheery self after a day of being angry at me. 

Monica waves one of her hands in front of me, and my thoughts snap back to my surroundings. We start moving the camp equipment into the backyard shed and, once we're done, we head inside and use some antisocial time. We call it "Lonely Hour", Mom said it's an hour a day where we have a break from the rest of the family. We couldn't do that when relatives were at home, but we rarely used Lonely Hour. It's more common now. 

I'm just sitting in the attic, scanning the dolls. The doll in the green hoodie is the most interesting. It looks like a boy I've seen before. An idea pops up and I run to the small chest behind the bookshelf and drag it out from behind the large furniture. I open the chest, finding old drawings and manuscripts I've never read before. I look through them, finding that the drawn people look just look like the dolls. The names underneath the people, Bethany, Gerald, Mom, Ben, Catrina...even Monica. 

There's more, but the dolls are only of Mom's friends. Ben, the doll in the green hoodie, doesn't look anything like the regular dolls. He's pale and there's a second set of clothes for him, which looks exactly like the second drawing of Ben, or BEN. It's just that he looks like this guy, Zelda, that Mom used to draw a lot. She called him BEN Drowned. His eyes and tears fascinated me. 

The drawings are good, and the dates are from about ten years ago. Mom's more recent drawings, a year ago, were more realistic. I'm not complaining, it's just that she's more artistic than me, but I color really well. Mom used to draw a picture for me to color in. Some of it is hung up in the hall. 

There's a crash downstairs, making me drop my dolls and run down. 

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Word Count: 727 

So, the update schedule. I'm going to update this once a week on Wednesdays. If I'm overdue on a chapter, don't yell at me, please. I'm trying to balance a dozen things at once. <3