[Cafe] 120 – Adventures of Benjamin Grimm Part 2

Two weeks is how long Ben has found himself stuck with the much older and more grimm Susan in the post-apocalyptic hell of this version of Earth. While the surface was not as irradiated as Ben expected, due to the advancement in cleaner nuclear bombs, the surface was still not livable by any standards.

The sky and air were choked by thick ash and dust, and the temperatures above, even during the day, were below freezing. Through sheer ingenuity, luck, and perseverance, Susan had lasted as long as she did in the bunker constructed under what once was the Fantastic Four tower near the heart of New York City. 

She had worked hard to collect what few intact supplies she could find across the city's ruins, with half of the island of Manhattan now wiped off the map. She took the time to modify the bunker's ventilation and life-support systems to help make surviving easier.

As she showed him, she even had a hydroponics system constructed down in the bunker that supplied her with a small amount of food and clean drinking water, but with two of them, they needed to go scavenging for more. 

Susan constructed a small makeshift antenna above the bunker, which she used to try to contact other survivors. Still, she hasn't had any luck, especially with all the ash and dust making radio signals reach much less distance than they could before the bombs. With the thick smog and ash blocking out the sun, she had yet to connect to a single satellite outside of a single one designed by Reed that was only accessible for a limited amount of time every day.

Right now, the two were on the surface in thick clothes and gas masks to limit their exposure to the dust and particles in the air as they climbed over and through the rubble of collapsed skyscrapers, buildings, cars, and more, which greatly increased the difficulty in finding anything of worth, especially with the entire years that had passed. Ben was amazed that Susan had even survived this long, especially after seeing how little she had been eating and how malnourished she looked. 

...

Yet another week passed, and Ben found he could only open up tears the size of a pinhole now. However, with each day, he found himself able to do more and more, and with Susan's help, Ben knew that sooner or later, he could return home—though Ben worried about Susan.

He caught her staring at old pictures for hours on end, and each night it was clear she suffered from night terrors. Then there was the situation with her mental state, by her admissions, Ben knew it had been years since she spoke to someone, but now and then, Ben could swear that Susan was talking to someone when she was alone or thought that Ben could not hear and if it was any indication, it was clear that she knew this figure based on how she acted and confided in them. Ben knew who she talked to, and it was evident in hindsight. She thought she was talking to Reed, which worsened Ben's worry for Susan.

At the moment, Susan was staring blankly at the monitor screens, waiting for even a hint of a signal while Ben seated himself on an old and torn-apart mattress that had been scavenged and hauled back to the bunker. He held a dusty book in one hand while the other continuously opened tears over and over, slowly adjusting his mind and body to open bigger and bigger tears over time.

At first, the tears he could open were no bigger than a penny, but now? They were as big as a pencil and only getting bigger. Through these small tears, he looked upon other 'Earths,' some wildly different from his. Yet others were so similar there was nearly no difference, such as one Earth where Tony Stark had different-colored hair or the United States was renamed 'New Jerusalem' after being overthrown in a coup by the Church early in the country's development.

Ben has found it a good way to pass the time and see how the Earth could have been with different decisions. He derived some entertainment from that when the Books no longer covered it, only for his musing to be cut short when the lights of the room, along with the computers, flickered for a moment before shutting off completely.

Since he first appeared here, the power has been cut off multiple times, and the generator is having problems, Susan said. She always scurried away from the room to check the generator every time it happened, sometimes disappearing for hours at a time, in some cases, which worried Ben at times, especially when the power issues only seemed to worsen after she left before returning to normal.

Part of him wondered what exactly she was doing, especially when she stated that he should stay away as it was dangerous and that she had only one intact hazmat suit. The more he thought, the more concerned he became, so he finally decided to climb up from the mattress and make his way out of the room and into the corridor.

Heading down the corridor, he stepped past multiple rooms, noting that the lights were starting to flicker again. Then, the entire bunker was drowned in pure darkness, temporarily blinding him.

Pausing in step, he waited for the lights to flick back on before he continued on a few moments later when the lights flickered back on. With the bunker not being that large, it did not take him long to reach the 'reactor' where Susan should be.

When he stepped past the reinforced metal door to the reactor, he found a reactor with flashing yellow lights blinking around the room, but no Susan.

Where was she?

After looking around the room for a few minutes, he found a few scratch marks next to one of the walls. Through sheer luck, he pressed his hand against the wall and found a secret door hidden within, a door that hid a long corridor that Ben could not see the other side of.

...

A/N: A Bit smaller chapter as I work to straighten out life and work