These are the types of thoughts flooding Airen Santos' brain as he is lying on his soon to be deathbed. The light flooding through his hospital window and shining right in his face like a flash grenade quickly dispells these thoughts and replaces them with thoughts of wanting to kill himself.
He turns to the side where his face is not being blasted by sunlight and pulls out his busted old phone. The screen is already pulled up to his favorite novel, "Tales of Ravengarde".
He has an unhealthy obsession with this novel. Airen would never admit this, but his greatest wish in the whole world would be to live as the main character of "Tales of Ravengarde".
"I want to be him" He mutters without realizing it. The old man in the hospital bed beside him slowly turns to him and asks, "Want to be like who, son?"
"No one, Gramps, go back to sleep." He says dismissively to the old codger.
The old man lets out a wheezing chuckle and turns back to the other side.
Airen could never afford a nice hospital because he was broke, so he had to make do with a cruddy, rundown public hospital. It was easy for him to ignore everything around him when he delved into his novel.
His mind wandered over to the touchy subject of exactly why he was in this hospital in the first place.
Right now, Airen is 15 but back when he was 13, he made a grave mistake. Desperate for money to survive, he sold his body to scientists.
After many grueling months, his body was too weak to handle any more medicinal tests and he was admitted to a public hospital with severe brain damage and emotional trauma.
"Aw hey look, another chapter!" Airen thinks to himself in pure joy. Just as he is going to click on the button to start reading --
"Guh... Aah!" He falls out of his bed and curls into a fetal position, clenching his chest. His body erupts in pain and his head especially screams for help.
A nurse rushes into the room but before she can reach him, his internal light flickers out.
.
.
.
"AIREN SANTOS" A voice booms.
"DO YOU WISH TO LIVE?"
.
.
"Yes! Yes! I must live!"