Atomic Mage by Garrett Carter (short books for teens txt) 📕

of the car squealing in protest as they fought for grip on the wet road.

It didn't work out though, Cade's eyes squeezed closed and his hands gripped the steering wheel instinctively as the front driver's side of his car slammed into the rear end of the trailer.

The sound of the airbags going off was silent compared to the screeching of metal and the smell of smoke.

The car careened off the trailer and was sent tumbling into the void off the side of the mountain taking Cade along for the ride.

A little pain

Cade woke up with a moan, suddenly in the most pain, he had ever felt. Screaming he writhed weakly on the ground, his whole body felt like it was on fire.

The pain suddenly began to fade, as a droning sound began in the back of his head overtaking the sounds of birds he had never heard before.

Cade's whole body relaxed as the excruciating pain left him, numbness replacing the firey pain.

Trying to lift his head off the ground to take a look at himself he was surprised at how weak he felt.

His skull felt like it had gained 100 pounds as it fell back to the ground from the minuscule distance he had lifted it with a light thud.

He struggled again to lift his head and failed to lift it.

On the third try with a gargantuan effort, Cade succeeded in holding the position for a few seconds.

With the little time he had until his exhaustion forced him to lay his heavy burden back down Cade examined his numb body.

He saw that his right leg was broken jutting off to the right at a sickening angle and his left foot was twisted backward.

His guts felt odd and watery, loose in a way that sickened him on a primal level.

Attempting to move either of his arms resulted in a disjointed movement midway down his upper arms, which elicited a groan as some of the pain broke through his numbness.

After his heavy head fell back to the loamy ground in weariness, Cade thought over his current predicament.

"Well shit this sucks" was all he could think through the mind-numbing pain that was again starting to radiate through his body.

He was amazed to still be conscious even though he looked and felt like a 2-year-old's action figure, not to mention the numerous cuts, bruises, a pond of blood, and the all-encompassing droning sound in the back of his skull.

Taking stock of the countless injuries he had glimpsed he slowly thought on the most serious.

"Probably some internal bleeding on top of all the other shit." Cade thought to himself.

That train of thought chilled him, without quick medical care he was as good as dead.

Cade slowly attempted to move his bruised and broken body to set a mental picture of how bad the damage was.

Sharp pains followed the movements, but he was surprised by the image he saw in his mind's eye of his body lying flat on his back.

The areas where he felt pain were clearly damaged, internal bleeding evident by the severed veins and arteries pumping his lifeblood into his body cavity.

"Fuck" he said softly, despair choking him.

Cade's outlook was grim, so much blood loss would kill him soon.

The idea of trying to fix it himself was laughable, he was no surgeon.

He was surprised a moment later when the injuries he had viewed were slowly stitching themselves together in his mind's eye.

The broken blood vessels that he was just fretting over reconnecting, the bruised and ruptured organs knitting becoming whole, and broken bones snapping together.

Flabbergasted by what he was seeing, Cade took it as his last wishes playing out in his blood starved brain before his body failed and he passed into the great unknown.

Opening his eyes Cade began to come to terms with his last moments before he was startled by the sound of small rocks shifting next to his shattered arm.

Apprehension gripped him as he slowly turned his head to see what forest animal was about to feast on his remains.

Cade was surprised to see no critters waiting on him to pass but his arm shifting the rocky soil it sat on as it straightened out on its own with a few pops.

He was dumbstruck by the apparent lack of damage to his arm, though still peppered with cuts and the beginnings of a few dozen bruises it was no longer broken.

"What the actual fuck." Cade said in disbelief at the sight before him.

Slowly attempting to sit up, he realized his mistake too late, as his still mostly broken and bruised body rebelled against the action.

Cade fell back with a wet grunt and rolled to his side, heaving a blood donation that would have done the red cross proud.

After entirely too long for his liking the heaving ended.

Gingerly lifting himself off the ground into a seated position to prevent another blood tsunami, Cade groused to himself "Well that was bad" into the humid night air, as he wiped his forearm across his mouth to remove the last of the sick and blood from it.

The realization hit him a second later as his eyes widened.

Cade looked again at the arm that, all though was still covered in blood, was clear of the cuts and bruises that he had just seen before he had upchucked.

"What the hell," he said softly. Looking down himself, all the cuts and bruises he had seen in his quick survey just minutes before were healed.

All the damage Cade had seen