I am so sorry I haven't updated this in so long! I was partipating in National Novel Writing Month, where I had to write a 50,000 word novel in 30 days. And I failed miserably. XD Anyway, I can write now. Sorry the chapter is so short- I was rushing. It's really bad, too.
DISCLAIMER: Don't own anything but Ben's friends. And the nurse and doctor. Everything else isn't mine. Yep.
"Hey guys!" Ben sat down at the end of the table and sat his tray down in front of him. "What's up?"
"Guess who got a B on the math test? Me!" Caleb bragged.
"Aw, sweet! High five!" Ben held up his hand, and his new friend slapped it.
"What'd you get?" Jacob asked. "I got a C."
"C minus," Ben lied. He really had gotten an A minus, thanks to that weird brain surge he got. It didn't work all the time, but he did have his moments now and again.
"Sweet," he nodded. They went around the table, each kid telling everyone else their score. These guys weren't the smartest guys in the school, and many of them failed. Ben's brain sparked a little, and he averaged the scores to about a D plus.
Thunder crackled outside the building. It had been raining cats and dogs all day now. His throat began to feel a little dry, so he popped open his water bottle (they were out of soda) and took a sip. He instantly felt better.
"Did you see the news yesterday?" Caleb asked me.
"No," Ben answered through a mouthful of pizza.
"You should have. It was intense! Someone got a great shot of XLR8 being hit by the car. That thing is so going to get YouTubed."
Ben blushed on the inside. Like he didn't have enough of his mistakes on YouTube already. "I'll Google it sometime," he replied, his throat drying out again. He drunk some more.
"Remember the one where Diamondhead fell off that blimp thing…"
It went on for a while like that, Caleb reminding him of all those viral videos that Gwen just wouldn't let him forget and Ben alternating between eating, drinking, and giving short replies or making a fake, halfhearted laugh. Mostly drinking though. His throat was drying quicker and quicker, and he had to drink more and more water each time to sooth it. In almost not time at all, he had worked his way through the whole pint.
"Excuse me for a moment," he stood up and power walked to the water fountain. He took a really long drink, filled his water bottle, and returned to his seat.
"You okay, Ben?" Caleb asked.
"Yeah, I'm fine, just a bit thirsty," he replied, taking a small sip from his water bottle.
"More like really thirsty," he retorted. "If I didn't know any better, I'd think you were some kind of fish."
He couldn't help but smile at that. In a way, he really was some kind of fish. Some kind of alien fish named Ripjaws.
"Alright, this is your five minute warning," one of the lunch ladies announced over the cafeteria microphone. "Everyone clear your tables and we'll dismiss you."
"You want to go to the movies tonight?" Jacob asked, picking up his lunch tray.
"Nah," Ben sighed. "I have to go watch my cousin at some karate tournament." That was the truth for once. He didn't see why he had to go watch Gwen kick people's butts- he'd seen it enough over the summer to make it not so special. Besides, he already knew what the outcome would be: she enters, she wins, she rubs it in his face for the rest of the month.
"That must suck," he replied sympathetically. "I have to go to my sister's gymnastics shows all the time. And let me tell you- total bore fest. At least you get to watch people kick butt."
See above explanation for why that didn't cheer him up at all.
They dumped their leftovers into the trashcan and sat back down to their seats to get dismissed (of course, Ben stopped both ways to get a drink). The rest of the lunch was uneventful- just waiting and talking and other random things fifth grade boys do. Ben was enjoying every minute of it. It wasn't every day he had friends to hang out with at lunch.
The table was dismissed, and he went back to his social studies classroom. He stopped twice on the way there to drink from the water fountain, and fell behind all of his friends. By the time he got there, the teacher was already giving a lecture about Christopher Columbus or something. He wasn't sure, but when he walked in, everyone was staring. He quickly apologized to the teacher and sat down at his usual spot.
"Anyway," the teacher continued, "In 1492, Columbus and his three ships, the Nina, the Pinta, and the Santa Maria, set off for the new world…"
The pain in Ben's throat drowned out the teacher's blabbering. It was burning like fire, dry and rough like sandpaper. Flaming sandpaper to be precise. He coughed once or twice before finally raising his hand.
"Can I go get a drink?" he croaked. Just saying that burned his dry mouth.
The teacher didn't even look at him. "No, Ben. Next time get it before class. So when he landed…"
Ben wanted to groan, but it would hurt way too much. He was getting dizzy. The teacher, who he was pretending to concentrate on, went in and out of focus repeatedly. He laid his head on his desk like most of the other students, eyes half closed. The only thing keeping him awake was the searing pain in his windpipe. Not because of boredom- he was exhausted for no reason at all.
That's when he realized that he wasn't breathing.
Alarmed, he took a deep breath. The action seemed overly voluntary, and when he did, he felt like he didn't get any oxygen at all. He breathed out, feeling the air rush over his parched tongue. He had air in him, all right. He breathed in again, but still no relief came.
He felt like he was drowning above water, unable to draw air from the substance around him no matter how hard he breathed. What was this? Had his lungs stopped working? He was too tired to think about that. He was too tired to think about anything for that matter. The world distorted around him, blurring and flashing and spinning, until it finally disappeared altogether.
"Ben?" the teacher asked, staring curiously at him. He was starring blankly at his desk, eyes unblinking. He couldn't hear him- he couldn't hear anyone. He was completely separated, choking on nothing, his energy draining. Even the pain had disappeared. He couldn't stay awake anymore, and passed out.
He fell right of his chair and onto the floor with a thud, chest unmoving. The class, for the second time that week, froze with terror. Even the teacher, who was the one who was supposed to do something about this, was paralyzed and useless. But one kid, one of Ben's friends, whipped his cell phone out of his pocket and dialed 911. If it hadn't been for the circumstances, the teacher would have confiscated that phone right then and there.
"My friend's in trouble! He's not breathing, and I think he's unconscious!" he shouted into the phone the second someone picked up. "Hurry!"
And that's when everyone panicked. The teacher called the nurse. The rest of the class was either frozen or shouting, but everyone was worried about Ben. This was the second time this week that there was a medical emergency here, and everyone knew that that was bad.
The nurse was the first to get there. She kneeled down next to him, confused as to what was happening. She tried CPR, but he just flopped around like a fish. He could feel anything- all of his senses had been cut off. He felt like he wasn't anywhere anymore. He felt like he was dead.
And maybe he was.
It felt like forever for everyone before the ambulance got there. The men, dressed in white coats, carefully lifted the limp body onto the gurney. They rolled him out of there, loading him onto the ambulance under the shaded parking area. Soon they were on the road, screaming down the highway to get him to the hospital in time.
"His heart is still beating," the nurse reported, pulling the stethoscope off of his chest. "It's amazing he's lasted this long. It's been almost five minutes since he's stopped breathing."
"Well, we can't let it go any longer than that," another doctor replied, concerned. "Do whatever you can to make his lungs start up again."
"Yes, sir," she took out a football shaped balloon with a mask attached to the end. She placed the mask over Ben's face and secured it, then began pumping the balloon. Air rushed down his windpipe and into his lungs. Only a tiny reaction.
"Keep doing that until we can get him proper care at the hospital," the doctor ordered. "It'll hopefully keep him alive until we get there."
The nurse nodded and kept pumping, barely giving him enough oxygen to keep his heart beating.
Whenever the nurse pumped a blast of air into his throat, Ben felt a sudden burst of energy, turning on his senses for only a millisecond before blacking out again. Although he wasn't aware at the time, each time he went back into the darkness, he felt less and less like himself.
But more and more like Ripsaws.
He could feel the huge teeth and webbed claws. An anglerfish's light dangled from his forehead. He was standing in the void, gasping for water.
Water. He needed water.
The next time the nurse pumped, he used that speck of condenses as well as he could. All he was able to do, though, is gasp: "Wa-" Then he blacked out again.
"Did you hear that?" the nurse shouted in disbelief.
"Hear what?" the doctor asked, standing up.
"Oh, no. It was nothing," she assured. He sat down again, puzzled and anxious. She pumped more air, but this time he stayed silent.
"We're here!" the driver called after another minute of driving. The downpour had slowed their travel a lot. "About time."
The nurse gave him one last pump and grabbed the gurney, ready to push. The doctor did the same.
"Do you think the rain will be a problem?" he asked. "It might just make his condition worse."
"There's no time for that!" she shouted, stressed. The last thing she needed on her résumé was bringing in a dead on arrival because they were worried about a little rain. "We need to get him inside, now!" Without another word, she pushed open the door and ran out into the rain, dragging Ben and the doctor behind her.
Pellets of rainwater splashed against their faces, soaking them in a second. They tried their best to keep the rain from getting to the patient so he wouldn't get hypothermia or something, but the weak attempt failed miserably. But that wasn't really a bad thing.
Ben was completely unaware of what was happening. All he knew was that he was slowly but surely dying, unable to get any oxygen. He didn't even realize that he had been dying for the past fifteen minutes. He didn't know he was in an ambulance, or that there were two people with him. He was just lying there, oblivious to the world, his heart about to come to a complete halt-
Plop!
Something landed on his neck, and his heart beat twice at a normal pace before slowing down again.
P-plop!
Two more things fell on him, one on his cheek and one on his lip, and his heart beat even more. Before he could even register the energy, he was bombarded with these things, whatever they were.
His heart sped up drastically, as if it was trying to make up for lost time. His senses began to slowly reboot. The first thing he noticed was that he was wet- sopping wet. He finally had his water, and it felt amazing.
He opened his eye a slit, taking in his blurry surroundings. He was outside, alright, and it was still pouring. His eyes rolled to the left, and he saw a big white building with blue glass windows. He knew this place from when his mom got her leg surgery when he was seven- the Bellwood Hospital. He must have passed out in class or something, and now they were taking him to the emergency room. Well it was about time he got better.
He opened his eyes wide, like he had just woken up from a trance. Then, with much effort, he sucked in as much air as his broken lungs could hold, held it for a second, and let all of the air (which he didn't get a bit of use out of) in a loud puff. The doctors stopped and looked down at him.
He glanced up, trying to look clueless. "Um, where am I and why am I in a gurney?"
"Can I have some water?" Ben asked. Even though he said he was fine, the hospital people wouldn't let him go anywhere. He knew that it was for his own good, but it was still annoying. He needed to talk to someone who knew what might be going on with him, like Grandpa. Or Gwen, either one would work.
"Sure," the nurse smiled warmly, walking out the door. Since he was alone again, he decided to stop breathing again. It wasn't helping at all, and it was becoming a chore. He let his chest halt and waited, still soaking in the water on his soaked clothes. Thank goodness they hadn't tried to change him out of it by then.
The nurse came back in a minute later with a cup of cold water in her hand. He decided to save it for when he dried off, and put it on the side table after taking only a sip. She turned around to leave, but then Ben remembered something.
"Wait," he stopped her. She turned around. "Do you know if there's anyone in this hospital named Cash, possibly with a foot injury?"
"Oh, yes, he's upstairs on the fourth floor," she replied.
"Well, if you see him, could you give him a message?" he asked.
"Of course. Do you want to write it down?"
"Sure."
She handed him a napkin and her pen. He scribbled down a note, folded it up and handed it to her.
She put the napkin in her pocket. "Okay, I'll give him the message." She paused. "Oh, and there's someone here to pick you up. They insisted that you needed to come home right away."
"Who?" he asked, expecting his parents.
"She's right over here," she gestured to the door. And, lo and behold, Gwen was there, leaning against the doorway with the usual smirk on her face.
"Ben," she said, "We need to talk."
The next chapter will be better, hopefully. I hope you enjoyed Ripjaws.
NEXT TIME: Fourarms