Ben pulled into his little HOA subdivision and felt a strange sense of pride in what he'd done. Giving hope to a child having a rough time was almost indescribable. He kept his engine quiet to not disturb the neighborhood until he noticed a light in the front window of his house move from one side of the room to the other.

"Idet," Ben growled, opening the garage and coasting into his parking spot. Before the car even came to a full stop, Ben had the door open and he was stepping out while activating the emergency brake.

Inside of his home, a glowing ball of light was hovering over the shoulder of his intern as they watched him enter in a fast rage. Hannah looked nervous, her hands wringing the edge of her shirt as she tried to find the words to say.

Before she could get a word out, Ben charged over to Idet and punched the ball of light, his fist flying unnervingly close to Hannah's head. The glow started to die down, leaving only a dim microwave light on from the kitchen, and Hannah finally saw it.

The Gentleman stood in front of her with the most mild expression of annoyance. His arm was still right by her face after he'd almost punched her, cast in shadow from the last light source behind him. He was suddenly much larger than Hannah, as if he was finally standing straight with his shoulders to their full wingspan.

"You were visible from the window," he said in a stone-cold tone of voice that made his intern shiver.

"I made sure that I closed the blinds," Idet's synthesized voice emitted from Ben's watch.

"I could see your light moving across the room," Ben warned, looking at his watch as the metal now possessed an iridescent glow. "You were far too obvious. Be more careful."

"Bad day?" Hannah asked, having never seen her boss in such a stern mood.

"One of kids is having a rough time at home," Ben stated dryly. "Not nearly as a bad as you, but y'know how hard it is for kids to face cruelty."

"Oh..., are you... gonna... y'know?"

"No, I'm not going to break his door down. I'm not some galavanting hero who goes around saving everyone. I'm just a simple city councilman with dreams of being mayor."

"Then why'd you save me?"

Ben sighed while massaging his temples, "Because..., I can only stand so much abuse. Your case was... extreme, so I stepped in. How is your father, by the way?"

"He's still downstairs," Hannah said, wringing her shirt a little more. "I'm not... finished with him. That's kinda what I want to talk with you about, I was wondering if maybe... you could do it?"

"Hannah, I think that pig deserves pain, but honestly, I would be happy if he just ceased to exist. If you want to torture him, now's your only shot."

"No, I wanna see him begging for his life!" Hannah quickly cheered. "But, I just don't feel like I'm any good at it! He keeps swearing at me and it throws me off and I don't feel like he's in enough pain! I was hoping you could, I dunno, show me how to skin him alive?"

"You want pointers," Ben finished, realizing he may have been a bit hasty with all of this. He had personally, meticulously planned the torture and death of his nemesis for ten years or more. Hannah had only recently had the idea to get back at her father, and it was clearly a struggle to come to terms with.

"Honestly, I could torture him for you," Ben casually ellicited, "but it won't be an ounce as satisfying if you don't do it yourself. Though, if you want a method of torture, I could probably help you whip something up. What you need to do is search the blackest, inkiest parts of your heart and find out what he said or did that made you feel the worst out of everything."

This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

It didn't even take Hannah a minute to answer, "When I was eight, my mother was driving me home from a softball game when someone crashed into us. The other driver didn't have insurance, so he fled from the scene, but my mother was bleeding and trapped under the car. I got out and cried over her while she was trying to tell me to pick up her phone and call for help..., but I didn't. It took a long time for someone to find us and call an ambulance. She died... on the way to the hospital.

"The first time my dad took me home from the hospital, something like a month later, he just asked me 'why'.... 'Why did I let my mother die?'"

For the emotional rollercoaster Hannah had been through, she still had tears to shed.

"I can work with that," Ben said, looking back at the garage. "You wouldn't happen to have videos of your mother, would you?"

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Inside of a plain white metallic room, Hannah's father was pulled from a stopped time bubble. He had been stabbed twice in the gut and once in the back, but the wounds weren't deep or positioned right. He looked around for where his bitch daughter was, only to see something impossible.

There, standing in the doorway, was his wife, wearing the same regal white gown she'd worn on their wedding night. There were slight trembling in her sparkling blue eyes and vibrant purple lipstick that she insisted on wearing even though it didn't match her dress because it was her favorite color.

"Baby?" he squealed, pulling at his restraints. "Baby, what are you doing here? How are you...?"

"Oh, I'm not your baby," said a very tired Hannah through her mother's visage.

"Hannah? How are you-?"

"Because you hurt me, dad," said Hannah as her mother, brandishing the knife once more. "But no matter how I sliced you up, it just didn't feel... right. Something was missing. You were in pain, sure, but only physical pain. You weren't distraught, like I have been every night of my life because of you. You must've known I would get you back one day, but I bet you'd never imagined this."

Hannah strode over to her father while an image of her mother on her wedding night was overlaid on top of her. It was some alien doo-hicky that Ben had pulled out of a crate somewhere, and he'd copied as much as he could from some old wedding videos to get the right style and voice.

"Now," Hannah said as a voice modulator kicked in and her voice became sultry, just like her mother's, "scream for me like a real man."

=============================================================================================

It was the next morning when Hannah emerged from the basement, covered in blood behind the dynamic image of her mother in a wedding dress. Ben was casually sipping coffee, ready to go to sleep because he hadn't planned anything to do for this Saturday.

"How do you feel?" Ben asked, having watched Hannah go all night now that her father's emotional pain healed her.

Hannah took a deep breath, and it felt like the first one in ages. She could feel the cool air go into her lungs and the slight euphoria that comes with a deep breath after too long hyperventilating. She laughed a little, smiled, then deactivated the holographic suit to reveal a painting of blood stains across her real clothes.

"I feel great!" she giggled. "Like this pressure that's been squeezing me from all sides is just... gone!"

"That's excellent," Ben said, trying to enjoy the coffee. "We'll celebrate tomorrow. Right now, you need to change clothes and wash up. Just throw those into the incinerator. Then get a good night's sleep and we'll reconvene later tonight."

"Do y'wanna fuck?" Hannah asked.

Ben, unprepared for the question, spat his coffee back into the mug, splashing it all over his shirt. A bit of the bitter liquid went down his windpipe, which he spent a crucial minute coughing up instead of answering the question.

"I'm sorry," Ben apologized once he could speak, "but that's impossible."

"Am I not good enough?" Hannah demanded in an attempt to force the situation.

"Quite the opposite," Ben said, undoing a few buttons on his shirt and flashing his intern. The masticated skin that looked like someone had thrown an entire cattle ranch into a threshing machine caught the girl by surprise, and her gag reflex activated. "You can't stand the sight of me."

"We can turn the lights off," Hannah reasoned, trying not to make it obvious that she was swallowing some stomach acid.

"You think this feels any more natural than it looks?" Ben asked while buttoning his shirt up. "No, I've given up on having a sex life with anyone that can't look at me. Besides, you're more like a niece, or a daughter to me."

"We're only four years age difference!"

"And what a difference that four years makes," Ben said, tussling his intern's hair. "Let's put a pin in that, because I'm gonna go to bed."

"I just wanted to ask you something," Hannah urged. "You said that you once saw all time and space, right? What's the most surprising thing you saw?"

Ben considered for a moment, then smiled and said, "I was most surprised how many things noticed I was watching.... Good night!"

The councilman saw his intern's worried smile as he headed towards his bedroom.

"You're... you're kidding, right?" she asked, wringing her shirt again.

"Sweet dreams!" Ben called as he closed his door.