FORTITUDE.

1

Everyday was the same. Get up, shower, eat, go to school, come home, do homework, eat, train, sleep, then repeat. There was no variation in my boring life here in my town that was just outside of San Francisco. Even though we were close to a major city, my town was the most boring place. Everyone went to the same places and everyone knew the same people. Everything was just incredibly, and I mean incredibly, boring.

The most excitement I got in life were the packages arriving at my doorstep from amazon.

Incredibly boring.

So, when I got home from school to see a box on my doorstep lacking the stubborn amazon packaging tape, I was pretty excited.

I thought of what it could be. Maybe a present from one of my family members, or possibly something my mother ordered. There was no name on it. Just my address scrawled out messily on one of those stick on mailing labels. It was just an unexciting plain box.

The slight excitement I felt disappeared as I sighed and picked up the box. I struggled with my keys for a moment before finally getting the door open.

"Hey, honey! I just came home to bring you something for dinner, I have a late shift again," my mother said, scaring the shit out of me as I was expecting an empty house. I jumped almost dropping the box.

"God, you scared me, ma. I think this is yours." I set the box on the table before going to the fridge to get a snack. She hummed

"I didn't order this, or anything for that matter. Must have been the wrong address," she insisted after she opened the box.

"That's strange, there's no name on it," she paused, "Oh shit! I have to go honey. Love you, dinner is in the oven." And then she was gone.

I sat at the table to do my homework. I couldn't help but feel uneasy about something. I shook it off and continued my homework until I was completely finished. Once I was done I looked in the box to see what its contents consisted of. It was just some weird, ancient looking black book with gold accents and a pair of black beaded bracelet looking things.

"What the hell," I asked to no one in particular.

A weird vibe settled inside me as I walked away from the contents of the box to go cleanse my body of the filth that was my high school. I swear the school was so disgusting that I could get tetanus from simply opening a locker. Okay, maybe I'm exaggerating, but it's still pretty gross.

I could hardly wait for the water to warm up before stepping in the shower. The lukewarm water slowly turned hot as it cascaded down my body.

I threw on some clothes, deciding to go to Rowan's house since I had nothing better to do and it was my off day from the gym. Literally nothing. I have no life besides school and MMA training. My brother had gotten me into it when I was 10 and he was 11. I've been fighting ever since. Sometimes I had amateur fights and little fights with others at the gym, but it's not like I was going to be the lightweight champion of the UFC or anything. It was just a hobby.

I hopped into my plain white Honda Civic, hitting my head on the top of the car due to my unnaturally large height.

"Fucking hell." I grabbed my head. Cursing a few more times I shut the door and started the car when something caught my eye. I saw the two beaded bracelets sitting on the black leather passenger seat next to me. I could have sworn I left the bracelets in the box with the book.

"What the fuck?" Again at had an uneasy feeling but I brushed it off and started my drive to Rowan's.

•°{|\}°•

"You definitely didn't say that to her."

"I swear I did and she was all like 'Rowan how dare you disrespect me like that?' And I was all like 'fuck off I don't give a shit' and that's how I got suspended for a week," she laughed.

I couldn't believe my best friend who was a slight trouble maker, but super smart got suspended leaving me to fend for myself in hell for a whole week last week.

I sighed heavily, throwing myself back into her bed. "Fuck you for that. I had to deal with Stranton alone."

Mr. Stranton was a terrible man who thrived on the failure of teenagers. It was like he gets off on making people's lives miserable. Especially mine.

"Oh fuck him, just talk about how his wife left him and he'll shut right up," she collapsed next to me.

I groaned again, covering my face with a pillow. "He's a fucking nightmare. He just won't let me live. He's always harassing me and," I lifted the pillow from my head, "he just gives me the fucking creeps with his beady eyes and weird smile."

"I know baby, but guess what? You don't have to go to the class if you don't want to. Just skip." I shot up.

"ROWAN PARKER ANDREWS!"

"EZRA-XAVIER NOLAN WOODS," she repeated in the same tone.

My name was long and different. It was about the only exciting thing in my life. A great name to make a mundane life interesting, I guess.

"Never suggest that I, Ezra-Xavier, would skip class. I am a child of the lord himself. You know what the final commandment says, 'thou shalt not skip class even if thou hast a fuck face teacher.'"

"Okay I'm pretty sure t--" I put my hand over her mouth.

"Shhh. Just let it happen. Anyways I gotta go. You just reminded me that I forgot about the work for Stranton when I did all of my homework. It's late anyway." I stretched my back before walking to her bedroom door.

"Ugh, if you must leave me to my boredom." Her eyes drifted to my wrist. "I like your new bracelets, where'd you get 'em? I need some more black things to light my dark soul."

I looked at my wrist. Indeed there were 2 black bands. I never put them on. I didn't know how the hell they got there. My breath hitched in my throat. I felt my face drop. I quickly recovered so Rowan didn't think anything was wrong.

"Okay, one, I don't know, they came in a package today but I didn't order them and two, Rowan that doesn't even make sense."

"Whatever, please exit my space now, you're no longer welcome," she said frantically putting her hand up and shooing me away. I chuckled and made my was out of the house to my car.

The strange feeling returned as I drove off down the street. I came to a red light and decided to take the bracelets off. They were strange and besides, I never wore bracelets anyways. I didn't even know how they got on my wrists to begin with. The whole situation just put me at unease.

The light turned green and I stepped on the gas. As I crossed the intersection I suddenly saw headlights coming right at me. I swerved to try and avoid it but it was too late. The vehicle hit mine with a sickening smash, sending me spinning. Then there was nothing but darkness.