Jack awoke to find his whole body was numb. He stared down at the pool of blood surrounding him and he almost burst into tears. Flowing freely from around him in its rich entirety, it was deep and thick. Although it was a warm day, he felt chilled to the bone and this was his last thought before he heard the sirens.

       Why does it have to end like this? He thought.

                                              **************************

Jack Summers was bullied. It started off as name-calling; that lead to shouting abuse; which eventually lead to physical abuse; until finally, the beatings started. By the time he was seventeen, Jack had accumulated enough bullying to make him into a social reject. A loner. A new day wasn’t a fresh start; it was the day for another beating. Nothing ever changed.

   He wasn’t weak. In actual fact, he was reasonably strong – physically. His wide shoulders and stern set jaw made him seem more like a wrestler than a schoolboy. If it wasn’t for the thick coat that he always wore, he might just look strong. Flowing off the top of his head was his dark, matted hair. Beneath that you could just about make out his green eyes. Jack was strong. The trouble was, he was a coward. A chicken.

    It wasn’t that he was scared of the bullies (he’d taken enough beatings to be used to it). Aware of his strength was what made Jack feel like a threat to himself. He knew that he was capable of snapping a boy’s neck in half, but he never used that ‘talent’. Jack never wanted to hurt anybody, and the bullies took advantage of this.

     Evan Crow was his exact opposite. He wasn’t particularly strong. He had arms like string beans but his outlook on violence was also the direct opposite of Jack’s. His blonde, wavy hair and polished features wouldn’t look out of place on a movie set – and neither would his arrogance. That would be expected there. For seven years, Evan had made Jack’s life hell. Beatings would last hours on end and because Jack wouldn’t retaliate – this made life easy. Punch after punch threw in with the same threats droning endlessly on. Jack would take the beating and carry on as normal and in a way and this inevitably annoyed Evan.