Angelo Hernandez has been given a second chance at life. His eyes are wide open and his body is moving.
The slight pain he felt when he cracked his head is gone, he's wide awake and it doesn't feel like he died it feels like he slept and woke up, but this time it's different. He feels different. The world feels weird his surroundings feel strange.
But he's alive. He's awake but he's not awake on his small-sized bed. He's not in his room filled with Michael Jackson posters, he's not in Boyle Heights.
From what he has gathered this place looks like a lab and as soon as he removes the large cloth from his body his eyes widen in shock when he sees that he's naked.
He screams.
"What the hell?" he looks around trying to remember how he got here in the first place. Then he remembers, he remembers the shouting, the screaming and his father calling him a demon.
He remembers crying and leaving the house. He remembers the suicide bridge and he remembers feeling useless and he remembers the thought of jumping off the bridge.
He registers that he's supposed to be dead, but he isn't. He wonders how this is possible and how he's alive because a lot of people have died after jumping off that bridge and it's called the suicide bridge for a reason. He shouldn't be alive, but he is.
He scoffs, disappointed at the outcome.
"Why won't you let me go?" he asks looking up as if talking to a divine being. He was raised Catholic so yes he is talking to a divine being, the creator, God.
He's wondering why God didn't just let him die and why he's alive when all he wants is to leave this world. But since he's here he might as well get up from the metal he's on. But first, he has to find some clothes.
He looks at his body and he notices that something has changed. He's in awe that he suddenly has abs and his once skinny hands have become a little bit muscular.
"What the fuck?" he whispers in confusion, but at the same time he's impressed. First, he throws himself off a bridge and now he's in this place naked and he looks hot. He's wondering if he was experimented on.
Angelo has always been good-looking. He has natural tanned skin, wide lips, black curly hair, hazel green eyes, a round face and a tiny mole on his left cheek.
His Abuela usually used to joke that he'd be perfect in a Mexican telenovela. Angelo knows that he's handsome but he doesn't want to be known for his beauty but his musical talent. Leave an impact just like Michael Jackson has done.
Angelo looks around and finds out where he is, he's at a morgue a place where dead bodies are kept. He knows this because he's seen this kind of setting in movies, especially in action movies. He doesn't understand, did he die or did he become unconscious?
And from the looks of things, if he's in a morgue then he did die. He was dead and now he's back to life. The morgue isn't a place where they send unconscious people. That's what the hospital bed is for.
"Oh dang!" He says in shock standing nude and looking around the place. He spots something familiar, clothes his clothes folded on top of a table. He quickly walks toward the table and grabs his clothes. He begins to put them on.
A white shirt, dark green cargo pants and a jean jacket. He looks around for his shoes but they're nowhere to be found.
"Oh man, I liked those sneakers," he says annoyed but he knows he shouldn't be looking for shoes at all he shouldn't even be standing. But he is and he doesn't know how that's possible, but it is.
If his mom were here she'd call it a miracle from God but since his mom thinks he's a demon he's not sure she's going to be calling this whole situation a miracle but it will further confirm her doubts about him being a spawn of Satan.
His heart drops when he remembers his mom.
The reason why he killed himself was because he didn't have anywhere else to go, he could go stay with one of his friends or classmates but he'd be a burden and he didn't want to be with anyone else other than his family. That was why he jumped off that bridge because he lost everything.
But that didn't work, he thought jumping off that bridge would kill him but it didn't.
"OH MY GOD!" He jumps when he hears someone shout. He turns around to see a white woman with curly brown hair, eyeglasses covering her blue eyes and she has on a lab coat. She looks too flabbergasted to say anything else and she's shaking badly.
Angelo squints his eyes wondering why she's acting like she's seeing a ghost. Or maybe he is a ghost. Angelo has an idea as to why she's so frightened. He died and came back to life and she probably saw him die.
"Uhm, this is awkward, hi I'm Angelo," Angelo says with a smile on his face. "And you are?"
"I- You were dead, you were out cold." She laughs hysterically and Angelo joins her. She moves closer to him and moves his head to the side. She shakes her head even more shocked than she was before.
"This can't be. Your head… it was cracked. No one would have survived that falling it's called the suicide bridge for a reason."
Angelo snaps his finger. "That's what I was thinking. I'm a bit angry that I'm alive right now." He says cheerfully. The doctor tilts her head. She has forgotten that she's talking to a suicide survivor.
"Why did you jump?" She asks in a hushed whisper.
"Well, my-" he stops because he remembers why he did it and if he tells her that his parents kicked him out of the house he's going to tell her why. But she's too stunned to know why he jumped off that bridge because she's observing his very being.
"How the hell is this even possible? You're…you're a miracle," she says and that's what his mom used to say because before she had him she'd been trying to have a baby for years but couldn't and when she finally had that baby she's been calling him a miracle baby.
It's hilarious to him that she went from miracle baby to demon child.
It is a miracle that he's alive.
"This is going to be good for me." The woman says maniacally. And Angelo's smile fades away.
"What?"
"I uh- Angelo, please wait here. I'll be right back just don't go anywhere." She begins to walk backwards, her eyes not leaving Angelo as she leaves the room.
Angelo thinks she's a strange woman but of course, he's always said the strangest people are the best kind of people and besides, she does seem nice. Maybe she left to get him some food.
He's weirdly not hungry but he does crave a hamburger. He sits to wait for her humming to Madonna's Vogue and drumming his leg with his fingers. He wishes he was with his Sony Walkman Cassette right now, he needs music.
This is the strangest thing to ever happen to him. Did God give him a second chance? Shouldn't God be punishing him for being gay like his dad said he would?
His dad, the words he said to him stings a bit and now Angelo is hit with hurt and sadness. He saw the look his parents gave him. It's like he wasn't even their son.
It was like they were looking at an actual demon and they were ready to cast him back to hell.
Angelo loves to think of the good times, he's learned to repress the bad memories like the time he was bullied by a guy named Billy Watson in the sixth grade.
Not only was Billy a bully but he was a racist and he hated Mexicans for some reason. Angelo's parents have warned him about racist people. He's seen the looks some white cops give him when they walk past him.
Which is a shame because he thinks cops are hot.
Angelo has a talent for repressing sad memories but this recent memory is going to be hard to repress because these are his parents. And they treated him like he was a terrorist or worse a racist who hates Mexicans. But he can't hate himself, and he also can't hate his family even though his parents spat those things on his face.
His thoughts are finally interrupted when the strange woman in the lab coat comes back but this time with someone else who's also wearing a lab coat.
He's a man in his late forties and Angelo doesn't understand what has just happened but he feels a sudden sense of fear and insecurity. Like something bad is going to happen.
"Impossible, he died. That hit to the head can knock someone out cold." the man says in a croaked voice.
The strange woman is smiling excitedly. "The most shocking part is that his head is healed."
"How is that possible?"
"Go see for yourself."
Angelo notices the two of them looking at each other like they're communicating through their mind and the way they're smiling and looking at each other Angelo can sense they're about to do something bad. So he stands from the table moving backward as the man walks toward him.
"Don't be scared boy, I just want to observe you." The man puts on a smile that tries to look convincing but it is not convincing him that he has good intentions.
"Uh, do you have to see anything? Maybe take your partner's word for it?"
"I'd like to see for myself." His voice sounds scary and Angelo can see his hands reaching his pockets he's bringing out a syringe and Angelo hates needles so out of panic he moves backward hitting the wall and then he finds himself in another room. A room filled with cleaning supplies.
He's on the floor confused as to how he got here, he's sure there was no door. He looks up at the wall and sees that there is no door whatsoever so how did he get here?
He stands up and he can hear them talking amongst themselves.
"Where did he go?" The woman asks.
"He went through that wall." Replied the man.
"How?"
"There's something extraordinary about that boy." Angelo's ears are on the wall listening, but then he doesn't hear their voices anymore. They've gone quiet. Maybe they've left the room.
Angelo has to leave this place immediately because he doesn't know what those doctors want to do to him but he knows it is something bad.
He notices the door out of the closet and walks toward it opening it. He screams when he sees the Doctors standing by the door. The male doctor is smiling like a crazy person but the female doctor looks concerned like she doesn't want the male one to hurt him. It is the male one he fears the most.
He's moving backwards away from him.
"Stay away from me," he says with his hand in the air. "I didn't do anything I don't want any trouble."
"How did you do that?" the male Doctor asks, gesturing to the wall.
"Have you been able to do that since you were a child?"
"I don't know and no," he says still moving backwards and he knows there'll be a point where his back will be resting against the wall because this is a dead end.
"Don't lie!" The male Doctor says angrily.
"What? I'm not lying. I just want to leave por favor."
"We can't let you leave unless you answer our questions." Says the male Doctor gripping the syringe hard.
"What are you?"
Angelo stops moving and he's angry now.
"What am I? Oh okay, I get it now this is racism you don't like Mexicans I'm presuming so now you think I'm not hum-" Angelo stops talking when the male doctor screams charging toward him with that syringe. Angelo screams as well.
He's still screaming even when he's found himself in an alleyway. He looks around him to see that he's not in that supply closet with those doctors anymore. His bare feet are on the cold hard ground.
Yes, his eyes are not deceiving him he's now outside. But he doesn't know how he got outside because he doesn't remember running down the stairs. If there were even stairs back there.
Next thing he knows someone is gripping his jacket and asking him for money with a gun pointed at him. Angelo struggles to leave this man's grip then he pushes him until the hooded man goes flying in the air hitting the car that further away from him destroying it. It makes loud noises.
Angelo watches gritting his teeth. Did he do that? How did he do that? How did he go through that wall and how did he get here?
He looks at his hands in shock, he doesn't understand what's going on.
"What the fuck is going on with me?" he asks himself, he looks at the man trying to get up from the ground but failing, it looks like he's broken his back. Angelo makes a run for it.