Chapter 1

                It’s once again time for that kind of story. Everything expected is inside: fantasy powers, good vs. evil, and a likeable cast of characters. It’s the story that has been frequently told, except that it’s never been told. What can be said, if the idea is something enjoyable by many, why not chronicle it to the world?

Matthew Flash was just the everyday average person. He sported average length brown hair, with bangs that came down to his eyebrows. He was 5’2, coming in a little short for his age of fifteen. His bright brown eyes were said to be fairly noticeable. This young lad was known for treating others well; strangely enough, considering the fact he treated himself worst. Matthew always felt that his life meant so much more, and that it was his own fault it wasn’t as good as he knew it should have been. So many thoughts, but so little time for them was on the horizon of the future.

Matthew was sitting in his Biology class at Jefferson High. His teacher, Mrs. Papadopoulos, was lecturing on about something called mitosis. This seemed irrelevant to Matthew, as he believed he didn’t need to have knowledge of science. Since as far back as he could remember, he wanted to be a photographer. He assuredly patted the left pocket of his jeans. Inside the pocket was his most prized possession, his camera. Matthew’s dad had given him the camera. In fact, his father had been a successful photographer. Matthew’s grandfather had also been big in the photography career. This led Matthew to believe he should continue the tradition for his family, by passing down the camera to a child of his. While in his thoughts, Matthew pushed his loose glasses up off of his nose, back in front of his eyes. He knew he should get a better sized pair, but pushing the glasses up had become a comforting habit of his. He was still zoned out, when a folded piece of paper suddenly plopped onto his desk. He opened it up and read it.

At the top of the paper was written “IM”, short for Instant Messenger. The first line contained the letter B and a colon next to it.

Directly to the right, it said ''Hey Matt. This lecture’s stupid. What are you doing right now?''

There was no doubt about it; the note was from his long-time best friend Ben Benson. Benjamin Benson, or as he preferred Ben for short, had been Matthew’s best friend since elementary school. He was taller than Matthew, but not by much. He had a mop of wavy black hair that hung in his eyes, and dark green eyes. Ben was hardly an ordinary teenager. For starters, his not-so-creative parents jokingly named him Ben because of how humorous it sounded with his last name. A few things were noticeably off about Ben too. Matthew figured he was naturally hyperactive, or that he possibly drinks seven cups of caffeine coffee every morning.

Matthew wrote Ben a message back. ''Nothing much, just hanging in my thoughts.''

When aren’t you, bro? Ben replied.

Whatever, Ben. But before Matthew could return the note to Ben, Mrs. Papadopoulos noticed him.

“Matthew, what are you doing?” she asked.

“I’m just taking some notes,” Matthew lied.

“Then why do you keep exchanging them with Benjamin?”

Matthew was speechless.

“Okay, both of you will come to tutorials after school, so I can make sure that you both take proper notes.”

Huge frowns formed on both of their faces. “Yes ma’am,” they both said.

The period after Biology was gym class. Matthew hated gym class; he had always been naturally small and weak, and he was often made fun of for not being able to perform more than three push-ups. Ben on the other hand loved gym class. He wasn’t too big on the exercising part of it, but he loved to goof off. The two friends walked across the school hallway.

“Man, I hate Mrs. Papadopoulos. Now we have to see her twice in a day, that’s terrible!” Ben exclaimed.

“Right now I’m more bothered about gym class. No matter how much I exercise, I never get stronger,” Matthew complained.

“Don’t sweat it. Ha! Sweat! And exercise!”

Matthew didn’t have the urge to smile at the lame joke. They barely made it to class in time. Their massive and overly buff gym teacher, Mr. Saunders was already taking roll. The pencil he was holding looked like a toothpick in his massive hand. Matthew and Ben snuck into their spots on the floor. Coach Saunders finished up taking roll.

“All right weaklings, I’ve got a surprise for all of you!” the coach yelled.

All of the students in the gymnasium let out a groan.

“Today class, we are going to run ten miles!”

“Ten miles?!” Matthew screamed in his head. He was glad he didn’t shout that out loud, that definitely would have been embarrassing. The worst part of all this was that it was raining outside and it was raining hard. Coach Saunders definitely chose the ten mile run to be today, just to annoy everyone. Ben, however, seemed excited by the idea. Anything related to rain made him act more insane than usual. It was almost as if he needed the rain. Ben had been waiting to go outside all day, and he couldn’t stand still at the moment, even if he was paid to.

The class went outside into the pouring rain. Ben was the only person not upset about immediately getting wet. The school’s perimeter was half a mile long, so that meant twenty times around the school. The class made their way to the starting area.

“Don’t expect me to wait up for you,” Ben warned.

“Yeah, okay.” Was Matthew’s response.

“GO!” screamed the coach. All of the sudden, Ben propelled away, out of Matthew’s sight in seconds. Matthew didn’t know Ben had the capability of running that fast. The class was stunned in amazement.

“What are you waiting for?” shrieked Coach Saunders. “Go!”

Matthew decided to conserve his energy and start out at a steady pace. Most of the students zoomed right past him. Ben quickly zipped passed him, already on lap two. That seemed unbelievable to Matthew. By the time of his third lap, Matthew was already exhausted. He was reduced to only walking at this point. He took large breaths, and tried to continue. Only a small amount of people were still behind him, so he would soon become the last. Matthew hated being last, it made him seem even weaker then he already was. He suddenly became out of energy. Matthew collapsed on the sidewalk, forgetting about the race.

“Why can’t I be as athletically capable as everyone else?” he thought.

His frustration caused him to yell in anger, caused by holding too much in. Just as he was going to give up the little hope he had left, he took a look at the sky, seeing that the storm clouds were starting to disperse. A blinding ray of light shone through, and Matthew felt his will return. He lost the feeling of anger. Matthew then realized one thing; he had to finish this race. He ran faster than he had been able to before. He passed up some students, who were surprised at his sudden increase in stamina. Matthew finally approached the end of the challenge, and made it to about the middle of the class in his finishing place.

Unfortunately, the unexpected increase in power caused Matthew to suffer consequences. He shortly began feeling nauseous, and fell to the ground from dizziness. Before he passed out, he saw Ben standing over him looking worried.

Matthew woke up, realizing he was in the nurse’s office. Ben didn’t appear to be anywhere, so he must have gone back to class. Matthew was lying down on the bed in the office, and the nurse was also in the room, looking through papers.

“Good, you’re awake. I’m going to need you to help me find out what happened to you today,” The school nurse stated.

“It looks like I passed out in gym class. The last thing I remember was reaching the end of the ten mile run around the school. I’m still fuzzy on what exactly happened while I was out there too.” Matthew replied.

“Can you elaborate on what happened before you reached the end of the run?”

“I wasn’t doing too well in the race, and in fact I collapsed on the sidewalk at one point when I was out of energy. Eventually I somehow regained the strength to keep going after that, and I ran with more energy than I ever had before.”

“This is making more sense now Mr. Flash. It appears that you suffered from adrenaline fatigue, especially if your body has not been accustomed to the unusual amount of power. You’re going to be all right and won’t need any treatment; however I advise monitoring your amount of energy output, and to come back to my office if there are any troubles again.”

“There’s something I forgot to mention. I remember having the adrenaline rush when the storm clouds cleared up, could that have been what enabled me to run so well?”

“While the sun and its light do provide essential nutrients, I don’t think it would have made as much as an impact on your adrenaline increase as you may think.”

“All right, thank you nurse.” Matthew took his leave. Despite what the nurse had said, Matthew didn’t think the adrenaline rush happened for no reason. Something out there had to have taken an effect on him, and he was hoping to find out.

Matthew made his way back to his final class of the day, which was Algebra. He had a substitute teacher for class, which almost made up for the unpleasant time in gym class. After giving the sub his nurse note, Matthew made his way over to Ben’s table.

“You’re finally back! Anyway, this assignment can be done for homework so I’m not doing it today. Instead, I want to know how the heck you finished the run near the middle of the class.” Ben inquired.

“I’m still not too sure, Ben. The nurse said it was an adrenaline rush that happened for no reason, but I feel like something else triggered it.”

“Whatever happened to you, it wore you out man. I had to drag your unconscious corpse to the nurse, and the worst part was that the rain had stopped by then. I felt so deprived when it left.”

“Hold up, that reminded me of something. You ran faster than what’s seemingly possible on the run. I haven’t seen you run that fast on all the other running days, what was going on with you too?”

“Come on Matt, you know the rain gets my gears spinning. I feel like some kind of hero when I’m aided by forms of water. I guess it is kind of weird how much being wet affects me, but I wouldn’t worry about it.”

“I’m glad you were able to have some fun then. I’m just ready for this day to be over; too much weird stuff is going on.”

“Me too, my man. It looks like we have about twenty minutes left in class. Let’s waste time looking at funny pictures on my phone until it’s time to go.”

“All right, and I can’t say this will be a day that I’ll soon forget.”

Next Chapter
Chapter 2