anon. (BEN Drowned x Reader)

The Lawmens'

The next two days came around quickly for Y/N with no sign of Ben. This didn't necessarily bum her out, but it did somewhat baffle her. He was so "interested" in her before, yet he altogether disappeared mid-conversation. She had thought if she bored him he would at least sell her social security number like he threatened, he'd have nothing to lose. Yet despite these disparities, nothing had happened to Y/N's knowledge. Not even a singular suspicious payment.

After her and Ben's unnecessarily heated discussion she had realized there was a lot of baggage that she never bothered to confront; that she disregarded in hopes of forgetting. And furthermore there were gaps in her memory and odd things that she couldn't really recall from her childhood. She couldn't place why her mother skipped town all those years ago or why she couldn't even recall the name of that town despite her maintaining vibrant happy memories of it. It wasn't as uncanny as it was despairing.

The girl spent her weekend as per usual, strolling through social media and lazying around – of course with minor limitations digitally. Not one job had popped up and no interesting events happening in the local world that she avoided. More suspiciously, no sound from Willy her "buddy" next door. But contrary to this, her interests were elsewhere. Her thoughts were plagued with theories and ideas of who Ben may be.

She reminisced about how he may have been at odds with the Pastor – an old man who was paying for Y/N's room so far out, so she could help with his broadcast. It wouldn't be that outlandish as what she had heard, the Pastor was not that well-liked by many. Her other and more probable theory was that she just caught a nasty virus, that just so happened to link a really sick guy to her.

Either way, Y/N had to fight with herself to not message Ben on the mysterious icon that popped up on her phone the first night they had met. She was bored and hopelessly captivated by the guy. Y/N knew it sounded wrong, but she was well-aware this wasn't a romantic attraction but something much deeper. He knew things that she didn't, and she found herself trying to grasp on to that same understanding; he was far more joyful than her pitying over things she couldn't remember or piece together. So absentmindedly, she decided to do the next best thing; without provoking him. Explore the strange app.

The opening layout was the exact same as before except the little "1" in a green dot next to "Mail". She opened it, then she sighed realizing Ben hadn't messaged her but that the alert was from the unopened welcome message.

Bot: Welcome to Messages.operator!! I am your personal virtual assistant to your very own invisible anonymizing messaging app. I'm here to answer any and all your questions. With my help, you can adjust your settings, contacts, display and etcetera all in one place. I myself can all also be personalized to your liking :)

"That's surprisingly generous," Y/N hummed to herself, eyeing the rest of the screen. There was help section that had questions – neatly categorized – that could be asked to Bot; and all she had to do was tap on them. Who knew such a shady app could be this user-friendly, she thought.

She made her way back to her and Ben's messages. Maybe she could find out something about Ben other than miscellaneous points that she got from being forced to play that darn game.

She began by tapping his name. A small window showed,

Operator // Security and Penetration.

She explored a bit more. Eventually finding her way to a whole other window.

BEN Drowned

Operator// Security and Penetration.

Underneath the name and header was a series of links. Before she could really analyze anything further her screen had snapped back to the thread between her and Ben. Ben's new message was immediately met by annoyance from Y/N.