A violent thunderstorm raged, and soon, dark clouds engulfed the night sky. I didn't mind, though, as I picked up fast-paced down the old-fashioned streets of Ramona Avenue, Los Angeles, California, the quiet neighborhood I had lived in most of my life. I didn't seem to mind the rain either. I was more concerned with getting away from the high school thugs following me on stolen bikes. 

   I briefly glanced at the sky, but I pushed on. Thunderclaps nearby startled me. Lightning pounded the floor a few blocks away, and I picked up speed. The rusted chain broke apart on the bike tires. I pushed the emergency brakes forcefully and screeched to a halt.

"Mierda," I cursed. My bike screamed to a standstill down a back alleyway.

   I crashed my bike on the ground and sprinted down a side street. A thunderous explosion jolted again from the neighborhood. The young gangsters close the distance between them. I entered a back alley and hit a dead end.

"Shit!" I cursed again.

   Samuel and Leonardo Hale, identical twins, and Gregory Daxon, the three delinquents, glided around the corner on their bikes and came to a screeching halt. Gregory, the lead thug, takes a step forward. I was shit out of luck, cornered like a chihuahua against a pack of pit bulls. Karma was not on my side.

"Where are you going, puta?" Gregory growled, spitting at the concrete ground. Thunder rumbles in the near distance. I stood up and matched Gregory's confidence.

"I don't have your money, and neither does Mateo," I said. Gregory and the other two hoodlums abandoned their bikes and approached me.

"You either have our money, or we kill you, puta." A bright lightning bolt slammed into my chest as thunder clapped overhead. My screams reverberated through the thick fog, and my eyes fluttered before slumping to the floor.

"Let's go," Lennox yelled.

   Gregory and the thugs fled in terror, riding away on their bikes, leaving me with scorched clothing and a motionless body on the ground.

   A crowd of pedestrians dispatched EMTs to the location. In the gray background, a news correspondent reports on the site.

   My eyes flared from brown to ocean blue to brown and closed softly as the streetlights flickered. While the pounding of a slowing heartbeat faded in and out before silence, rain fell on the rough pavement. Paramedics gave me CPR chest compressions. My eyelids fluttered open and shut as I gasped for air. In the background, a massive crowd formed.

   EMTs swiftly lifted me onto a gurney, loaded me into an ambulance, rushed me into the vehicle, and drove down the street with the siren blaring.

   I studied the van and paramedics when I woke up. While one drove, at least two others sat in the rear with me.

   Mason, a paramedic, threw a bright light on me. My pupils dilated, fading to a pale blue that was scarcely visible, and I moved away from the light sensitivity.

   Wilson, the other paramedic, softly slapped his fists against my arm, searching for a vein to start an IV. He was having a hard time.

"Can you tell me your name, bud?" Wilson asked me. Confusion hit me quickly, and I glimpsed my pale skin in the ambulance reflection.

"Alexander?" I replied.

   My gaze fell on the needle piercing my thick skin and entered a functioning vein as I looked around. Wilson moves quickly to keep the IV in place. My eyes fluttered once more before I blacked out, and my eyes turned brown again as they flickered open, landing on my reflection.

"I'm going to take a set of vitals. Can you keep him still?" Mason asked. Wilson relinquished the blood pressure monitor.

"I'm going to check his blood sugar." Wilson looked at me. "Are you here with us, Alexander?"

   My eyes drifted to Wilson, and I blinked fast, matching my rapid heartbeat. "Any history of diabetes? "Anything we need to know?" he asked. I sighed and shook my head slowly. Mason slipped a blood pressure cuff over my arm and turned on the machine as Wilson tested my blood sugar.

   I slowly shook my head. While Wilson checked my blood sugar, Mason wrapped a blood pressure cuff around my arm and turned on the machine.

"Qué estás haciendo?" I flinched when the needle poked my index finger, and Wilson slipped his hand in mine for a moment, soothing my tense nerves.

"It's okay, bud," he said.

"Do you remember what happened?" Mason added.

   In the blink of an eye, everything flashed back to me. Gregory was chasing me on bikes. The thunder was clapping above. Then, the lightning struck my chest. A sharp breath escaped before my vision flickered, and everything faded.

∆∆∆

   My eyes fluttered open, fading from brown to ocean blue, in a hospital bed as I shifted away from the metal tray and looked around the small room divided by a simple curtain. Machines monitor my heart. I observed two shadows outside my room, talking with a nurse off to the side.

"... A sixteen-year-old, Hispanic male with vital signs stable now, was seizing on arrival and in rest. Resus performed, now breathing, conscious, first/second degree burns on his chest, possible lightning strike to the chest, possible Lichtenberg figures on chest, hard to see though...." Mason blathered on. Then I cleared my dry throat, dazed in confusion.

"Where... am I?" I asked. A husky nurse and Mason pushed through the curtain.

"Can you tell me your name?" The nurse said.

"Alllll—exander Lopez?" I slowly pronounced. I wasn't in quite the best shape, considering I had just survived a lightning strike to the chest. My words almost felt foreign, and I slid my knees into my chest from under the covers.

"Good. Do you know the date?" I shook my head no, still baffled.

"Have the Doctor check his eyes. They were brown when we picked him up," Mason added, clicking his pen and stuffing it into his pocket. Mason patted the nurse on the shoulder and wandered off. The nurse walkes forward, studying my eyes and the black spider web veins down my back and chest with a flashlight.

"Any pain or discomfort? Nausea or vomiting?" The nurse asked me.

   Duh.

"My chest is a little tight," I admitted, readjusting my posture on the bed. The nurse pulled up the bed's sides and brought a button connected to a long wire from behind, placing it on the bed with me.

"If you need me, push that button, kid." The nurse took one more evaluation of my eyes and wandered away, leaving me with a curdling pain in my gut.

∆∆∆

"Hungry?" The doctor swung open the curtain, watching me scarf down a sack lunch. I nodded silently. "Your family is here if you would like to see them?" I nodded again, and the doctor walked out. A few seconds later, my panicked mother, father, younger brother, and sister gathered in the room.

"Ay, Dios mios, Alexander?" Melissa said. And there went my family with the dramatic, and woe is Alex crap again.

"Sup, Mel? I'm okay if you want to know," I smiled at my sister. Melissa hugged me tight as I breathed deeply, feeling soreness around my chest.

"Hey, Alex." Emanuel smiled awkwardly in the background. My cautious grin widened.

"Hey, bro. What's up?" Emanuel wrapped his broad arms around my sore chest, and I sucked a sharp breath through my teeth in pain. Then he let go of me, his eyes trained on mine.

"Your eyes? Are they, uh, blue?" This time, my curious eyes widened as I looked at my reflection in one of the metal trays nearby. They were an odd ocean blue, reminding me of when my father took us to the beach not too far from home.

"Qué?"

"It doesn't matter." He shook his head. Emanuel squeezed me tight again. Melissa joined in.

"Te sientes mejor, mi amor?" My mother cried. My mother massaged non-slip socks while my father stood there for moral support.

"I'm feeling better. A little sore, but overall feeling like myself."

   Then, my mother patted my ankles as Dr. Harrison walked through the curtains and smiled. "Are you feeling okay going home, kid?" He asked. I nodded in silence.

"Great! Let me grab some paperwork for you, and be okay to leave." The doctor left, and I sighed, relieved I hadn't been stuck in a musty hospital room.

"Aww, mi cachorro." My mother cried again. Since I was a baby, my mother referred to me as her little pup. I guess it grew on me.

   My dad frowned, eyeing Dr. Harrison as he returned with the discharge papers and handed them to my mother.

"These are his discharge papers. He is free to go but SHOULD immediately rush to the emergency room if any symptoms arise." The doctor said.

   I shifted in bed, watching the doctor walk out, and the curtains closed further. "Mi amor, es hora de irse, Alexander," my father ordered. Yep, and that was my father, ladies and gentlemen. I yanked my sore body from the bed, and my family walked out while I pulled off my gown, rushing to put on a pair of boxers, sweatpants, and a white tee.