Chapter 1

Today was a good day for Cory. He had just had a pleasant twenty-minute conversation with his teacher about which video games he liked and how she should totally play all of them. French, Cory’s favourite lesson, was next and he was beyond excited. He swung around the corner expecting to be the first one to wait outside the classroom, only to see Chad grunting while admiring his muscles. Chad had amassed a group of girls to admire him and his huge biceps meaning that Cory wasn’t even second to wait outside the classroom. This was no longer a good day for Cory.

It was 3 pm and Cory was out for blood. School had ended so he was free to do as he pleased, and what would please him would be to give Chad a long speech about how much it meant to him to be the first person to get to class and how sad he felt. Cory soon realised that he was not nearly strong enough to take on Chad himself and that he needed help. He took out his iPad mini and moved close enough to the window of a cafe to gain access to the wifi so he could skype his friends. “Sorry, I’m really busy right now.” “Ask someone else!” “I don’t really care.” “How do you know my number?!” “Who are you?” and “Since when do I owe you anything?” were all answers Cory received. He quickly realised that he would have to take on Chad himself. That is until he noticed Simon inside the coffee shop. “Simon!” Cory screamed while banging on the window. He was completely oblivious to Simon reluctantly standing up, his look of disappointment, sigh and then apology to the girl sitting across from him.

“What do you want now?”

“We need to take down Chad and his evil ways!”

“What?”

“HE NEEDS TO BE STOPPED!”

“Will you stop following me around if I help you?”

“Yeah, sure thing… hehe…”

“I don’t have time for this-”

“OK OK ok ok I’ll stop following you.”

Simon was unaware that Cory had his fingers crossed behind his back. “This’ll be a great bonding experience!” Cory thought to himself.

Cory and Simon were now on their way to Chad’s house. Cory wasn’t the best with social cues and assumed that Simon’s silence during his story about this one time he bit into a candle when he was ten years old meant that Simon wanted to hear more stories, not noticing that Simon hadn’t been paying attention to his stories for a long time.

They both arrived at Chad’s dominion a few minutes later. Cory waddled excitedly up to the front door, taking his speech out of his pocket. He pressed the doorbell. Nobody answered the door. Cory took in a deep breath. He pulled his arm back and breathed in. Cory’s arm launched forward, his index finger stretched out. He was hammering the doorbell with his finger so quickly that his whole arm had become a blur. A deep blue glow began to surround his body and his eyes became consumed with a bright blue light. Cory’s finger was no longer pressing the doorbell. His finger had now drilled through the doorbell and into the bricks. When Cory’s finger began to slow down the door slowly opened up to reveal a tall masculine figure. It was Chad, who was understandably confused. “Do you feel my anger Chad?” whispered Cory, his piercing gaze focused deep into Chad’s eyes.

Chad stepped back through his door and closed it. Cory was shaking. He would not tolerate such embarrassment. “COWARD! YOU WILL PAY FOR WHAT YOU’VE DONE! AAAAAAAAAAAAAGH!” Cory lifted his arms up as if to summon some sort of energy and cast them forward. Nothing happened.

“I really have to go do something so I’ll see you later,” Simon told Cory before scurrying off.

Text: Fredrik Groff, 8D