Present Day
The rain continued to come down like nails on the roof of the cabin. Flashes of lightning in the distance lit up the room. The storm was at last losing intensity, yet the rain did not confirm that notion. Hurley and Ben stood looking blankly at each other in the living room of the cabin.
Ben broke the silence first, “I have told you plenty, Hugo. You know what I know. I don’t have an answer to everything. You are then man in charge, you should be telling me things that I don’t know!”
“I have helped you redeem yourself, Benjamin!” Hurley retorted, “I showed you the way, but I needed your help to protect this place. How can I do that if you don’t tell me the things I need to know about this island?? You have been here for like, a hundred years, dude!”
“This is ridiculous,” Ben snapped, “You told me that we had to bring that boy back for the greater good. That was your plan, not mine!”
“Not my plan!” Hurley exclaimed, “That’s because I was told to by Locke and Michael … and everyone else!”
“Then why didn’t you ask them why,” Ben scoffed.
“Because they only speak in riddles, dude!” Hurley explained and in his best Locke impression voice as he quoted, “Uh, ‘Hugo, you need to bring Walt here on his 16th birthday. He is the master key to open the lock of the island and set it free.’ Nice pun, bald eagle dude.”
“And Michael?” asked Ben.
“Nah. All he wanted was Walt to help him, I told you all that.” Hurley answered.
A few moments later, Vincent could be heard barking faintly in the distance. Then the rain suddenly came to an abrupt stop. Hurley turned to look out the window, and Ben walked over to stand beside him.
“Did something happen already?” Ben asked.
“I am not quite sure,” Hurley replied, “Here is where the fun begins.”
2007
Hurley and Ben approached the outer wall of the temple. They could still smell the smoke in the air left over from the brutal massacre from a few days past. The sky started to darken with the overcast of clouds.
“You sure about this, Hugo?” Ben asked skeptically.
“I’m not sure about anything anymore,” Hurley exclaimed.
They both proceeded into the cavernous entrance below the temple wall. It was eerily quiet and dark. The air was still and musty.
Hurley jumped from being startled when Ben asked, “Where should we go first?” Ben smirked. His voice echoed down the hallway and the resonance could be heard for a few seconds.
“Don’t do that!” Hurley said anxiously, “Talk quieter, dude, when it’s … quiet like this.”
“Sorry, but…” Ben lowered his voice to a whisper, “Do you know where we are going?”
Hurley kept moving forward down the unlit hallway of stone and responded, “Yes, I do. To find a flashlight, or a torch.”
“I honestly do not know what you expect to find here, Hugo,” Ben started, “There is nothing here anymore.”
“Something must be. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have been told to come here, ya know?”
“Yeah, by a ghost,” Ben scoffed.
“Right now, I would trust a ghost more than anything,” Hurley replied.
“The last time I saw John Locke, he was a ghost of somebody else and a complete monster. That smoke monster that destroyed this place, killing everyone that was here, I might add.” Ben responded.
Hurley shook his head, “I don’t expect you to understand but I know it was the real Locke,” Hurley implored.
Hurley slowed his stride as they came to a large hole where the stone floor had collapsed. Ben stopped walking completely and stared down into the depth of the void. Hurley slowly made his way around and noticed Ben was not following.
“Dude, you coming? What’s the matter?” asked Hurley but there was no response. Ben continued to stare blankly into the darkness below for a moment, and then knelt to the ground picking something up.
Ben composed himself, held up an unlit torch and asked, “You got a light?”
1977
Young Ben tossed branches aside as he ran as fast as he could toward the Dharma barracks. The sky was still purple and the noise of the magnetism grew louder the further he ran. He could feel it in his chest along with his accelerated heartbeat. His wound, although better, was still a hindrance. Breathing heavily, he kept on running. He moved through some twigs and abruptly fell onto a dirt road. As Ben sat for a moment to catch his breath he heard a commotion coming from his right. He turned to look and saw a Dharma van in the road 100 meters away. The van was swaying from side to side and familiar voices came from the other side. Ben stood up to see who was speaking and walked toward the van. He noticed a man was lying on the ground, propped up on the passenger side of the vehicle. The van was shaking but nobody was inside and the man was sliding back to the ground. Ben was about to cry out over the loudness when he noticed the chef helped him back up again and that the man on the ground was the prisoner from back at the barracks, who had been shot.
Completely shocked, Ben froze. He was speechless as confusing memories started flooding back to him. He remembered being on this road. There was a van. Complete darkness of night and this prisoner was there. A shot rang out …
Suddenly, there was a muffled sound of an enormous explosion and the ground shook tremendously, knocking Ben to the ground once more. He heard loud cries over an ear piercing sound that was accompanied by a blinding light. Ben covered his ears and closed his eyes in fear as he was curled up on the ground. In an instant, the sound was gone. There was nothing but silence except for the ringing in Ben’s ears.
Slowly, Ben opened his eyes. He was facing the sky. The beautiful blue with tufts of white clouds had returned. Through the disorientation, Ben managed to sit up. He looked around and noticed the Dharma van and everyone around it had vanished without a trace. In the distance, he heard yelling. Ben stood up and stumbled toward the voices. He walked up the embankment on the side of the dirt road as he tried to clear his ears. Once at the top he walked towards a large dirt pile and tried to hear what the voices were saying. He looked beyond the pile to see there was a very large pit had been dug up with a pile of twisted scaffolding in the center. There were cement trucks and a security jeep on its side resting against the pile of twisted metal. Ben saw a Mr. Radzinsky and Mr. Chang yelling. There were some security and science team personnel also in the pit. Ben knelt down out of sight so he could listen.
“Well, then where the hell are their bodies!?!?” Radzinsky yelled, “All of the other dead bodies are here … where are …”
“I don’t know!!” Chang yelled back as he tried to dislodge the discharge chute of the concrete mixer with his right hand, “Can you give me a hand with this??” Chang’s left arm was wrapped with a blood covered tan jacket.
“They can’t have just disappeared, Chang!” Radzinsky responded as he helped Chang remove parts of the wreckage from the crane.
“There is no telling what happened here today and the damage that may have done,” Chang started, “I need to get in touch with Ann Harbor. For now, we need to make sure this is completely sealed up. Luckily, the bomb sealed it up for now, but we need something more permanent. Then, everyone on this island needs to be inoculated for radiation and evacuate the rest of the nonessential personnel. There are so many things we need to do.” Chang shook his head and grimaced in pain.
“You need to get your arm looked at. You are losing a lot of blood there, Chang.” Radzinsky advised, pointing to the blood soaked makeshift tourniquet.
“Don’t worry about it. This takes priority!” Chang replied, “Want to know what I think? Your precious little swan will be used for prevention instead of research…”
Suddenly, Ben felt a hand touch his left shoulder. Startled, Ben turned rapidly to look and saw Richard hunched over close to him. He was dressed in a grey long sleeved button down shirt and tan slacks. The look of bewilderment filled his face.
“You shouldn’t be here, Ben”
A look of fright came across Ben’s face, “I just wanted to know what happened. I didn’t mean to… Please don’t tell Charles,” Ben pleaded.
“I don’t know what exactly happened either. I saw a large explosion, the ground collapsed around everyone that was down there as the light consumed them. They all died, Ben,” Richard explained.
Ben thought for a moment if he should tell Richard what he had witnessed but decided to keep quiet.
“Now go, hurry back to camp.” Richard advised.
“But Charles told me to go back to the barracks and pretend to be among them. Spy on them for him,” Ben explained.
Richard looked intrigued, confused and displeased all at the same time, “You go on ahead then, and be careful. They must not know you were here watching them. Pretend to know nothing. I will see you soon”
Ben nodded in agreement and trotted downhill toward the road. Richard looked concernedly back into the pit as he started to walk in the opposite direction.
Ben stayed along the tree line at the side of the dirt road so he would not be seen by anyone passing by. He felt very tired and slowed his pace. All of a sudden, a cool rush of air moved passed his face, causing him to stop short. He felt as if he was going to faint. He quickly sat down on a nearby rock to rest. He sat with his hand on his knees, and locking his arms to prop himself up. The breeze felt nice.
Suddenly, a quiet voice came from behind, “Hello Ben.”
Alarmed, Ben fell off the rock onto the ground. He looked up and saw a shadowed figure of a tall man wearing a dark robe, much like a monk. The hood was up and shadows covered his face. The man reached out to help Ben up and was holding a bottle of water in his other hand. Grasping the helping hand, Ben pulled himself up and took the bottle of water.
“Who are you?” Ben asked.
The man removed his hood to reveal himself, “My name is Walt … and you have some work to do.”
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