• Delta Plus
    Chapter 2: Daniel’s Burning Spirit
    Disclaimer: All places, ideas, and characters, are works of my imagination. DO NOT USE THEM WITHOUT MY PERMISSION!!

    I awoke the next morning to something touching my chest. I rubbed my eyes and found Ayumi asleep in my bed. “What the hell!” I yelled as I jumped out of bed. I heard her groan and look over at me. “Ah, good morning.” She said with a smile. “Good morning my a**! What the hell are you doing in my bed?” I yelled, I could feel my face getting red. “After what happened last night, I was too scared to fall asleep. So I came here.” She said as she hid her face under my blankets. I let out a deep sigh, when I suddenly realized something, “How did you get in? I locked all the doors and windows last night.” I asked her as I walked over and pointed at my window. She was about to answer when I felt a breeze coming from my window. I immediately pieced everything together. My face turned a deep shade of red. “AYUMI!!!” I yelled at the top of my lungs.

    After everything calmed down, we got on the bus to go to school. It was an uneventful ride as always. When we got to school, we went our separate ways. I was headed to lunch when we met up again. “You know, my math teacher is a real jerk.” Ayumi said as we sat down at our lunch table. “Don’t worry about it, just focus on your work and everything will be fine.” I said as I took a bite out of a slice of pizza. “It’s kind of hard when people keep taking your work.” She said as she let out a deep sigh. “Did you talk to your teacher about it?” I asked as I took a sip of lemonade. “Yeah, but all he said was that until I had evidence, he was going to mark down zeros for my missing assignments.” She said, hanging her head. “What an a*****e. I’d love to punch him a couple times.” I said as I crushed the empty lemonade bottle I was holding. At that point the bell rang to go back to class.

    I was walking back to class when someone grabbed my shoulder and slammed my back into a locker. “I heard you got into a fight last night to protect the transfer student.” He said. “John, what the hell do you want?” I said with a clear look of disgust on my face. “Hey, don’t speak to me like that. Weaklings like you should know their place.” He said as he slammed his hand into the locker right next to my head. I remained quiet. “When you have become stronger than me, then you can say what you want. Until then, keep your mouth shut, got it.” He said laughing. “I’ll do it.” I said quietly. “What was that?” he asked, clearly irritated. “I said I’ll do it. I’ll become stronger than you. Not just so I won’t have to take crap from you, but so I can protect my friends as well.” I said as I stared straight into his eyes. He started laughing. “You’re living in a dream!” He yelled as he grabbed me by the throat and slammed me into the lockers again. It was at this point that people stopped and stared. “You’re weak, you’re always going to be weak, and people like me are going to step on you for the rest of your worthless life!” He yelled as he tightened his grip on my throat. I grabbed at his wrists to try and break free, but it was no use. A few seconds later, I fell to the floor, unconscious.

    I got home later than usual because of the incident with John. His words ran through my head almost non-stop. I needed to take my anger out on something, so I dug around in my closet for a punching bag. I managed to find one and hung it up, and for almost six hours straight, I hammered away at the punching bag. ‘Stronger, I need to be much stronger. At my current level, I won’t be able to protect Ayumi for long. Maybe I should teach myself boxing.’ I thought as I wiped the sweat off my forehead. “Ayumi.” I whispered to myself.