Has anyone ever felt like they had no reason to live? Well, let me tell you, I believe I have no reason to live.

You see, my first middle school years didn’t turn out the way I had thought. No, my friend, it didn’t. I had a bad history during the first two years of middle school. Let me begin my story.

It all started when I first came to this school, as a new student. I am an only child born to a slightly wealthy family. Not much, but wealthy enough for my parents to send me to Kadic Academy, in France.

My parents are good people, for the most part. They love me, like I love them, and raised me well. Mostly my mom did that, though, due to the bad elements in my father. My father is very strict about my grades, and rarely tells me that he’s proud of me. Most of the time, I’m a screw-up in his eyes. My grades slip slightly, and he’s threatening to send me to military school to keep up the reputation in the Stern name. Then, on the other hand, you look at my mother, who yet still is pressuring me to do well, otherwise off to military school I go. Well, at least she was proud at me with some things. It took a lot to please my dad; he’s like a stone wall with his emotions. I never can tell whether he’s happy, mad, upset, sad, or anything. Believe me, it’s not easy being who I am.

Now, a little about me during school. My circle of friends was limited when I first came to this school. Soon, I became acquaintances with Jeremie Belpois. We later became friends. Then, I began practicing martial arts, with a Japanese girl a year above me. Yumi Ishiyama is her name. She and I practiced pencak silat every day after classes. Let me tell you, she’s really good. She can flip me in the air just as well as I can trip her strategically and toss her to the ground. About a month after Yumi and I started training together, I declared to myself that I liked her. I cared about her, very much. She became my friend very soon.

A little while after that, me, Yumi, and Jeremie started hanging out more together as a group. We decided to go exploring one day, and ventured into unknown terrain. The old factory over the bridge behind the school grounds was worth exploring, we thought. It used to be a car factory, and then was abandoned. What we discovered changed our lives forever.

While exploring, we found an old elevator, and out of curiosity, we rode it. It took us down somewhere in the basement, where there was this huge computer thing. Jeremie, being the technical genius that he is, took the controls. As if we restored the life to the computer when someone operated it, this figure appeared on the screen. A digital girl about our age was sitting in a tower somewhere, silent, as if in a digital sleep. Jeremie glanced around the desk, and picked up the headset. He questioned one small “Hello?” and the humanoid awoke from her slumber.

“Hello? Who is that? Who are you?” she asked, looking around her surroundings.

Well, Jeremie and the pink haired elf girl talked for a while, trying to determine exactly what the girl was, where she was, and why. They came to conclude that her name was Aelita, but where she was and why weren’t exactly clear. We decided that it was best if we kept this discovery a secret, who knows what could happen if it was exposed.

Then, we soon came to learn about an evil computer virus determined to take over the world. It was part of the computer program that we found in the factory. His name is XANA, and is determined to take over the world. After exploring the factory some more, we discovered that there were these scanner things that transported us to the virtual world where Aelita was. XANA activates these big tower things somewhere inside the virtual world, (called Lyoko, we found out from Aelita), which enables him to attack the outside world. The only way to stop his attacks is to use the scanners to transport us into Lyoko and to get Aelita to the tower safely. If she gets to the tower, reaches the top platform, and types in the code, she deactivates the tower, therefore stopping the XANA attack.

I really enjoy it inside Lyoko; it’s a lot of fun. Jeremie stays on Earth to control the computer, and Yumi and I get virtualized. My outfit is similar to a samurai’s outfit, and my weapon is a digital saber. Yumi’s outfit resembles a Japanese geisha, and has two razor fans as weapons.

Then, my roommate, Odd Della Robbia, came. He came after I did. He is strange, and by strange, I mean very strange. His hair was combed back, nothing special to it, but had a purple spot in the middle. His outfit consisted of a pink short sleeve shirt under a purple long sleeved shirt. His pants were also purple, and he wore yellow shoes. Despite his weirdness, he began hanging out with us more and more. He wasn’t our friend yet, but we anticipated a friendship.

Then, one day, a XANA attack happened when Odd was around. Slightly scared about whether to trust Odd, we looked at the consequences. If we blew him off and ditched him, he might follow us. But, on the other hand, if we waited longer to explain to him, XANA could potentially do major damage to our world.

“Odd, can you keep a secret?” Yumi questioned after we all pondered it for a few seconds. With a single nod of his head, we motioned for him to follow us, and ran to the forest. We looked all around when we came closer to the covered manhole, in fear that someone would see us. Upon establishing that we were alone, we uncovered the manhole and all slid inside. Down in the sewers, we dashed through the tunnel to the main floor of the factory.

Odd’s jaw dropped as we emerged out from the elevator. Seeing the huge supercomputer baffled him. He tried to question where he was, but we told him we needed to get to the scanners. We raced to the elevator, and when we arrived on the second basement floor, we all took one scanner. Odd was amazed. He stepped in the scanner, and looked all around. Then, the door shut, and it began to virtualize us.

We all were materialized into Lyoko, except for Jeremie, of course. Yumi and I landed nicely on our feet, but Odd didn’t have such good luck. Not being used to the sensation and the sudden drop when you’re materialized, he fell to the ground, landing squarely on his butt.

What I really liked was his outfit. He was in an all purple suit, with yellow accents, and a picture of his dog, Kiwi, who he secretly kept in the dorm room, even though you weren’t supposed to have any pets. His hair was different; it was spiked back into a point behind his head. The purple spot was slightly larger.

It wasn’t very challenging for the three of us to get past the monsters sent by XANA. A Krabe and a group of three Kankrelats was all he sent. Odd was jealous that we had weapons, and he didn’t have any noticeable ones. It just so happened that he was tormenting the Krabe when he dodged one of its lasers, and mentally thought of firing a laser or something back at it. Just as he thought, a laser-arrow shot from his wrist, hitting the Krabe right in the middle of its XANA symbol, which kills the monsters. Me and Yumi took on the Kankrelats, and had them gone in a heartbeat. We motioned to Aelita, signaling that the coast was clear, and she could come out of hiding.

Deactivating the tower was simple, and we returned to the real world. Odd and I soon became very good friends. I had three good friends now, Jeremie, Odd, and Yumi. Well, I guess you could say four, if you count Aelita as a friend, even though she’s virtual. My circle of friends was growing quite rapidly, and our knowledge about Lyoko and Aelita wasn’t accumulating very fast. We still didn’t know very much.

Okay, so now more about me. I was the soccer star of the school, a legend known all around France. I was an awesome player, who actually loved the sport, unlike some of the other jerks who just played to win over the girls. Girls. That there was one troublesome word.

See, I had a bit of a ‘fan club.’ Main occupant and founder: Sissi Delmas, a.k.a. the principal’s spoiled, brat of a daughter. She would follow me around whenever possible, and call me by the most annoying nicknames such as “Ulrich Dear.” Whenever a dance was coming up, she’d waltz right over to my lunch table, and say to me “Ulrich Dear, what time are you picking me up for the dance tonight?” like I had already told her I’d go with her. Ha, ha, ha. Only in her dreams would I be caught with her at a party.

My love life in these years was like a coin. On one side was heads, or Sissi, and on the other side, there was tales, which I think of as Yumi. See, on the tales side, my heart skipped a beat every time Yumi was around.

But, I’m the type of person who hides their emotions. I secretly liked her for a while, until it slipped one day to Odd. I literally begged and pleaded for him not to say anything. Being a loyal friend, he still has kept his secret.

So, things went well for about a year, and I began liking Yumi even more. Odd almost convinced me that I loved her. I didn’t think it was that extreme, but who knew.

Then, this new kid, William Dunbar, was transferred to Kadic Academy after getting kicked out of his last school for shoving a teacher down the stairs. He was in Yumi’s grade, so they hung out somewhat, making me jealous.

Keeping my cool, I tried not to let it show that I was jealous. Well, William hung out with Yumi a lot more, and began hinting to us that he liked her. Sure enough, he came up to me one day, and told me: “If you don’t make your move quick on Yumi, I’ll make mine.” This angered me more than you can believe.

Well, I pondered his statement for a while, but also tried to stay away from my “fan club.” Sissi had been getting more and more annoying, bratty, and persistent. Who knew that having a fan club could be so annoying?

Right about this time, Jeremie and Aelita had been working together to find more information about Lyoko. They discovered that Jeremie could be able to make a materialization code for Aelita, that way she could be on Earth with us, and get virtualized and materialized like us. Jeremie worked on it for weeks on end, and finally, right at the end of the school year, he found a way for it to work.

Of course, we would need Aelita to stay with us, since she had no family on Earth that we knew of, and so that when XANA attacked, we could fight. Odd decided that, since he was the best at forging letters, he would write a letter signed by his mom saying that Aelita was his “cousin.” Once they sent the letter to the school, Mr. Delmas, the principle, allowed Aelita to come to the school. Odd told him that she would be able to attend next week. Jeremie still needed time to materialize her onto Earth.

The code worked, and Aelita was able to stay with Yumi at her house until she could get a dorm room.

Life, I could say, was going well.

So, months went by, and mine and Yumi’s relationship went almost nowhere. Odd got more and more persistent, telling me that I was in love, and to just ask her out. Of course, I didn’t, and to my luck, William didn’t make a move on Yumi, either.

I really had a big problem on my hand, there was a love-square on our hands. Sissi liked me, I liked Yumi, William like Yumi, and we weren’t sure who Yumi liked. We weren’t even sure if she liked anyone at all.

Reality started sinking into my veins, as William began liking Yumi more. They hung out a lot more than before. I began taking interests in Emily Leduc, a girl in my grade. She was a nice, average girl, who was very smart. We began hanging out a lot, and some even considered us as together. Then, our friendship backed off a little, as XANA’s attacks got more frequent.

I struggled through that year of school very difficulty. I had to balance my grades with soccer, friends, and Lyoko.

My life may seem to be going, for the most part, well up until now. I could stand my life, up until the beginning of this year.

Over the summer, Emily and I grew closer, yet again. We decided to go out, after Yumi and I grew further apart, and she grew closer to William. Really the only thing that kept us friends was the XANA attacks.

Emily and I were happy in our relationship. We really liked one another, and could count on one another, too. She was the kind of girl that you could call up at any hour in the night, and could talk for hours with. She was the type of girl who you could tell anything to, and could trust with your deepest, most secret secrets.

We went out all over the summer, growing closer and closer together. Sissi never let it go once, tormenting me just as she did when I liked Yumi. Then, school started, and things changed.

Emily and I got into a fight about a week after school began. It couldn’t be about a more stupid topic, either. We argued about how I didn’t return her numerous phone calls one time over the summer. As it turns out, there was actually a really severe XANA attack, so the gang and I headed to the factory. Then, Emily asked me why she saw me running through the woods with Yumi. I, of course not wanting to tell her ‘oh yeah, we were running in the woods to find a manhole taking us to the underground sewers that lead us to a super computer, that holds the scanners to transport us to a virtual world called Lyoko,’ wasn’t sure what to say.

And, due to my silence, she inferred that I was actually out with Yumi that day, which I tried to tell her wasn’t the case. On top of that, all evidence pointed against my case, since she saw me leaving with Yumi, and returning with her later that night. That’s what lead to our breakup. I swear, I really wish we never broke up, and I wish she believed me. I really cared about her. Now, she’s just launched me into recovering from a messy break-up.

Then, about a week ago, I learn that William asked Yumi out, and she accepted. I was ready to attack William, and at one point, almost did. Luckily, Odd was there that night to talk me out of it.

The worst part is: they’re happy. Very happy. They can be seen going from class to class with each other, he walks her home against the schools rules; he spends every moment with her whenever possible, the whole deal. Not to mention how elated Yumi is. The secret notes he leaves her, roses at her door, coded messages, they all make her very excited. Her day is made when she woke up and found a note tied onto a bouquet of flowers left on her doorstep signed “William.”

Of course, since I am just coming out of a messy relationship, the green monster of jealousy overpowers me more and more every day. Whenever I look back on my life, I can say I’ve had a pretty good life, in the beginning, and a bad turnout at the end.

My friends have even stopped talking to me, for the most part. Jeremie and Aelita hang out more and more, trying to discover new things about Lyoko. Odd’s experimenting with all different types of people, and even talking to me less and less because I’m depressed.

Depressed. That is one word that describes me very well. I’ve lost my only love to William Dunbar, who is in my opinion, the idiot of the school. I’ve lost a great friend after a messy relationship. I’ve gained a very annoying follower ever since mine and Emily’s relationship didn’t work out. God, I swear, I’m going to flip the next time I hear that spoiled, bratty tone of voice in my ear. “Ulrich Dear . . . Ulrich Dear . . .” It haunts me!

I sulk all day long outside of classes, and struggle so much now to deal with things. My life is a mess, and for once, I agree with my father that I’m a screw up. A screw up who has lost all he had, which wasn’t much, just basically love. One of the main points in life is to love or be loved, and I definitely failed that.

So, here’s where I sit, reviewing my sorry excuse for a life. I seriously feel that I have no reason to live . . .

until . . .

“Ulrich?” a voice with a slight Japanese accent spoke softly.

“What do you want? Don’t you want to be with What’s-His-Face?” I shot back.

“I dumped William. Just now.”

For the first time in a while, I felt my heart skip a beat. No reason to live now? I’m not so sure. Tales never fails.