Prologue

Date: Unknown

Location: Unknown

Time: Unknown

Waking up, the first thing Ben registered was the dull aching pain constantly reverberating in his head like a drum.

After an unknown amount of time allowing him to register and slowly ignore the pain in his head, the second thing he registered was the fact that he was on the floor, in a place that was most definitely not his hospital bed.

'Uh oh.'

Slowly bringing himself up, Ben began to cautiously observe his surroundings, trying to note the details of where he was, and what could've possibly brought him here.

To his immediate realization and relief, he found that he was alone. Then, came the slight horror at the fact that he was in a place that reeked, in what seemed to be a landfill.

'Since when do hospitals dump their patients? Did they finally become fed up with me and decide to take my organs then leave me to rot all alone?' he thought.

That line of questioning came to an abrupt end, however when he managed to pat himself down and note that everything about himself seemed to be in place.

Then after sitting there in a daze for a few more moments, Ben became aware of something odd.

He was calm.

Eerily calm in fact.

In a situation in which he knew he would be panicking, and possibly be hyperventilating as well, he was as cool as ice.

Putting that thought in the back of his mind, he decided to deal with his immediate problem by putting his hands at his side to better push himself up out of-

*SPLASH*

-in what he was convincing himself was water.

Wiping the "water" off his hands and onto his pants, he slowly walked while keeping cautious of his surroundings and mountains of trash everywhere, expecting somebody to just randomly pop out and shout "It's a prank man!" like in those funny videos he used to watch.

Ben knew that was a lie at the same time that thought crossed his mind because let's face it, he had no one in his life who would do such a thing.

He was supposed to be 17 years old today, and instead of living his life by hanging out with friends he doesn't have, going to school, maybe playing a sport he would end up liking, and so much more…

He's visited more hospitals than the number of social connections ever formed in his life.

Only 2 people filled his world at the age of 8 when he was forced to call hospitals his new home due to the constant and torturous pains that randomly began racking his body, and the skeletal state he seemingly found himself constantly in as they occurred.

His mother and father always did their best to be with him, even when it got so hard for them. They were his entire world. His only world.

Then, at around 16 years old, they were gone.

Grieving couldn't even begin to describe the pain he felt at the time. For once, the pain he felt in his body seemed to give way to the more torturous pain that the void their deaths left in his heart inflicted.

Now a year later, he was supposed to have joined them…

Coming out of his thoughts, a strange realization came to Ben that he should've noticed by the time he was patting himself down earlier.

'Did someone change my hospital garbs? I haven't worn pants in like a month.'

He was dressed in a pair of black jeans, with a tight-fitting long-sleeved gray shirt covering the entire top part of his body. Something he remembers to have never worn in his life.

When you spend 9 years in a hospital bed with wires and IV drips hooked up to you 24/7, you'd think that you would notice this kind of change sooner.

Coming up to the gates and noticing that they were closed, Ben estimated the current time of day to be around 4 or 5 P.M if he was in his regular area in New Jersey since most landfills close around the same time in that area, and the sun was close to sunset now that he was focusing on it.

Noticing the security house at the front end, and not wanting to get caught until he figured out what was happening, Ben doubled back around the area he woke up looking for something he can use until he noticed a brand new pack of fireworks full with a matchbox.

Reaching out, he took apart the box and took the firework with the longest fuse possible and the matchbox, before moving himself around the piles of garbage, and situating himself in the opposite direction of the building directly behind, but parallel to the gate so that he has enough time to run to the gate in the following commotion.

Readying himself, he lit the match with a swish of his hand and proceeded to light the fuse as well, before decking it towards the closest mound of garbage next to the gate while snuffing out the matchstick and pocketing it and the matchbox to not leave any more evidence of his presence than he already did, prepared to scale the gate when his distraction takes place.

Approximately 26.3 seconds later-

'Wait, what?'

-the firework finally went off even further away from the building at a 34-degree angle off the ground, making sure the noise was as far as possible, yet still at the farthest edge to be heard by those people inside and keep their attention for a while.

A few seconds after the door opened-

'13.2 seconds' Ben's mind seemingly whispered.

-when 2 gruff middle-aged men started to speed walk towards the direction of the noise, he bolted towards the gate and reached it in record time, before jumping to as high as possible to save time climbing.

Except, he ended up sailing over what seemed to be a 9-foot gate-

'8.4 feet.'

-with a few inches to spare from clipping the barbed wire before landing in a roll and taking a knee, dispersing his momentum.

Although he was seemingly stunned for an instant-

'2.4 seconds.'

-he didn't allow that to stop him as he started running as fast as his legs could carry him-

'21.71 MPH.'

-down the sidewalk. He ran like that for what felt like hours-

'20.64 minutes.'

-for who knows how far in these crisscrossing sidewalks-

'7.47 Miles.'

-before he determined that was enough by ducking into the next narrow alleyway he saw and coming to a stop, leaning into the wall while panting for breath, before slowly sliding down next to the trashcan next to him and putting his head into his hands.

'What's going on?' Ben thought. 'What are all these calculations and numbers in my head? How do I know this stuff? Why am I so calm and not panicking?'

As these thoughts tumbled through his head and began warring into his mind on how to be answered, Ben turned to the sound of a few rats scurrying away from this strange intruder, only to have his head swivel once again this time to a newspaper clipping

Picking it up to better ascertain the date and his location, his eyes froze when he took in the name of the paper at the top.

"Gotham City Gazette: October 20th, 2004"

'But, my birthday… was supposed to be today.' he thought, before what should have been a dreadful realization came to his mind.

"Definitely not in Kansas anymore, that's for sure Toto. Where in the world is Gotham City?" he murmured.