fire watch - episode 003 - The Delilah fire mystery

part 06 high-school

The year was 2011.
Delilah was 11 years old and was about to join high school. Sadly Anita wasn't able to come down to them because she had a lot of work to do. Tom woke her up in the morning saying "morning sleepy head" she smiled "morning dad" "come on, monkey it's time for your first day of high school" she got dressed and Tom helped her do her hair which was still shoulder-length curly black and brown hair like her mother. Every 5 minutes, she had to move her hair out her eyes, if she didn't, she would be scratching her nose a lot for reasons she didn't know. She ate breakfast, and they walked to school, she wasn't panicking as much as when she went to school the first time, so that was good. Her first day went really well, she explained everything to Tom on the way home. Tom helped her with her homework and with bullies, she got a lot of bullies saying she was a teacher's pet just because she loved to learn, but luckily she had her dad to help with that. She liked that he looked strong and went to the gym twice a week with tattoos up his right arm, with his jacket and black clothes he almost looked like a biker, so no one wanted to mess with her dad. Tom decided to allow her to do her own thing because he didn't want to feel like she had to live up to something so if she wanted to write she could, she got to choose what she wore, if she wanted to wear make-up she could, Tom didn't really mind what she wanted to do with her life and what she wanted to wear because it was her body and her life as long as she was happy Tom was fine with it.
The year was 2012.
It was Delilah's birthday, of course it was an enormously fun day, they went and watched a film in a cinema then ate at one of Delilah's favourite restaurants, at the end of the day Tom gifted Delilah with something she wore for the rest of her life; his black gothic leather jacket which she completely fell in love with the moment she put it on, it was a little too big for her however she didn't care, it was surprisingly thin, so she could wear it summer and winter if she wore more layers, so naturally wore it every day. The jacket greatly helped her to get her own style, beginning to wear black tank tops, white shorts and black sneakers, she really did love her style and didn't care what anyone said to her, she wasn't ever going to change it for anyone.
The year was 2013.
Delilah came into the living room seeing Tom sitting on the sofa reading a book "hey dad" he looked up closing the book throwing it aside "hey Delilah, what's up?" "I was wondering if it would be okay to dye my hair, I have wanted to do it for a while and I found a really cool colour, but before I did it, I thought I would ask, so you would be aware if it all goes wrong" Tom nodded "yeah, of course, you can, you don't have to ask, it's your body not mine, go do whatever you want, as long as you have put thought into it and are completely sure" "thank you, I just thought I should ask not just be like hey what at my hair, and you be shocked" he smiled "that would have been pretty funny if you did do that, need any help?" she shook her head "I should be fine"
A few hours later.
Delilah came back into the living room. Tom looked up then smiled "whoa, you look awesome" she smiled "thanks" she had only dyed the right side of her fringe purple "I thought just doing it just one piece would be really cool" "it does look really cool" however Delilah was terrified that the high-school wouldn't allow it, but luckily they did. Delilah did get some more bullies however it wasn't Tom that dealt with them, it was actually Delilah. One day Tom was walking the dog when he got a call from the high-school asking him to go and see the headmaster about Delilah, so he drove there thinking that someone had done something with her and he needed to help her. When he entered the room, Delilah was sat looking annoyed with her arms folded looking the headmaster dead in the eyes. Tom sat down next to her and immediately noticed next to the principle was a boy with a black eye. The principle leaned forward "now I have called you here today to discuss your daughters' behaviour" "oh really? This is a first" "I know, I am very disappointed today because usually she has a very clean record, but today she got into a fight" Tom looked at Delilah shocked, she had never been in a fight before, however Tom had taught her how to be in one, but he told her to only use her skills when she needed to so he knew if something did happen it wasn't here that caused it to happen. He looked back at the headmaster "I taught her to fight but only when she needs to, so she must have had a reason, please explain why she would have done this" the headmaster nodded "there was an incident and Delilah acted violently" "what incident?" before the headmaster could talk Delilah cut him off "he touched my arse, so I taught him not to do it again by smacking him in the eye, and we have been in this office for an hour while he tries to make me apologize for it, but I won't" Tom nodded "good don't, fucker got what he deserved" the headmaster shook his head "no, she did not have to deal with the situation with violence, she could have come to us with the problem" Delilah shook her head "no offence, but if someone touches me like he did my first instinct isn't to go to a teacher who will do fuck all to help and he'll just do it again to other girls I'm making sure he won't be a repeat offender" "they could have helped" "no, they couldn't, the only way to deal with people like that is to punch the shit out of them, scare them straight" Tom nodded "I agree with her, and there is nothing you can do to change that, what punishment is he getting for this?" "He will be suspended, however your daughter needs to be punished for this" "punishment? She did nothing wrong, she stood up for herself are you trying to teach your students they shouldn't stand up for themselves" they argued for a while but the headmaster knew they weren't going to back down, so he suspended the boy and let them go without any punishment. Tom rewarded Delilah with ice cream.
Meanwhile across the world.
Anita was working with the demons' breath cure when something went very wrong. She was adding small amounts of chemicals to the compound when the system ejected out some gas into the room in a yellow cloud directly into the face of Anita. She didn't breathe in a lot however, even the smallest amount could do a lot of damage to a person, however they had no idea what damage that would be. The boss yelled for everyone to run for their lives, so everyone fled the room in a panic. They did some tests on Anita just checking her health and mental health because the virus could affect that, but no she seemed to be okay, she did have a nose bleed for an hour however it went away, and they assumed that's as bad as it would get, having no idea how wrong they were.
The year was 2014.
Delilah had just started year 10 and was having a lot of fun, she even started getting friends and got her first boyfriend, Tom didn't really approve of him at first, however he trusted Delilah's judgement, and he was making her happy, so he was good enough for him. Anita was sent home on paid leave after she had what they called an 'episode' she apparently freaked out and yelled at 2 fellow employees because they were borrowing her books that were important to her research, completely forgetting she had happily loaned the books to them 2 days prior. Delilah was incredible worried as was Tom because she hadn't done anything like that before. They had not been told of the breach of the demon's breath, so they didn't realize that it hadn't been done naturally. Anita was found crying in the stairwell wondering what was happening to herself. They decided to take her to the doctor, they did some critical tests on her, they were thinking she might have been suffering with early onset dementia. However, they discovered something strange her white blood-cells seemed to have been destroyed, but they were rebuilding, how that would've happened was unknown and greatly worried and confused them. The doctors were able to determine that she did have early on-set dementia, she was only 54. Delilah was extremely worried, Tom tried to talk to her saying everything would be okay, but he could see why she was worried because he was worried as well, but it was worse for Delilah because it was her mother and she loved her. However, he had to be there for her and not panic because then everything would fall apart. Clearly he was the only person to be there for her because of her worry her boyfriend broke up with her having found 'someone else' however Delilah knew it was because of her worry, Tom managed to get her through it by telling her if he broke up with her because of that small reason he wasn't worth staying with, that made her feel better.