The Miracle Clinic

xS2 Chapter 9 - Surviving The Seniors (2)

The night before the first day of school in Ronnie's bedroom, the glow of the old scratched-up box TV illuminates the room while Ronnie Everst, who is wearing some blue striped pajamas, looks through the cardboard box of VHS tapes. They are all "self-defense" tapes recorded by his late father, Reagan Everst, that star a peculiar man by the name of James Lewis teaching people how to fight.

At first, he only was able to get a hold of four of the tapes, but over the summer break, Ronnie managed to convince his mother to get the rest of them from storage.

Now with the nine tapes; he looks through the box trying to figure out which one to watch.

"Here we are," Ronnie remarks as he takes out the tape titled 'Five'.

Ronnie puts the tape in the VHS player and the TV begins to play it.

"-ah that's what I thought, so now let's get into it," The man on the TV asks.

"Uh James, we weren't recording then," The man behind the camera states.

"Really Reagan? Oh come on," James Lewis sighs.

In the tape, James Lewis is a young white adult with long black hair in a ponytail, gray eyes, and a toothpick in his mouth. He's also wearing a jean jacket over a white-&-red striped shirt, black cargo pants, and white slip-on shoes. He and the cameraman, Reagan Everst, are standing atop a hill next to a tree

"Okay let's start from the beginning," James says as he clears his throat, "So you already heard me give you the advice about using your opponent's momentum against them, riling them up with insults, gaining better stamina, and to roll with the punches....YET YOU STILL WANT MORE?! How greedy can you get?"

James walks over to where a punching bag is tied to a tree branch and he lightly taps the punching bag.

"Now since Reagan over there didn't want to be used for a live demonstration, we have this punching bag here to show you the lesson," James says with a smile on his face, "Now then let us punch the bag."

James takes a step back before sending his fist at the punching bag. The punching bag sways back and forth, but it's still perfectly fine.

"Now what did you think I did wrong?" James asks the camera.

Reagan tries to answer but James responds with, "The answer is I punched at the bag, my fist made contact with it but it didn't do much damage. If you really wanna do some damage you want to aim for behind your target, pushing them back with your attack. Like so."

James gets back into position and sends his fist flying into the punching bag, only this time the force of it is so strong that his fist makes a hole through it on both sides.

"See how much of a change that can do! And it's all thanks to a difference in momentum!" James remarks as he tries to get his arm out of the punching bag, "Uh Reagan I think I'm stuck."

Reagan pans up to see that the tree branch that the punching bag was tied to is also bending.

"Uh, Reagan?" James asks.

"This is why I said we shouldn't have taken the punching bag outside," Reagan sighs.

"REAGAN A LIL HELP-" James yells before the branch snaps sending him and the punching bag to fall onto the ground and roll down the hill.

Reagan makes sure to record James rolling down the hill until he's stopped, then ending the recording.

With the recording done, the tape gets pushed out automatically from the VHS player and Ronnie sets it back into the box. He then turns off the TV before resting in his bed thinking about it. While punching through someone is impossible he got the gist of the tape; if you're in a fight don't slow down your fist when it makes contact with someone.