ENJOY

Jack woke up in a daze, his body was covered in bruises and he was aching all over. Jack groaned and tumbled out of bed, aggravating his wounds even more. It was Monday morning and he had school today.

Unlike most kids, Jack loved school, even if he was bullied half the time. But it was the only place where he could find solace from his father.

Ever since his mum died, Jack's father had steadily become a train wreck of abuse. It started with drinking, coming home late at night, sometimes early in the morning drunk. Then it went on to gambling, losing his job and then finally, he started abusing his own son.

At first it would be physical, he would hit Jack, punching and kicking under the guise of something Jack did that was wrong or irritated him. Eventually though, he stopped thinking of excuses and just started hitting him whenever he saw Jack. One day, he threw an empty beer bottle at Jack, causing the glass to shatter and break skin and Jack started bleeding. It was then; Jack's father supposedly decided he loved to see blood on Jack's skin. This caused the beatings to escalate, becoming more severe; he would start cutting Jack and breaking his bones.

Then the mental abuse started, Jack's father started verbally abusing him. The physical abuse Jack could handle, but the mental attacks were what got to him. Usually his father would stay silent while beating him up, but one particular day, coming home extra drunk, he started whispering things into his ear. His father blamed him for his mother's death, him losing his job and overall said that he was a waste of space on this earth and he should be lucky he even had a roof over his head.

Every time his father would verbally attack it seemed to make him angrier, causing him to be rougher on Jack and accumulate even more anger, making the vicious cycle go on and on.

Jack snapped out of his daze and looked over at the clock.

5:12 a.m.

It was way too early for his father to be awake, and he hoped to get out of the house beating-free this morning as there was P.E today.

He dragged his body over to the bathroom to take a shower, scrubbing any dried blood that may have come from any wounds that he opened while sleeping. It wasn't an easy task as his whole body stung from the hot water and soap. But he had to do it or risked someone noticing that he smelled weird.

He finished his shower and dried himself as carefully as possible so as not to aggravate his wounds any further. He then headed over to the medicine cabinet to take out some bandages and antiseptic to wrap up his wounds. Luckily his arms were relatively bruise free, only a couple of cuts here and there. The area where the most damage was taken was his chest and stomach, and those were easy to hide as no one was going to lift his shirt or anything like that. In fact no one would probably even want to touch him with the exception of his bullies when they were roughing him up.

Jack left the bathroom and went to get changed. He opened his wardrobe and all he saw was black, people thought he was either a goth or an emo but in reality, black was the only color that didn't stain that easily. Jack grabbed a black loose long-sleeved shirt and a pair of dark jeans. Then he grabbed his favorite black hoodie and slipped it on.

Jack grabbed his backpack and his phone, and snuck down the stairs as quietly as he could. He could hear the TV in the living room and held his breath. He really didn't want to get caught now just when he was so close out the door. Jack snuck across the hallway as quietly as possible, he saw his father asleep on the couch and breathed a soft sigh of relief.

He was putting on his sneakers when suddenly he heard a soft "thud" and some shuffling. Jack panicked thinking that it was his father stumbled out the door and closed it with bang. He shuffled along the sidewalk having only put on one shoe with the other half dangling and didn't look back until he was sure it was a safe distance.

He took out his phone, and checked the time, it was only 6:14 and school only started at 8. It would take 20 minutes to walk there and he would still be way too early.

As if on cue, Jack's stomach started growling and he was reminded of his lack of dinner last night. Deciding it was best to find a place to eat, considering he would need all the energy he needed for PE later that day.

Jack walked into a McDonalds and was glad that there were hardly any people in there. He quickly ordered a pancake and some coffee and found a seat near the back. Since it was only 6.30 he decided to take his time and do some of the homework he needed to hand up today. He plugged in his earphones and just tuned out the rest of world until he was done.

;) ~ 3
I don't own XS, it's characters or McDonalds (man I wish I did, I would get like free burgers all the time)
I apologize for my crappy English if there is any mistakes.