Lumen by Joseph Eastwood

begin to break down what she’d eluded to, but apparently it had been funny. She was laughing and he smiled with her.
    Daniel grinned. “Close your eyes,” he said in a whisper.
    She raised an eye brow and repressed her lips from smiling. “Okay.” She closed her eyes.
    Daniel walked behind her. He turned, and took his t-shirt off and flung it beside a metal air vent.  Just show her already , he thought, already shaking. He rolled his shoulder blades and his back cracked. He closed his eyes, and felt a heated sweat prickle over him. Everything become warm and blanketed him inside the heat.
    Daniel opened his eyes. He was lying deep within his duvet. He struggled at first, fumbling his way out, falling into a heap at the side of his bed.  Another dream , he gritted his teeth and butted his lips white.
    “She was just a dream.”  I want more of it , he sighed.
    He stood and threw himself on his bed. It felt more like home without the duvet, colder, but the air was still different. He fell to sleep pushing scenarios of being great in his first attacking and defence class.

 
    Chapter Twelve
     
    The next morning Daniel had gone for a run, showered, dressed and knocked on Taner’s door before people had even  been kicked by their caffeine spikes.
    “Are you going to tell me what happened then?” Taner asked, handing Daniel a tray at the canteen and then taking one himself.
    “I just fainted. There really isn’t that much to say. And I’m not up for breakfast,” Daniel replied, trying to give him the tray back.
    “You have to eat. Or you’ll faint again, and because it’s our first class on how to use energy, like  really  use it, you need it!”
    “And this class is the only one where you can  test  your power, and show the rest of the school what  you  can do,” Daniel said and moved down the aisle, taking back his tray. “Y’know, people like Jasper, that’s how they get their reputation.”
    “Yeah, and –”
    “No, they showed people what they could do. Hell, I felt it first hand, didn’t I?” Daniel grinned and picked up a plate with a toasted bun and put it on his tray.
    “S’pose so, and I heard that the class is integrated with the second and third years, and they even match us up against ‘em,” Taner said, moving along to an empty table.
    “Really? What for?” Daniel asked in a fit of need.
    “Power classes. You from what’s been going around will be at the top end. You know you don’t get a flare like that for nothing.”
    Everyone knows. I bet it’s gone around that I fainted as well and it will only be too soon before people start talking about where I’m from. Then I’ll have nobody to talk to.  His stomach grumbled as he buttered his toast. 
    Daniel raised the toast to his lips, and he saw her, the blonde girl who’d spoke to him yesterday, sitting there on a table a few tables back, she was alone and staring at him. He lowered his toast and a knock of nausea contemplated waving her over, and then two others joined her, Jasper and Mark, Jasper kissed her on her lips, and then she winked at Daniel.
    “Who you lookin’ at?” Taner asked and turned. “Carlie’s bad news, she’s Jasper’s girlfriend.”
    “She’s not like him though. She looks like the only nice one. She’s probably only in it for the power trip. I mean, she could have anyone right, and chooses the guy who just happens to be a leader,” Daniel said, glancing back and forth.
    “Daniel,” Taner interrupted.
    “Huh?” Daniel turned, a tall kid stood at the end of the table. “Yeah?”
    The boy coughed several times. “Mr Croft would like to speak with you immediately,” he said and then left.
    Daniel turned around to the heated stares on him, but not many had heard him from the clatter of pots and pans by the kitchen staff. He turned around to the smiling face of an elderly woman with a ladle in her hands.
    “Why?” Taner asked.
    Daniel shrugged. “Probably how I feel,