In The Middle

Chapter 7 The Decision

"You've completed the three quests" Uncle Oscar said with a smile.

Archie just looked at his Uncle.

"Why did I need to play that game?" Archie asked.

"It was the only way that God would allow you to be able to make the decision to either stay or leave" Uncle Oscar said.

Then Archie walked to the ICU doors and then Uncle Oscar walked up behind Archie.

"It's now up to you kiddo" Uncle Oscar said.

Then Archie turned around and saw that his Uncle has just disappeared. Archie then turned back around and then walked into the ICU.

Archie then walked over to himself, his friends and his parents and then he walked closer towards himself. Archie then closed his eyes and then everything went black.

4 WEEKS LATER
Fred and Mary were fast asleep in their chairs and so was Betty, Veronica and Jughead.

Archie's eyes slowly began to open. As Archie opened his eyes, he could feel something lodged down his throat and it was preventing him from being able to breathe properly. Then he began to cough and hack.

Jughead woke up and rubbed his eyes. As he rubbed the tiredness out of his eyes, he heard a gagging noise. As his vision came more into focus, he saw that Archie was gagging on the oxygen tube that was in his mouth.

"ARCHIE!" Jughead exclaimed, almost shouting as he then stood up and rushed to Archie's side.

Because of how loud Jughead was, it woke up Veronica, Betty, Fred and Mary.

"HELP! I NEED HELP!" Jughead shouted as he looked at the ICU doors before looking back at Archie, who was choking on the oxygen tube in his mouth.

Fred and Mary both stood up and tried to tell Archie that he would be ok.

Then after about five minutes, two nurses came in and rushed over to Archie.

"Ok. We need to take out the tube" one of the nurses said, walking over to Archie. The nurse that was right next to Archie, grabbed the base part of the tube that was covering Archie's mouth while the other nurse monitored Archie's vitals. Archie quickly grabbed his fathers hand and held it tightly and then the nurse pulled the tube out of Archie's mouth. Causing him to almost throw up.

Once the tube was finally out of Archie's mouth, he coughed for a bit before slowly sitting back in the bed.

"Vitals are normal and are stable" The nurse said to the other nurse.

"Good" The other nurse said as she then put the tube into a medical bin.

"Wha-what happened? How'd I get here?" Archie asked as he then looked around.

"You were hit by a car" Mary then said. Archie then looked at his mother before looking at the IV drip in his arm and the cuts and bruises on his arms.

"Now, Mr Andrews, you're gonna need to stay in the hospital for a couple of weeks because of the other injuries that you sustained during the accident" The first nurse said.

"Other injuries?" Archie asked.

"When you were hit by the car, you ended up almost severing your spine in half. We were able to fix the nerves in your spine but for the next few months, you'll be confined to a wheelchair" The other nurse said.

Archie then looked at the nurses, then at his legs, then at his family, then back at his legs. A look of utter disappointment and shock was plastered across Archie's face.