[Cafe] 119 – Adventures of Benjamin Grimm and Earth !@#!%%

Visions of the past, present, and future flashed before Ben's eyes. In opening his mind to the greater universe around him, he saw and experienced so much that his mortal mind nearly went comatose from the overwhelming information and visions that flooded his mind. Most others, if put in his position, would have found themselves experiencing epileptic seizures, brain hemeraging, and the unfortunate case of instant death, but Ben's mind, seemingly shielded itself from the onsought of endless information, limiting his view of the universe around him to a single window at a time, instead of the multitudes that he saw before, showing him every possible variation of every event. 

His own mind was almost torn apart within the first real use of his power, and this had a drawback. 

When he awoke, he found that he was lying within a bed, strapped down to it via a copious amount of straps while in a sterile but dirty room. He tried to open a tear, but new power did not answer, sputtering as if he lacked the energy to open a tear. Suddenly, an intercom kicked in, and a woman's voice came through.

"Whoever you are, if you continue to struggle or do whatever you just tried to, I will flood the room with Carbon Dioxide and choke you to death, understand? What is your name? Who are you?" The woman's voice threatened, sounding quite young.

"Who are you? Where am I?!" Ben questioned, his heart racing and panic beginning to set in.

"Answer the question!" The woman demanded.

"My name is Ben! Benjamin Grimm!" Ben answered.

"Impossible, Ben died years ago. Now I'll ask again: who are you, and why do you look like my friend?" The woman asked again, sounding quite threatening with her tone.

"What?" Ben asked, confusion clear on his face.

Clearly getting tired of asking questions through an intercom, it suddenly shut off and the door to the room swung open, revealing a woman in a lab coat with a strange full-body blue suit beneath it, this suit boasted a stylized '4' and this woman finally revealed herself to be someone Ben knew quite well, only they were much older than the woman he knew.

"...Susan?" Ben asked, looking at the mature and older version of his best friend's fiancée.

Suddenly, her fist glowed blue, and Ben felt as if gravity increased tenfold on his body, forcing the air out of his lungs.

"I said, who are you?!" She threatened again, her entire form suddenly encompassed by a light blue energy.

"Susan! It's me, Ben!" Ben struggled to get out, feeling like his chest was slowly collapsing into his body.

"Impossible!" She denied, sounding furious.

In his growing desperation, Ben forced a tear open, his mind, body, and soul feeling threatened and in its hope for survival, it used the power once again, damn the cost.

A wave of force seemed to emit from Ben's body and soul, the wave of forcing seemingly layering another reality over the room, a reality filled with nothing but green. A world untouched by man's hand, a world that was ruled by the Green. A fair paradise, where the rule of nature and natural selection continued for millions of years.

A sight so beautiful, yet so viciously ripped away as the tear collapsed without the energy needed to sustain it, and turning back to Ben, the unknown variant of Susan looked upon the now unconscious Ben, a carbon copy of her friend from long ago, a friend that she lost alongside countless others.

...

When Ben awoke again, he found that he was still in the same bed, the clamps gone. The nightmare was real, and wherever he was, it was also real, and as if sensing something, he looked to his right and found the older Susan sitting, eyes honed on his own.

"...You are Ben," she spoke up, her face neutral but her emotions transparent in her eyes and posture.

Ben stayed quiet, letting her continue to speak.

"I did every test imaginable while you were unconscious, blood tests, soul-scanning, fingerprints, gait scans, brainwave...you are Ben...Just not our Ben," She spoke the last part quietly, her eyes focused on the wall, as if not daring to look him in the eye anymore.

"...What happened?" Ben eventually asked.

"To you?" She answered, looking back at Ben, "You died. Like everyone else...like Johnny, like Reed."

"Johnny and Reed died...?" Ben asked, horror in his voice.

"Everyone did," Susan answered, her laugh sounding soul-crushing before she climbed to her feet and started walking towards the door. Ben climbed out of the bed, trying to stand but having some difficulty at first, before slowly limping after her.

Following her out into the hall, he noticed that wherever they seemed to be, it needed repair. Cracks lined the sterile walls, lights flickered, and trash and debris littered the floor. It was as if wherever they were had long since been abandoned, though following behind her, Ben passed by multiple rooms, most empty or seemingly filled with rubble.

When they reached the end of the hall, Ben followed Susan into what looked like a surveillance room that had been turned into a living space. A dirty mattress, bare of blankets or pillows, lay in the corner, while trash filled and covered the room and floor.

That's when he saw it, lining the wall to his left: thousands of tally marks carved into the concrete. There were so many that it was hard to know precisely how many there were. When Ben focused back on Susan, she was sitting in the chair before the computers, which looked to be on the brink of malfunctioning, with half the screens cracked, not working, or glitching.

On four of the dozen screens, footage from what looked like CCTV cameras appeared.

"March 2nd, 2019. The day the world ended," Susan stated, eyes looking dead as she stared at the screens that showed off New York.

"Wha —" Ben began before freezing, as a sudden blind flash appeared on all four screens, frying each of the cameras one by one in an instant, and even more cameras popped up afterward. Yet, those were destroyed as well. Eventually, a camera in someone's backyard, which had a view of New York City, recorded it. Several mushroom clouds appeared around the city, destroying it in nearly an instant while the sound wave traveled far and wide, before striking the camera and destroying it too.

"14,782 nuclear detonations in the span of a day worldwide," Susan answered, watching along with Ben as footage of the entire world being destroyed appeared on the screen. Parris, gone. The island that once housed the nightly British Empire, gone. One by one, Ben watched as billions died, incinerated in an instant, leaving only rubble and destruction in their wake.

"All that's left...is me. There used to be more...the astronauts on the International Space Station...they didn't last longer than six months, ran out of food…they burned up in re-entry…” Susan spoke with a dead voice, as if she was speaking of something trivial.