Claws

The Kid Should Live

"What...?" Nathan yawned as he got jarred awake from some unseen object. He looked around to try and find what woke him up, but what he saw startled him more than the noise. He was in a hospital operating room. He was being operated on. He could see himself on the operating table.

"What is this??! Is this a hallucination or something??!" Nathan yelled. The doctors did not seem to notice him at all, acting like he wasn't there. "Can't you hear me!!!" He screamed as he walked forward. He was going to slap one of the doctors in the shoulder but his hand went right through the surgeon.

"Am I dead?? What's happening???! Someone help me or at least tell me what's going on!!" He yelled into the open air. Quickly after that, Nathan felt a sharp pain in his chest.

"He's coding! Push one milliliter of epi and start compressions! Stat!" He heard one doctor yell. "Am I dying?? What?? Someone!!"

"Yeah.. you're dying kid." Someone in the back of the room muttered. He could see a small outline of a long tail and ears; and a muzzle?

"Who are you?? What are you?? Can you tell me what's going on???" Nathan yelled at the creature.

"My name's Onyx. I'm a wickerbeast, and you just got badly beat up and got rushed into the ER. You were beat up and almost raped. Your sibling found you outside the door, bleeding to death, and called the police. That help?" Onyx said.

"That helps. I remember now. Are you real? You can't possibly exist?? Animals can't talk and speak and stand on two legs.." Nathan spoke back.

"Some of us can. I'm not a normal animal by the way. I'm basically half dragon half wolf. I have a snout but no nose on my muzzle. I have dragon-like nostrils. I am real. Right now my "mana" basically is in high power, so I can visit you in the limbo world. You're basically in limbo, I've forgot to mention, on the verge of death. I also have electricity "powers" that I can use to control anything electronic and read cell phones and junk. Basically I can control anything electronic, and I can use my powers to fight."

"That's actually really cool!" The 15 year old exclaimed, "can you help me... you know... survive maybe?"

"I don't think I can, Nathan. I can definitely try, though." Onyx said. "You didn't deserve to be beat up by those kids. I saw what happened to you, you were just trying to save a girl from being beaten to death... and you took the damage for her. Kinda dumb to just barge in like that, but I respect you for being a hero. You saved her, kid. She was only 12 years old, way too young to be even near those guys. I have a question, why'd you do it? You could've left her there to rot, you wouldn't get hurt, but you didn't. Those guys were at least double your size, did you know them?" Onyx asked.

"Yeah, actually. They go to my school. I guess when you go to public school, weird things happen. I just couldn't leave her there to get murdered for nothing. Even if there was a reason they were pummeling on her, no one deserves to be killed for that. She was just a kid, what could she have possibly done? I heard her screaming, and people yelling in the back alley and I couldn't just ignore that. I quickly got her away, but I unfortunately didn't have her advantage of being small and fast."

"Ah. I bet she thanks you. That was the kindest thing I've ever actually see someone do--" just as Onyx was about to finish their sentence, alarms started blaring around the real, visible Nathans body. Coding again.

"What the heck??! No, you can't die now!" Onyx yelled at the same time as one of the nurses did. "Oh god oh god I'm supposed to let you die but I can't oh my god oh my god what do I do!!?" Onyx yelled while pacing around very panicky.

"Let me live? Save me? Fix the machine?" Nathan whispered as loud as he could while the pain in his chest wad getting stronger, and he was starting to see black dots appear in his line of sight.

"Nonono stay awake kid, I can fix this... onyx come on dude.... JUST LET ME THINK FOR A SECOND, OKAY!" Onyx yelled to themself.

"Onyx, am I gonna die?" Nathan asked, barely staying conscious.

"You're too young to die!" Onyx yelled. They grabbed the teenager by sneaking an arm around the kid. "You have many years ahead of you, and I won't let this one accident end it all.

"DONT DIE!!!" Onyx screamed. While forcing Nathans limbo body into his real body. Nathan was no longer in the limbo world. He is either dead, or alive.