The Golden Call - Becoming Bram #54
Daniel woke up still thinking about the jacket.
For a few seconds, everything felt normal. Gray morning light pressed against the curtains. Rain tapped softly against the window. His hoodie lay crumpled over the chair where he had thrown it the night before.
Then the memory returned.
The glossy black body and gold sleeves.
The way his posture had changed without him trying.
Daniel rolled onto his back and stared at the ceiling.
It had only been a jacket.
That was what made it worse.
Nothing had happened. Nobody had seen him. He had taken it off and shoved it back into the bag like it burned.
And still, hours later, he could remember exactly how it felt across his shoulders.
Daniel dragged both hands over his face and sat up.
Across the room, his mirror reflected the pale morning light.
He avoided looking at it.
School moved strangely after that.
First period passed in fragments. A teacher’s voice. Pens scratching against paper. Someone behind him whispering about soccer conditioning starting that week. A black-and-gold jacket folded over the back of a chair.
Daniel noticed everything now.
Before, the Golden Army aesthetic had been easy to dismiss. Too polished. Too obvious. Too much.
Now his attention snagged on details before he could stop it.
A fitted training hoodie.
Glossy black sleeves catching fluorescent light.
Gold lettering along a backpack strap.
The way some students stood differently when wearing the gear, shoulders back, chin lifted, like the clothes reminded them to take up space.
Daniel hated that he understood it.
By lunch, he still hadn’t really talked to Chase.
Across hallways. Through crowds. Near the athletic wing.
Number 18 moved through school like he had always belonged there.
Students greeted him automatically now. Teachers nodded when he passed. Younger athletes stepped aside without looking intimidated, just aware.
Chase didn’t shrink from any of it.
That was still the strangest thing.
Kevin used to fold into himself whenever too many people looked his way. Chase moved like attention was weather. Something natural. Something he had learned to stand in.
Daniel ate outside near the back courtyard with his hood pulled up even though it wasn’t cold enough to need it.
The courtyard smelled like damp concrete and cafeteria fries from someone else’s tray.
He turned his water bottle slowly between his hands.
A month ago, Kevin would have been sitting across from him.
They would have made fun of the soccer guys stretching near the athletic wing. They would have complained about school. They would have turned the entire Golden Army thing into one long joke until it stopped feeling threatening.
Daniel saw him once through the glass doors, walking with Carter and two other players. He laughed at something one of them said and disappeared down the hallway without looking toward the courtyard.
Daniel looked down at his food.
That would have been easier.
It felt more like standing outside a room after the door had closed softly in front of him.
After school, Daniel told himself he was going home.
He even walked toward the front entrance.
The buses were lined up outside, engines rumbling. Students cut across the lot in clusters, talking too loudly, laughing, wearing black and gold like it had always been the obvious choice.
Daniel stood near the doors for several seconds.
He didn’t tell himself he was just taking a shortcut this time.
That excuse had become too thin.
The athletic complex sat behind the school, past the old tennis courts and the side parking lot. The rain had stopped earlier, leaving everything damp and darkened. Stadium lights were already glowing against the gray-blue sky.
The soccer field was alive when he reached it.
Music played low from speakers near the bleachers. Not the heavy stadium bass from football nights. Something faster, cleaner, built around rhythm.
Daniel slowed beside the fence.
The conditioning group moved across the turf in tight lines.
Players sprinted through cones, cut sharply, passed in quick rotations, reset, moved again. Glossy black compression tops reflected beneath the lights whenever they turned. Gold seams flashed along shoulders and sides. Their shorts and leggings looked sleek and fitted, built for speed rather than impact.
Everything about it felt different from football.
Football had swallowed space.
Daniel watched one player weave through a line of cones, receive a pass without breaking stride, and send the ball cleanly across the field with one touch.
Daniel’s hands tightened slightly around the fence.
For the first time, he didn’t imagine Chase.
The silence after overthinking finally stopped.
Long enough for Coach Hale to notice.
Hale crossed the field without hurrying, hands tucked into the pockets of his black jacket. He didn’t call out. Didn’t wave. Just approached like he had already decided Daniel would still be there when he arrived.
Daniel stepped back from the fence automatically.
Hale stopped on the other side.
“You’ve been watching a while.”
“Through the athletic complex.”
Hale looked around at damp turf, metal bleachers, and cones scattered under floodlights.
Daniel almost smiled despite himself.
The players continued behind him. Cleats cut against wet turf. Someone called for a pass. A whistle chirped once, sharp and controlled.
Hale glanced toward the field.
“But you understand movement.”
“You were watching their feet, not the ball.”
Daniel opened his mouth, then closed it.
Hale didn’t press the point. He simply nodded toward the field.
“You want to try a rotation?”
The answer should have come instantly.
Daniel had used that word so many times lately it should have been automatic.
No to the part of himself that had liked the mirror.
But the word didn’t come.
Instead he looked back at the field.
A player sprinted through cones, body low, movements sharp, glossy black sleeves flashing gold beneath the lights. His breathing was visible in the cold air when he stopped.
“I’m not dressed for it.”
Hale looked at his hoodie and old sneakers.
Daniel gave him a flat look.
“There’s spare training gear by the bench.”
That made everything too real.
“I’m not joining anything.”
Daniel looked toward the field again.
The players were rotating. One stepped out, breathing hard, face flushed and bright with effort.
That was the word Daniel hated most.
They looked tired, but awake.
Hale rested one hand on top of the fence.
Daniel stared at the field for another few seconds, then looked down at his own shoes.
He thought of the jacket again.
How stupidly good it had felt to stand straighter.
How quickly he had wanted to tear it off after realizing that.
Then he heard himself say:
Like he had expected nothing else.
The equipment bench sat beside the bleachers.
Daniel regretted everything the second Hale handed him the folded gear.
Daniel stared at the fabric.
“You people don’t own normal cotton?”
Hale looked mildly amused.
“It looks like something from a luxury dystopia.”
The changing room near the field was mostly empty. Distant noise echoed from somewhere deeper inside the stadium building, but otherwise Daniel was alone with the bench, the mirror, and the folded clothes in his hands.
The compression shirt looked smaller than it should have.
That felt like a personal attack.
Eventually he changed before he could talk himself out of it.
The shirt was tight immediately.
The fabric clung to his arms and chest in a way that made him hyperaware of his own body. The training shorts sat cleaner than anything he owned. The socks reached below his knees, and even without proper cleats, the whole thing made him look more athletic than he felt.
Daniel looked up at the mirror.
It wasn’t the same as the jacket.
The jacket had given him shape.
There was nowhere to hide in it.
His shoulders looked narrower than Chase’s. His arms less defined. His posture still uncertain.
But the silhouette was there.
Daniel stared for two seconds too long, then looked away sharply.
He shoved his hoodie into a locker and walked back out before he could change his mind.
The cold air hit differently now.
Without the hoodie, every breeze touched him. The compression fabric held close against his skin. Daniel crossed his arms immediately, then uncrossed them when he realized how defensive it looked.
Players glanced over, registered him, and went back to their drills.
Hale waved him toward a smaller group near the sideline.
Daniel followed, feeling absurdly visible.
The first drill was simple enough in theory.
Sprint to the first cone. Cut left. Backpedal. Turn. Receive a pass. Send it back. Repeat.
In practice, it was humiliating.
Daniel overthought everything.
His feet landed too heavily. His shoulders came up too high. He hesitated before each cut. The ball bounced off the side of his foot once and rolled away pathetically.
One of the players jogged after it and passed it back.
“Relax your knees,” he said.
“Right,” Daniel muttered.
The drill rotated quickly. There wasn’t enough time to spiral into embarrassment before it was his turn again.
His lungs started burning sooner than he expected.
His legs protested almost immediately.
The compression shirt warmed against his skin. Sweat gathered at the base of his neck and along his back. Cold air hit his face every time he stopped moving.
At first Daniel hated every second.
Then somewhere after the fourth rotation, something shifted.
He stopped thinking about how he looked.
There wasn’t room for it anymore.
There was only the cone ahead.
For once, his mind didn’t have space to comment on everything.
That silence hit him like relief.
Daniel cut sharper on the next drill.
The player beside him called out, “Better.”
He was too busy breathing.
But something inside him lifted.
A small, stupid spark of pride.
The next rotation added passing under pressure. Daniel fumbled the first attempt, nearly tripped over the ball, and felt heat rush into his face.
Hale watched from the side without saying much.
Somehow that made every small improvement feel earned.
They just let Daniel keep going.
Ten minutes became twenty.
The sky darkened fully overhead until the field existed almost entirely under artificial light. Turf glittered faintly where rain still clung to it.
Daniel’s breathing turned rough.
His hoodie and old self-consciousness felt miles away in the changing room.
But he wasn’t terrible either.
That mattered more than he wanted to admit.
During a sprint drill, Daniel pushed harder than he meant to.
He chased the player ahead of him through the cones, matched the turn, nearly lost balance, recovered, and reached the final marker only half a step behind.
He bent forward with both hands on his knees, gasping.
And then he realized he was smiling.
Not because someone watched.
Just because his body had done something he didn’t think it could do.
The realization startled him.
He straightened quickly, trying to erase the expression.
The player beside him grinned.
Daniel wiped sweat from his forehead with the back of his wrist.
The player laughed and jogged back into line.
Daniel stood there for a second longer, pulse hammering, cold air dragging in and out of his lungs.
Energy moved through him in waves now.
But underneath it, something electric.
The opposite of the heavy, sour feeling that had sat in his chest all week.
Movement had burned through it.
For the first time in days, Daniel wasn’t thinking about Chase.
Or what any of this meant.
Near the far side of the complex, football practice began breaking up.
Daniel noticed the movement only because a group of players crossed beneath the lights near the tunnel.
Chase stopped when he saw him.
For a second, neither of them moved.
Or that sharp little knowing look Chase had started giving him lately.
Instead Chase just looked at the training gear, the sweat on Daniel’s face, the way he stood on the field trying not to look as proud as he felt.
Then Chase gave him a small nod.
Daniel looked away first.
But the nod stayed with him through the rest of training.
The final drill was pure conditioning.
Short sprints across the width of the field, back and forth, timed by Hale’s whistle.
Daniel hated it immediately.
Then loved it five minutes later.
Not because it got easier.
His chest burned. His legs felt loose and heavy. Sweat ran down between his shoulder blades.
But every time he hit the line and turned back, something inside him sharpened.
He wasn’t watching anymore.
He wasn’t outside anything.
When Hale finally blew the whistle twice, the group slowed to a stop around him.
Daniel bent forward, hands on his knees, breathing so hard he could barely swallow.
His entire body felt hot beneath the cold air.
One of the players slapped him lightly on the back as he passed.
“First day’s always ugly.”
Daniel tried to respond but only managed a breathless laugh.
The phrase landed before he could defend against it.
And the worst part was, he didn’t hate how it sounded.
After cooldown, players drifted toward the benches, grabbing bottles and jackets. Music lowered until only faint bass remained under the hum of the floodlights.
Daniel sat on the edge of the bench and stared down at his legs.
That should have embarrassed him.
Nobody had dragged him into it.
And for the first time since the Golden Army entered his life, that yes didn’t feel like losing.
It felt like discovering a door.
Hale approached while Daniel was still catching his breath.
Daniel looked up, still breathing hard.
“For someone who looked like he was dying?”
“For someone who said he didn’t play.”
He stood slowly, feeling every muscle complain.
“I should give this back.”
He tugged lightly at the compression shirt, suddenly self-conscious again now that the drills were over.
The fitted fabric clung damply to his skin. The glossy black sleeves reflected the stadium lights when he moved.
For a second Daniel remembered the mirror in the changing room.
The possible version of himself looking back.
“That doesn’t mean I should keep it.”
“You’ll need it tomorrow.”
The sentence landed quietly.
Hale said it like a fact already written into the schedule.
Daniel should have corrected him.
He should have said this was a one-time thing and walked away before the moment became heavier than it needed to be.
Instead he stood there under the lights, exhausted and still buzzing with energy, clutching the hem of the glossy black compression shirt.
Hale nodded once toward the exit.
Then he walked back toward the equipment cart like the conversation was over.
Daniel remained beside the bench for a few seconds longer.
The field had mostly emptied now.
The air smelled like damp turf, sweat, and cold metal.
His lungs still felt raw.
And underneath all of it, the energy kept moving through him.
He picked up his hoodie from the locker room but didn’t put it on right away.
Instead he walked home wearing the black training gear beneath the open hoodie, cold air brushing against his overheated skin.
The glossy sleeves caught occasional flashes from streetlights as he passed beneath them.
He felt better than he had in weeks.
And somewhere deep down, even before he admitted it to himself, he already knew Hale was right.
They would see him tomorrow.
All you need to do is contact our recruiters
@alton-gold77 or @polo-drone-125
