Spy School: Operation Golden Hawk

Chapter 18

Hello again, my wonderful readers who are still reading this even though I haven't updated in forever. I am sorry about that. So, this will probably be the last chapter. I thank you all for reading this book because, honestly, I thought it would get about 20 views. So, here is Chapter 18!

Erica's POV

Ben had a stroke.

I don't know if that was because his injuries fought back or if it was because of all the Taco Bell he ate. Honestly, who orders 17 items off of a single Taco Bell menu and eats all of them at one time?  

However, I really hope he is okay. When he wakes up (because he will  wake up) I swear I am going to smack him and tell him to stop almost dying and breaking my heart. I know that if he dies (which I really hope, no, I know, that he won't), I will convert back into the Ice Queen and probably never open up again. I think Ben knows that too. So damn it Ben, why do you have to do this to me if you know what will happen? 

I have been waiting in his room the entire time he has been in a coma, waiting for the time he will wake up. I know he will wake up, but that fact is starting to become less of a reality every day he remains stubbornly unconscious. And everyday he does, I believe I am going more and more insane. Ben, please wake up before I go completely crazy!

Ben's POV

I'm alive.

At least, I think I am.  I can't feel anything, but I can think and sometimes hear things. Al I can remember was a giant neon bell and a girl with raven hair and icy blue eyes. I felt like I should now her name, but it was evading me. Was it Erin? Or possibly Emily? No, it was something else. Hopefully, once I wake up (in a hospital or in the Underworld), it would come back to me. I also felt like this had happened to me before, like a month ago, but I couldn't place it. I hate it when I can't remember things.

The only things I can hear is the occasional girl sobbing (possibly the girl with blue eyes. Maybe Emma?) and occasional half-breaths. Hopefully mine, because I don't like it when I am dead. I don't think anybody does.

Eventually, I could think and feel my body better. I addressed my situation. My best guess was that I was in a coma, and not dead because most people do not think when they are dead. I could feel the right side of my body better than my left (I still couldn't move, but I tried.), so I figured I had a stroke. My left arm felt bulkier than my right, maybe signs it was metal? What I have done that I would have lost my arm in? I felt too scrawny and powerless to be anything cool like a police officer or a spy. Maybe a gas explosion? Or a tree fell on me?

After a days (or weeks or decades, I couldn't really tell), my memory came back. I remembered I had a girlfriend named Erica (hey, I was close), I had best friends named Zoe and Mike, I love Rita's Italian Ice (a pretty random fact) and that I was not, in fact, too scrawny to be a spy. I remembered that I had just recently defeated a huge operation going down for our new number #1 enemy, but I had gone missing for 3 weeks afterward because a building collapsed on me. I kept trying to wake up, but I couldn't. There was a voice inside me that said Just stop trying to wake up, your friends have already moved on from you, there is no point in delaying the inevitable. But there another voice that sounded disturbingly like my girlfriend Erica, that said, Ben, we need you. All of us. You can't die on us yet. 

I didn't know which voice to believe, but I know that whenever a good person goes into a coma, there is always an outside force that tries to trick into letting them die. Then there is always the good person boyfriend or girlfriend or best friend that is there waiting for them everyday, hoping that they can see the person wake up. I knew that Erica was waiting for me, partially because I really wanted to believe it, and partially because I had heard her crying. So I chose to keep fighting. 

And one day, I won.

Mike's POV

Erica finally let me visit Ben, because only one person was allowed to visit him at a time. She let me have two hours with him, and left to go be with her mother. I think Erica was doing worse than when she was when Ben was missing, possibly because she could see how he was. When he was missing, she could only hope he was alive. 

So anyway, in about two hours of the 4 months Ben was out, he decided to come back to Earth when I was there. 

I first noticed Ben was awakening when his left arm beeped twice, as if it were saying, hey, the rest of this guy's body could use a little help getting up. Then I heard him groan every so slowly. I leaned closer to him, and his eyes opened. For the first time in 4 months, I smiled. Ben sat up and turned towards me, like he had just woken up from a 3 hour nap, not a 4 month coma. "Ben," I said, "You chose to wake up in the two hours I was here and Erica wasn't. She's gonna totally freak when she finds out she missed you coming back to us." I said, and Ben laughed a little bit, like it hurt, which it probably did. "Yeah, how long was I out?" Ben asked, and I grimaced, knowing he would not like the answer. "Four months." I said.

Had Ben been in proper health, he would have jumped out of his bed. Unfortunately for him, he was not in proper health, so in the middle of jumping out of bed, he yelped in agony and collapsed right back onto his bed. "Four months!" He exclaimed, and I nodded. "Look, just try not to make a big deal about it. I'm going to text Erica, Zoe, and everybody else to get over here. Try not to injure yourself anymore before you see them."

Zoe was the first to arrive. When she saw Ben, her eyes teared up instantly and she managed not to break all of Ben's ribs in a hug. Next was Chip and Jawa, who's reactions were similar to Zoe's. Catherine and Alexander came next, and Ben nearly jumped out of bed again when he saw the ring on their fingers. And then came Erica. 

"In the two hours I was gone," she said from the hallway, trying to sound stern but her voice was breaking, "that was when you decided to wake up? Bad timing." She opened the doors, and started to rush to Ben's side when he held up a a hand, signaling her to stop. She stopped, looking very confused. "Ben,-" She said, but he cut her off. "I don't want everyone running to me." He said, and got out of his bed. 

He grimaced, and almost fell, but he managed to stand. Then he began to limp toward her. I pretty sure all of us got tears in our eyes, but Erica began to cry silently. I thought that Ben must have been an extremely strong guy to begin walking this soon after waking up, but he was. When he finally reached her, he steadied himself on her, and hugged her. "I didn't want to be looking up at you to say this." He spoke strongly, which said the opposite of his body.

"Let's go home."