A Running Start (Capeshit)

**A Running Start** is the first chapter of Capeshit

## Plot

A teenaged boy with shaggy brown hair woke up in his twin-sized bed and slowly got out of bed. He got himself dressed and hurried downstairs where his parents were waiting for him. His mother was at the table already, sipping away at a cup of coffee. His father was finishing up the creation of french toast. A stack of the breakfast delight was placed onto the plate in front of the boy, as his father sat down to eat his own stack.

“Excited for today?”, his father asked in between bites.

‘Undoubtedly. I’m going to pass with flying colors.” the boy bragged in response.

“Don’t overestimate yourself, Jeremy. That can cloud your judgement for the driving test. Just be careful, okay?’, his mother said.

“I won’t, I have this test in the bag. I’ve pretty much been driving any chance you guys give me”, Jeremy stated as he thought back to the last six months of driving.

“Regardless, I wish you luck sweetie. I’ll see you after work and you can tell me all about it”, his mother wished as she left for work.

Soon, Jeremy would be driving with his dad to the DMV. His father got out of the car and wished him luck before going inside to wait. A driving instructor would arrive to the car, getting into the passenger seat.

“Please begin, whenever you are ready, Mr.Ford”, the instructor stated.

Jeremy took a deep breath as he started moving the car out of the DMV parking lot. The drive was going smoothly although a nervous sweat started to build itself up all over Jeremy’s body. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see the instructor analyzing him, which was his job, but it was off-putting.

“Any notes so far?”, Jeremy attempted to make small talk with.

The instructor said not a word, leaving Jeremy to tense up even more. As Jeremy took the next turn, a car rammed into him. Jeremy’s body was forced through the seatbelt snapping against the tension, his body shot through the windshield landing him face full into the engine.

The next thing, Jeremey saw was his parents. He was inside a hospital room slowly coming to.

‘Oh god, he’s finally waking up. Go get the doctor or nurse.. Or someone, Harold!”, Jeremy’s mother shouted in a worried manner.

“What.. what’s going on? What happened?”, Jeremy groggily asked.

“Honey, you were in a car accident at the driving test. A really bad one… you’ve been in a coma for almost two months. We… I… I didn’t know if you were going to make it..”, Jeremy’s mother choked out, failing to hold back her tears.

Harold Ford walked back in with a doctor and nurse, who rushed over to Jeremy, checking his vitals.

“It’s a miracle you are still alive after that crash, it should have killed you”, the doctor exclaimed in a confused state.

“Wh- what? I- I don’t remember what happened”, Jeremey asked the surrounding parties.

“A car struck you at the driving test at about 80 miles per hour. They never found out who did it, as no body was found in the other car. They are confused how they even walked away after that crash.. It killed your driving instructor”, Jeremy’s mother explained.

“Jesus, Kara. We could of let him recover some more before spilling it all out,” Mr.Ford sighed.

Jeremy fell silent unsure of how to even respond. The doctor did the checkup procedure and was on his way. After a few more days, Jeremy was soon discharged from the hospital, assigned to physical therapy sessions until the end of the calendar year.

Both of his parents were amazed he did not even need a cast for how badly injured he was, but were extremely thankful to still have their son.

The summer soon came to a close as Jeremy’s senior year came closer. His parents sat him down on the couch the night before.

“We’ve been meaning to tell you something and we held it off too long. Your accident was very public news in town. You will likely notice unusual behavior at school”, Mrs.Ford informed her son with.

“I am not going to beat around the bush, Jeremy. You were thought tpo be dead upon the scene. Just… be ready for anything and be careful”, his father added on, dropping a bombshell of news.

Jeremy hardly slept following the news his parents gave him. His mind was racing with possible interactions that could happen, each flying through his mind quickly. The thoughts started coming faster flooding his brain with the imagined scenes. It was beginning to make the boy sweat.

He awoke the next morning in a puddle of sweat. He wiped his face as he got out of bed. The house was empty which let Jeremy know his parents left for work. He got himself ready and prepared to wait at the bus stop.

Jeremy’s mind began racing again, he tried to get the thoughts to silence. As he attempted to get the thoughts to quiet down, the bus drove past him. He took noticed and panicked, he started to run towards the bus in an attempt to catch it. It was too late as it started picking up speed and turn a corner. Jeremy started to sprint, his body rapidly gaining speed. He then passed the bus and ran into the school yard. Jeremey panicked again, he was not sure how to stop himself. His concern was soon relieved as he ran face first into a wall on the outside of the school, near the dumpsters.

Jeremy inspected his body in amazement, then noticed his shoes were on fire. He quickly stomped the fires out, leaving scorch marks on his shoes. They were damaged, but thankfully still wearable.

“I- holy shit, What was that? How did I? No way. I must be dreaming”, Jeremy said to himself in a bewildered state.

Jeremy took a deep breath before making his way inside his high school. He would have to figure this all out later, if he didn’t wake up that is. He collected his schedule and headed to his new locker, preparing it for the school year. His locker would be shut by his best friend, Matt.

“No call after you left the hospital? What gives?”, he asked Jeremy.

“Sorry, Matt. I’ve been kinda out of it since the accident. Barely made it to school today,” Jeremy tiptoped around the question with, careful not to say too much.

“I’m amazed that you arent on crutches or something. Hey, let me see your schedule. Hopefully we have a class together this year”, Matt asked Jeremy as he stuck his hand out to view the paper.

Jeremy handed his friend the schedule as Matt examined it closely. A smile formed on his face as he handed the paper back.

“We have Biology together, with this new Dr.Calypso. So i will see you in 5th period”, Matt spoke with glee.

Before Jeremy could respond, the bell would ring causing Matt to run off for his first class. Jeremy would also walk to his first class as he began the very slow day of classes. His mind quickly lost focus, the day was going by slow to him. He looked at the clock and saw that it was still only 8:43. He groaned as he put his head down.

Jeremy tuned back into school to Matt asking him a question in fifth period.

“Dr.Calypso looks really young, doesn’t she? Like late twenties with a PHD?”, Matt conversed.

“I don’t know, man. Whatever gets us out of high school”, Jeremy responded with no real meaning to his words.

The school day soon ended as Jeremy rushed home. In his backyard, he tried to use his powers again, running around the grass with no such luck. He stopped and looked at his hand taking a deep breath.

“Let’s see, I wasn’t thinking about running. I just did it, feeling the wave of the motion”, Jeremy thought back outloud.

He went out to the frontyard to do a jog around the neighborhood. As he started his run, he focused on his breathing rather than his movements. As he zoned out, he noticed the world around him zipping by. He smiled as he kept going zipping through the streets of his hometown, finally returning home. He came to a screeching halt in his backyard. Smoke filled the air as he looked down to see his shoes had burnt off.

‘Okay, now that I learned how to activate my powers, I need to figure out how to stop that from happening”, Jeremy planned as he walked inside his house and went to his room.

Jeremy took out his homework and decided to test his powers to see if he could speedread it. His tests ran true as he was done with his work in a matter of minutes.

“Now that I can get used to”, Jeremy said with a smile.

Eventually, Jeremy would be sitting down eating food with his family as they inquired about his day at school.

“Any problems at school today? Anything interesting happen?”, Mrs.Ford asked.

“Nothing too out of the ordinary. Although, I should have probably talked to Matt sooner. He was annoyed I didn’t test him”, Jeremy replied.

“That’s good at least”, Mr.Ford started with, “Since it seems things have gone back to normal, would you be open in retaking the behind the wheel test?”

Kara Ford nearly choked on her dinner, she stared at her husband in annoyance.

“Dear, I don’t think now is an appropriate time for Jeremy to be worrying about that. Especially so close to the accident”, she shot down with.

“It’s been two months, Kara. I’m sure it’s behind him”, his father countered back.

“I’m good, for now. I don’t really feel comfortable being behind the wheel like that right now”, Jeremy calmed their argument with.

While it was true that he feared being behind the wheel again, Jeremy failed to see the need to take the test. After all, he pretty much had superspeed now. He could go around the world whenever he wanted. Jeremey paused and wondered if he could run on water or not, and decided he would worry about that later.

The next month was spent honing his speed to be more controllable. As he got into school one morning, Matt approached him holding a piece of paper.

“Jeremy, we have to try out for the track team”, Matt demanded of him.

“What why? Don’t you fail tryouts every year? What makes this year different?” Jeremy asked.

“Nothing. It’s an excuse to hang out and do something together. We’ve spent little to no time together since school started”, Matt responded.

“You aren’t going to stop bugging me about stuff like this until I agree are you?” Jeremy asked.

Matt shook his head yes to which Jeremy groaned. He took the paper out of his friend’s hands and walked with him to the coach’s office.

“Coach Gordon, we are here to sign up for tryouts”, Matt said with a grin.

“Matthew Ramos, again? Last year to make the team. Hopefully, you can impress me this time”, Coach said as he filled in the paperwork for the two boys.

Later that week, the boys showed up for track tryouts. Jeremy was nervous, he was hoping that he didn’t over do it today and expose his powers. He finished getting into his gym clothes and headed to the track.

Matthew was there along with two other boys and a girl. All five got in position to start running.The mark was set and all five went off with Jeremy easily taking the lead. Jeremy was careful not to make it suspicious and only stayed about three paces ahead rather than hundreds.

Finally, tryouts came to a close. Matthew smiled at Jeremy as he socked his arm. Jremey rubbed in response.

“Why didn’t you tell me you were actually good at running?” Matthew asked.

“I don’t really like running,” Jeremy lied, he loved the feeling of running at super speed.

”You for sure made the team, no doubt about it. I hope I made it too”, Matthew added.

“Well, I’m not doing it if you didn’t make the team. I only did this for you. Maybe I could convince the coach to add you to the team and i will?” Jeremy planned.

“You don’t have to do that, J. But you totally should. You should join the team regardless though, it might look good on college applications”, Matthew mentioned.

“Oh yeah, you may be right. Still, it was you who wanted it, so I’ll talk to Gordon”, Jeremy ensured.

The next day, the results of tryouts went up and sure enough, Jeremy had made the team. He looked over the list once more seeing that Matthew was not as fortunate as him. Jeremy did as he promised and went straight for Coach Gordon’s office.

“Hey, I’m quitting the team”, Jeremy put as blunt as he could getting to the point.

“Why would you do that? You were the best kid out there.You have to stay”, the coach argued.

“Yeah, I’m pretty good, but I only did this for Matthew. So, I will only join if you let him on the team”, Jeremy bartered.

Coach Gordon thought for a minute before he groaned and agreed to Jeremy’s terms.

“See you on the field, Coach”, Jeremy smiled as he walked out of the office.

## Noteworthy Events

### Minor Events

* Everyone in this chapter debuts
* Jeremy and Matthew make the track team

## Characters

### Supporting Characters

* Harold Ford
* Kara Ford
* Matthew Ramos

### Minor Characters

* Dr.Calypso
* Coach Gordon