In fourth grade, at an age that should have been filled with play and laughter, Ben experienced an event that nearly took his life.
It was a holiday. The house was quiet. There was no television. There was no activity in the kitchen. Only the scent of medicine, eucalyptus oil, and his mother's heavy breathing from a high fever.
His mother lay weak in her room, her face pale. On the small table beside the bed was a prescription medication for adults.
Ben didn't go anywhere that day. He was bored. He paced aimlessly. A child's innocent curiosity slowly emerged as his eyes fell on the medicine.
"If this makes Mommy better... how does it taste?"
He took a pill.
Swallowed it. Waited
.
Nothing happened.
A few minutes passed. He felt normal. His curiosity grew.
He swallowed another.
And another.
Until all ten pills were gone.
The first two hours felt normal.
Then his body began to change.
His hands shook. At first lightly, then more strongly. His knees weakened. His heart beat irregularly. His vision blurred like shattered glass.
He tried to stand, but he couldn't.
His body was shaking violently. Uncontrollably.
His head felt like it was being squeezed from the inside. It was as if something was swelling and about to explode.
A friend who had come over to play saw it and panicked. Ben's parents weren't home. His grandfather was called.
He arrived, looking worried. No one knew what was causing it. No one knew that Ben had swallowed ten adult-use pills.
His grandfather could only bathe, scrub, and massage his entire body.
For three full hours, Ben's body trembled.
Amidst the excruciating pain, his consciousness felt split. Half of him still felt his body aching, while the other half seemed to be in another space.
And in that space, he saw it.
A middle-aged man, about 60 years old. Standing far away. Very far away. As if separated by an invisible distance of tens of thousands of kilometers.
His face wasn't entirely clear. It seemed shrouded in a thin mist.
But Ben's mind tried to picture him.
A strong jawline. A straight nose. The thin lines on his forehead. His hair was partly gray. His posture was upright.
His gaze was deep, though his eyes weren't fully visible.
Then the voice came.
Not through his ears.
Directly into his mind.
"I'll wait for you, Ben."
Calm. Heavy. Certain.
"Come here. I'll wait." The words felt real. Not like a dream.
And just as his body in the real world was about to give out, he came to.
The shaking slowly subsided.
He looked back, seeing his panicked family.
But the man wasn't there.
Since that incident, changes had begun to occur.
At first, only in his memory.
He could recall conversations in detail, even the time and seconds. He could remember people's facial expressions, the intonation of their voices, even the position of their hands when speaking.
But the changes didn't stop there.
His hearing had become incredibly acute.
He could hear the ticking of clocks in two different rooms. He could hear the faint rustling of insects on the walls. One afternoon, he actually heard the footsteps of ants on the terrace floor—a sound so faint that it had previously been impossible to hear.
He could distinguish footsteps simply by their pressure and rhythm. He could tell who was approaching even before they were visible.
The sounds in the world seemed magnified.
Not noise.
But detail.
Furthermore, his vision had changed.
His field of vision seemed to widen, about 20 degrees wider than before. He could perceive movement to the left and right without having to turn his head completely.
In a dark room, he could still see shadows. Not bright, not completely clear, but enough to make out shapes and distances.
The strangest thing was the range of his vision.
One day, he stood in the schoolyard. He looked up at the trees at the end of the street. Unconsciously, he focused his gaze.
And suddenly, the details became clearer.
Like a telescope lens being slowly adjusted.
He could see leaves moving in the wind. He could see a figure standing far more clearly than he should have.
He blinked.
His vision returned to normal.
He tried again.
And it worked. It was as if his eyes could magnify the image when he wanted it to.
It all happened without his awareness.
But one thing remained constant.
Every time he closed his eyes, the old man's face reappeared.
He tried to clarify it in his mind.
He imagined the texture of his skin. The lines of his wrinkles. The shape of his eyebrows. The way his lips moved when he spoke.
The more he tried to remember, the more detailed it became—but never completely clear.
It was as if the man were real.
But it wasn't yet time to see him fully.
And every night in his dreams, the man remained standing in the same place.
Waiting.
Unmoving.
Unangered.
Without smiling.
Just waiting.