Dragon's Blood.

The white adolescent stood there staring at what he had done. Spray paint can in hand, he put the finishing touches on his 'art'. He finished his tagging and then moved on to the next fence. Soon he was in the neighborhood where he lived, he planned to leave it alone, why mess up his neighborhood, all he wanted to do was make the other gang mad and upset.

I guess you could say that Jack was a normal teenager, thinking he was smart but not really, he joined his gang because he thought that the 'chicks' as he so put it, 'would be all up on him', also something he liked to say. Ironically, they seemed to try and avoid him.

It wasn't because he was ugly, no, far from it, people called him handsome, sometimes, and some girls at his school that liked 'bad boys' called him 'down right sexy'. Nevertheless, the girls at, Jordan high school, tried to keep their distance from him and his gang.

He joined the gang not more than six weeks ago and he thought making progress, he walked around his territory ever night and covered up any and all markings of the other gangs with his own gang graffiti. But this night seemed different, the paint still smelled of that drug-like smell, and when he ran his fingers over it the paint was still fresh. Being of no brains and of much ignorance and naïveté, he didn't think much of it until he got to his home.

His home, used to be a two-story house with shady trees in front of it, the door, normally, had a little bird on it that said 'welcome'. The rest of the house was all windows; several large, colorful, windows that all had some or other mention of God glued on them. Now his house was smoldering ash, burned to the ground, nothing left, nothing but cinders, soot, and a rival gang.

Jack didn't remember seeing the rival gang come up to him with chains and knifes out and pointed at him. He didn't feel anything when they beat him to the ground and used the chains as whips and hit him until huge welts popped all over his body, neither does he remember the knifes being stabbed into his stomach, over and over and over again. All he remembers is staring at the cinders of his once whole home and thinking, 'What the hell have I done?'

Jack woke up to the smell of drugs and medicine. He tried to open his eyes but he couldn't, they seemed glued shut. All around him he heard people clinking and clanking different objects around his head, arms, and chest. He even heard talking.

"—How did he survive this? He should be dead, but he isn't, and the bodies of the adolescences around him, they are all charred, but not a single burn on him. And he can't see now, I can't imagine why but he is blind," said a deep voice.

"Doctor, we're losing him!" yelled a smooth voice.

"What the hell happened, he was fine a minute ago, how is he fading?" yelled back the deep voice.

"I don't know, sir, but we're losing vitals," said another voice, deeper than the second, but higher than that of the first.

Jack wanted to cry out, no I'm okay, but his body just wouldn't listen. He listened to the agonizing sound of hearing himself die. It was as if his body was shutting down. He could feel sections of his body becoming numb, not knowing it was because the heart was no longer pumping blood.

"Sir! he's… he's…" The second voice mumbled the last part but Jack couldn't fathom what it was.

"No need to say it, I can hear the machines, turn them off. He's dead,"

Dead! How could I be dead? He wondered, I can still hear them, they did something to me, those bastards, fix me, I'm alive, damn it!

"They can not hear you, Jack," answered a soft buttery voice.

Jack wondered who the hell was that, and almost as if to answer his question out from the darkness that was his vision, came a golden light.

"You have died," said the light

"No duh, the stupid doctors said so. Wait… If I'm dead then how am I here?" asked Jack

"You have been chosen to—"

"Bull! None of that 'you have been chosen to lead a new life to save humanity', blah, blah, blah! That is for books and fairy tales! I AIN'T going to be part of some, fairy twittering world of wonderment!"

"This is different, you have been chosen to redeem yourself. For the horrible mutilation of that of your parents."

"But I didn't kill them, the rival gang—"

"Yes," interrupted the still glowing light, "But if you hadn't joined your gang the other gang would not have attacked you."

Jack thought about this information slowly, and then it dawned on him that he technically was the cause of his parents' death, "Oh."

"DO you wish to redeem yourself?" questioned the light.

"And if I refuse?" asked the teenager.

"You'll spend the rest of your eternal life rotting in hell," simply stated the glowing object.

"Fine, I'll do it. Take me to fairy princess land."

"Oh you'll find it to be a little more thrilling than that of 'fairy princess land' as you so put it."

And with circular motion the light became a glowing orb. And slowly, Jack began to feel himself being sucked towards the glowing orb of light.