Kaleb

Kaleb Victors was used to a life without much hope. He never knew his father, and his mother only did the bare minimum to keep him alive. She was usually off getting her next fix, a fix that left him born naturally sickly and from the beginning infected with terminal illness. As soon as he was old enough to think, he knew he didn't have much time. So why bother? He meandered through life, head clouded, constantly distracted. He never did very well at school, and his teachers never expected much from him. That was okay. He didn't expect much from them either. He was never really a troublemaker, he just never had the energy for it. There was no point trying to succeed, especially not after the disease finally progressed. He dropped out of school, and finally succumbed to his illness, his body too weakened to fight back, fading away quietly in his bed one night.

Then he was shocked back to life.

He was still thin, body sunken in from his wasting, but as he returned to life he'd never felt so much energy. He stood up, and without thinking he went through his window and walked. Breathing came easier than it ever had. There was finally strength in his limbs, and his head was clear as crystal. He got far enough from his home, away from that shitty crime-torn neighborhood, and tucked away in an alley he started laughing. He had no idea what had happened, but he knew that the illness, the weakness, all of it was gone, purged from his veins.

It took him a while to be aware enough of his surroundings to notice the figure that was looking him in the eyes.

It looked him in the eyes, human but definitely not. Its skin was deathly pale and streaked with tar-black veins, sunken as his was but much worse. In place of eye sockets were the silver, concave bowls of spoons, with some brown, horrible mass bubbling inside that dripped down its skeletal face like grotesque tears as it melted. Its mouth was turned up in a grin, and its hair was matted, tangled with needles and shredded transparent rubber. From its waist, stainless steel scales emerged, turned outwards in reverse of its eyes. Instead of legs was a long tail, ending in a tail fin of stretched gauze. It wrapped and swam around him, long-nailed hands stroking at his face.

His first instinct was to be frightened, but even that much emotion surprised him. It was the first time he could remember feeling a sense of self-preservation. But as he settled down, he realized; it was because of this horrible thing that he was alive and here. It recognized this, and smiled, its grin almost splitting its face in half. It started to sing, voice splitting into dissonant notes that still seemed to form some meaning in his mind.

"Live."