please do not refrain from tearing me apart for mistakes

Chapter 2
	I'm Josef Dejon, and here's where my part of the story begins!
	I'm Niklas's best friend. Most people remember me for that, sadly. I mean, I like to think I'm a pretty cool guy on my own, but when your best friend is Niklas... well. To most, I'm just the big guy's sidekick. That's the downside of being best buds with the raddest guy on the planet.
	Ah well, it's not a bad place to be! You never have to be afraid of getting picked on or beat up when your best friend is an abomination of genetic mishaps that makes him freakishly large and super strong, even if he does practically burst into flames when he steps into sunlight and can't see very clearly without intensive eye care. Appealing to the little criminal in me with his occasional shoplifting and other such mild crimes are just bonuses.
	Just a shame he got sent into prison a year ago for beating the crap out of that girl. I mean, it's not like she could have known that calling a German guy a Nazi would practically get her lynched, even if she was well aware of Nick's lightspeed temper and habit of speaking in knuckle cracks and roars instead of words. And it's not like he'd known that Samantha's older brother, Joshua, would start picking on me now that Niklas wasn't around. Not that I need to rely on him for everything, but when your forest giant of a best friend is out of the way you suddenly becoming a walking target. Especially seeing as, uh, I'm not exactly the most intimidating person myself. I'm a little short for my age and kind of nerdy looking besides, so I might as well have a "Kick Me" sign tattooed to my forehead.
	Since then I've been visiting him in prison. Jesus, he's gotten HUGE! He was big before, but I swear he's grown four or five inches since he was first sent in, nevermind that he got even beefier than he was before this all happened! I've been working up the courage to ask out her sister, Mary, too. I tell ya', she could probably bench press me- both of them are exercise freaks now, I guess. Don't tell anyone, but I think that actually makes me like her more... Though, if I do end up asking her out, now there's the chance that she'll knock my lights out as a response. No risk of Nick taking offense to it, either- the unspoken agreement that, since he's sweet on my mom and I'm sweet on his sister, we ignore eachothers' underwear tightening around our respective crushes has been time-honored and almost sanctified.
	I don't, uh, actually pop a boner or anything like that. That'd be awkward. Honest. I do become a stammering, sweaty-palmed mess, though.
	Today's Wednesday, our weekly visitation day! Well, my weekly visitation day. Mom trusts me enough that I can take the bus to the local jail on my own, and she sends her regards that Nick shouldn't drop the soap or break down and brew toilet wine. I want to say that Mom's either British or American (British, I think, but I'm not sure precisely what her accent would place her as), but if any of those jokes she makes about prison in either country has a single grain of truth to them, then I don't ever want to visit them for fear of getting shanked because I looked a degree to the right that I shouldn't have.
	I slammed on my shoes and hastily knotted the laces, grabbed my backpack (Nick had always pounded it into my head that you should prepare for an emergency, no matter what it is or might be), and shoved a few Euros into my pocket to buy a candy bar or something with later. I looked around for my mom and found her reading a book. "See you, Mom! Going to go visit Niklas now."
	"Be safe, Josef," Mom says before putting her book down and shuffling over to swoop me into a hug. "Don't make eye contact with anybody, and for crying out loud, don't follow Niklas's example and punch anyone in the gut."
	"I'd probably break my hand," I joked. Mom lets go of me and I smile at her, then make to turn around until the program on the TV that she had on as white noise changes to the distinctive "Wichtige Neuigkeiten" in bold white letters and the red and blue backdrop of something urgent happening on the local news channel. That too gets replaced with a brunette news anchorwoman rapidly approaching forty or even later, judging by the crow's feet creasing her eyes that seem to multiply every time I see her:
	"Prison wall broken through in western Berlin by a now-escaped prisoner! Method of escape still unknown due to a lack of explosives used and no other conventional methods of destruction being located; fugitive's name identified as fifteen-year-old Niklas Konig, to be considered armed and extremely dangerous. Do not aid him at any cost and report his presence to your local police authorities."
	Projected onto the screen was a live feed of Niklas looking around wildly as he ran with thin sheets wrapped around the bare parts of his body to block out the sun. As the news chopper lowered for a better shot of the albinic giant, he closed his eyes and clenched his teeth in a way that I've always seen him do when he was particularly annoyed, glowed, and then vanished.