Benjamin couldn't believe his eyes. Was he hallucinating? He thought he would be fine after a short break, but maybe what he was doing in the other world did a lot more damage to him here than he expected. Especially mentally; after all, it was a very stressful endeavor. There was no way he would see a system window here on earth. The system didn't exist here.
Not to mention, it was jumbled, with random characters messing up the words.
But even through the jumbled mess, he recognized the layout of this window. It was a skill-acquisition message, but the Skill's name was... redacted? Not to mention, he didn't feel as though anything was different now that he got this skill. But somehow, he knew that it was real. The sharp pain that he felt before it popped up must have been because of this.
"Dad?" there was a knock on the door. It was Tony. He must have heard the commotion that Benjamin made when getting out of the capsule.
"I'm... I'm fine..." Benjamin replied, though his tone clearly wasn't convincing enough. Tony pushed the door open immediately, jumping toward his father the moment he saw the puddle of bloody vomit on the ground and the blood dripping off Benjamin's face, "What the hell happened? What did you do- Did someone-"
"Tony, don't worry. I'm alright," the old man said with a slight smile, "There's just... a lot going on over there right now. I don't know exactly why, but looks like it wasn't good for me over here either."
Tony's face was pale. Despite what Benjamin was saying, he had started holding onto his father's arm in case he fell. Benjamin didn't look particularly stable on his feet right now, "Are you sure you're alright? I know your body is... different now, but... you're not as strong here than you are there, right?"
Benjamin smiled, "I promise, I'll be fine. It was a bit of a shock when I woke up, but I'm already feeling a bit better. I guess I feel a bit dizzy, but that's probably just blood loss, I'm not really in any pain anyway."
"...That doesn't particularly calm me down... Do you think you can get yourself cleaned up, or do you need help?"
"Hah, I'm not the type of old man who'd need you to wipe his ass, son. At least not yet," Benjamin laughed, patting Tony on the back. Before Benjamin could say anything else, Tony sighed and nodded, "Fine. Go take a shower, I'll clean up here in the meantime."
"Thank you. And I'm sorry for worrying you," Benjamin smiled, stepping out through the door into the bathroom across the hallway. He felt bad for what he was doing to his children with his behaviour. Tony in particular, who was still here to take care of his father, ended up powerless against everything that was happening right now.
At least Benjamin himself felt a certain sense of normalcy, no matter how crazy things got. It was most likely a subconscious understanding of what was happening, that he consciously couldn't access right away. But Tony didn't have that. He didn't understand any of this, he just had to... watch.
Benjamin cloesd and locked the bathroom door behind him. He looked into the mirror and sighed. The system window was still floating beside him, flickering like an old tv screen with some loose wires. This was the only thing that was an exception to even Benjamin. He doubted that this was something that Eisen had knowledge of. Those things felt...
At some point, Tony had finished cleaning up, and joined him. But he as well could tell that something was off. So he just sat down on the couch near his father and waited together with him.
It wasn't even that much later that Benjamin got even more anxious. He stepped out of the capsule about thirty minutes before. By now, over there, everything should be over, right?
Benjamin could feel his heart beating so strongly the tension reached up to his throat.
The clock on the other side of the room ticked loudly. So, so loudly.
Tick.
Tick.
Tick.
A quiet creaking.
Footsteps.
They came closer, and then stopped.
"It's over," Andrew said. Benjamin moved his hand away. He was scared to look at Andrew's face. What if they couldn't do it? What if things went south? What if-
Benjamin forced his own hand away.
Through still blurry sight, he looked at Andrew.
He was smiling.