The silent beeping of equipment. Followed by the same horrible meal again for the hundredth time. It felt gross to the bite and even worse on his tongue. The doctor’s words had turned into a quiet static sounded so far away.

Rhodney knew the news already, but it didn’t make the reiteration any less hurtful. Why his dad and the doctor needed to tell him was something he would have to ask god, cause the doctor didn’t explain it.

“So,” The doctor was emotionless, not even faking any emotions anymore. “You’ll have to leave the hospital…” Rhodney’s face darkened. “How much longer am I going to stay here?” Rhodney asked.

Part of him wanted to leave. He was tired of this place and hadn’t felt a lick healthier since he had gotten here.

The food, terrible.

The people, depressing.

Everyone’s looks were so sad and fake that they could’ve been made of paper mache. It had sucked the life from his body, and he just wanted to go home.

Home…

Tears started to fall from his eyes and fall onto his blue blanket. He was gasping as he ugly cried into the blanket. Not able to stop as the emotions became too much.

The man stared at him and didn’t even try to comfort the boy and began to walk out. His long white coat flapping behind him.

“Oh,and happy birthday.”

The man said dryly. Walking away from the door as he left Rhodney to cry by himself.

His father had told him that he was leaving the country. As his last remaining family member, no one would be coming for him.

He was now truly alone.

He looked out at his reflection in the giant glass window, looking back at his visage. Hating it just as much as he had every other day. His long black hair stuck to the back of his head.

Withered, balding, and coming out in patches. The doctors had attempted cutting it. Attempted being the operative word.

Everytime one hair would be cut, two more would appear in its place the next day. To the point where it started to become unnerving. The doctors told him some hogwash about hormones, or genes, but he knew they were just as confused as him.

His face which at one point was rosy with life was now somehow bony and bloated. Smooth in the contours and places where it shouldn’t’ve been, and puffy in the places that it wasn’t supposed to be.

His eyes were still that bright green that he’d had before.

But he they had now gained a slight sadness in them that he didn’t have before.

He was upset, the hospital wouldn’t even let him die here without payment. Typical United K. This country was the pinnacle of capitalism and corporate greed. A technological powerhouse that somehow, in the process of gaining that title, lost its soul.

Yeah, the country wasn’t that great he wasn’t going to… he…

Rhodney wasn’t good at convincing himself of downsides.

…

He looked out to the stars and saw them twinkling above. The only benefit of having a hospital this high in the mountains.

Rhodney grabbed his phone and slowly crawled out of bed. The flat rectangle that was so thin and sharp that it almost cut his hand as he held it.

The boy hunched down as he walked to the window. Holding onto his IV drip for support. Most of the machines were already unplugged in his room. He shuffled across the floor and made it up to the window.

The sky twinkled like a glittering diamond. The stars blinked and glowed for him as he looked up to greet him. He felt a little more at peace as he looked up to the sky. Feeling a smile slightly creep up his face that he hadn’t felt since he’d last talked to her.

He waved up to the sky, and surprisingly, a yellow shooting star shot back, almost in response.

He wished he had ended things differently, but he was still grateful–

Buzz!

His phone vibrated in his wiry hand. He moved his arm to his face, letting the bright light of the phone wash onto his face. Rhodney stared down at the rectangle for a good forty seconds. The message made his mind run a million miles a minute.

He stared for a bit longer, then a little bit longer.

Breathed in.

And then smashed the window.

The author's content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

Rhodney just stared out of the new opening. Blood dripping from his left hand. It was probably broken. And he winced a little as he felt the glass embedded in it. He squeezed his hand, then let go, squeezed, and then let go.

He saw pure green and felt something flowing. Was it the adrenaline again? Maybe the hormones?

Rhodney limped over to one of the heavier machines on wheels dragging it close to the door. His body was filled with that all too familiar welling strength he knew it was capable of. The boy threw it to the ground full horizontal. He wasn’t allowing anyone to interrupt him.

He returned to the window, looking down at the dark parking lot that seems alot higher now that he teetered on the edge. Sobering wind blew into his room, and his arms now felt like they were completely on fire.

The faint sounds of sirens already started to slowly creep.

His body tried to chide in, telling him that he was still alive. Fear tried to hold him in place. And all his survival instincts told him to step away, that this wasn’t worth it.

But as Rhodney started to pick apart the arguments and force his body to stop its protest,. He heard a huge thump as someone slammed the door.

Maybe a police officer? Maybe one of those make a wish people? A doctor? Rhodney didn’t know, or care. All he knew is that his father wasn’t at all in that list. All Rhodney’s hope died when he’d received that horrible joke of a message.

Letting the sound of heart in his ears decrescendo, he looked down to the ground again. People had already started to gather outside, looking up and pointing to him. He drowned out the don’t jumps and inches further, closing his eyes.

Letting the tug of war happen in his own brain as he weighed his options.

BANG!!!

The door tore off its hinges and the machine slid across the floor. Rhodney looked over and saw the people. Tons of people. The doctor who didn’t care when he gave the bad news. The officer, that always visited one of Rhodney’s friends,

And…

Dressed in nurse scrubs was a woman in her early 20’s. Curled brown hair and a new look of panic dressed on her face that Rhdoeny didn’t think fit properly. Black boots and a jacket right over her nursing uniform.

“Rhodney…” She called out to him, trying to give a reassuring smile to try and convince Rhodney to stay.

“It’ll be alright, I’m–I’m,”

Come on coward.

Come on.

Are you going to die on this cancer's terms, or yours?

“I’m sorry I stopped showing up, I’m sorry, I…” She gave promises that Rhodney knew were false. Said apologies that he knew she didn’t mean. Watched as she became less of an honest youth, and more of a terrible adult.

The world fell for a long time after that.

His eyes and veins streaked with green light as he fell closer and closer.

The screams above and below hit his body at the exact same time.

The feeling of nothing below him reminding him of the feeling of falling on a rollercoaster.

He didn’t scream for some reason. His powers cradled him like a baby, holding him tight as he fell down.

He died on April 2nd, 2045.

—

The explosion felt after he hit the ground shook the entire children's hospital. While psychologically everyone who saw the boy's body was messed up, anyone who was hit by the wave of energy felt their body crack and pop.

Their bodies returned to ways it hadn’t felt in years. A feeling of youth and healing washing over them. They were almost delirious from the energy their bodies gulped like a man dying of thirst.

The videos filmed by the morbid ones that took it were placed under huge scrutiny online. Most passing it off as terrible special effects cgi on an event that should not be given that. Disrespectful. It was called a truly horrible trend, especially after the news reported the boy's passing.

Though, some who did see it did eventually end up talking about it later. Some bringing up ideas of aliens, government powers, the supernatural.

Conspiracy theorists ate their heart out.

None coming close to the real answer however.

The idea of a supernatural child in hospital scrubs knocked them too far off the scent. And they never quite hit the nail on the head. The source of Rhodney's power was something that only those who took part in his story would know.

But that meant that it was also an answer that was something no human from his world would ever know. And something that Rhodney would have to work on and discover himself.

He felt himself floating in a cosmic-looking void that reminded him of space. A backdrop of black with a coating of stars. The sky was much different than the ones he usually experienced.

Red-and-blue clouds seemed to dwarf the stars themselves in sheer magnitude. He hadn’t seen anything like it. They moved similarly to fire. In a sort of alive like dance that was mesmerizing to the eye. As he looked down, 'Oh.' Rhodney caught himself..

There was no up and down anymore.

Uhm.

As he looked “down” onto his body he realized, he didn't have one anymore.

Then, what surprised him was how much that fact didn't bother him. Just the feeling of 'Eh, what can you do…’ That didn’t feel like him.

This disorientation.

This, lacking of arms and legs and sitting in an endless void should’ve been terrifying. But he didn’t feel any terror. The lack of a body might've been the thing causing it. That had to be it right? He slightly chuckled a bit at the idea of being able to think without a brain, but not feel without a body.

Rhodney didn't exactly have many ideas of the afterlife. Since his parents were only religious after he had gotten sick, he never really thought about it.

To him, it felt like people trying to find comfort in a very uncomforting reality. Thoughts of never being able to see their family again after they die. Having to live out the rest of eternity in the void. He simulated a shudder… or thought about simulating a–

You know what it didn’t matter. The thought was creepy regardless of his apathy or fear.

It made sense to believe in a god or some other being that respected and loved us. But looking around at the space and stars, he doubted that he’d ever get to meet someone like that.

In half a second, a white flash appears in his peripheral vision. A heard a voice. butter-smooth, almost androgynous, it says, [I wouldn’t just knock out the possibility, you’ve only been dead for twenty years.] from behind his view of vision.

His soul turns around to see a giant white ball really close to his—well, would be face. Around the size of a medicine ball and just bright enough that he would’ve had to squint his eyes while looking at it.

It starts moving around him, leaving a white trail swinging around its body. After a while of moving around Rhodney’s consciousness, it took a pause and just mumbled to itself in a strange language Rhdoney couldn’t understand. Leaving him with one question,

"Where am I?" He asked the creature. It stopped, and paused in the air,

[Not a "Who are you" or a "take me home?"] the creature asked almost gleefully, as if Rhodney had told a joke.