A Land of Despair

6 Laps.

I walked into the classroom from the dorms, ready for the day, head held high as usual and head directly for my seat. There were 20 minutes to spare before the attendance was called.

Everyone was in the approved uniform. Blue blazer, white shirt and blue bottoms.

Her seat was right in front of mine. She smiled her smile and waved enthusiastically, how could someone be this jovial early in the morning. It was irritating, I gave her a nod and busied myself with my books.

"I didn't see you in the dining hall over the weekend, what were you eating otherwise?" She spoke as though she was in a rush, wanting answers immediately.

I ignored her.

Tap tap tap on my table.

"Adam...? Hey..."

Tap tap tap on my table.

"The food they serve here is not that great, but it's not bad either, I can't imagine staying a whole weekend without food. That's what you did right? With your friends Mike and Tina?"

"What we do, with our time is our business."
Speak of the devil.
Tina stood beside me, in her full uniform with her hands on her hip, no hair out of place. Her stance dared Hope to as again.

She smiled, I threw my head back and sighed.

"Good morning Tina," she stretched to look over Tina and waved at the person behind her. "Good morning Mike."

They were twins, though Mike never wore the complete uniform, always wearing a hoodie instead of a blazer, it made him look somewhat messy.

"Hey." Was all he said.

"I bet you guys had a fun weekend." Her posture seemed expectant of an answer.

"It wasn't bad," Mike responded as he passed her by to get to his seat two rows away.

"Winter!" Hope said in a sing song, as she got up to give her friend a hug.
Her best friend Winter Sunflower. Of all the people she could have been friends with, she chose Winter. One of the 4 controller children in our class.

They hugged right in front of me, it was as if they were not together all weekend.

I was glad the teacher came at that very moment and everyone took there seats, I was not ready to listen to the two of them talk about anything and nothing in particular.

The lessons dragged on as usual, all teachers at this school were controllers, as it was one of the best schools around it took a lot of hard work to get, and stay in.
So as much as I hated sharing a class with and being taught by these things, I had to persevere to show that they weren't going to change anything about me.

Excel in all ways possible.

During P.E the students in the athletics team trained separately from the rest of the class, ours was more rigid and dense, so it puzzled me that Hope was on the athletics team.

She whined constantly about the training, but the coach would humor her, so she got away with things like that.

"I want you to do 6 laps after warm up today, then you can go." He shouted. "Adam is in charge." With that he gave no further explanation and left us on the field.
There was ten of us on the team, myself and Tina included.

"Okay everyone, we warm up 5 minutes then we go straight into the laps, when you complete your laps, cool down and you can leave." I left no room for discussion.

"Yes sir," Hope chirped, giving a mock salute.

Sigh

We finished the warm ups and began running, everyone was allowed to go at their own pace provided they finished the given rounds.

On lap 3 and I kept a strong steady pace, not wanting to tire myself out to a point that I'd have to start walking to get some rest in, I could hear the thud of someone running behind me, but they never caught up or past me, I payed no mind and concentrated on my breathing instead.

"Wanna race?" Tina asked as she caught up, her breath hitched, always looking for any sort of competition against me, even though she was not that good a runner.

"Okay, let's see what you've go-"
Before the sentence was done she had bolted ahead, but my pace stayed the same, I had no intention of racing with her... she would tire half way through and start walking, making it quite easy to pass her.

Lap 5 and most were either walking on the track or sitting by the side Tina as well, they knew they could not leave until they were done, there was no use reminding them, my pace and the person who had been mirroring my running stayed the same, curious about who it was, I took a glance, it was Hope.

She was clearly one of the stronger runners, it puzzled me why she whined so often.

As my eyes left her to look forward, my vision blurred. Not in a way you it shows when there's tears in your eyes, it was like all the colors mixed together in the center.

I slowed down.

Oh God, not now... please don't let this happen, not now.

I could see but I couldn't see.
Aura.
Everything had become smudged together in my line of sight.

My fingers started tingling and my tongue became numb, my throat felt like it was closing. The place was spinning and I did not realize that I was on my knees.

I felt a warm sensation on my arm, it was numb and I did not know that someone was touching me.

"Adam, what's wrong?" It was Hope. Unable to make out her face,I could only tell who it was because of her voice.

I sat down, really wanting to lay down, but she held me up.

"Are you okay?"

Incoherent mumbling was all I could manage, it sounded right in my mind but my mouth did not cooperate. So I gave up talking and closed my eyes as a wave of excruciating pain hit me, it would be over eventually anyway, best to fall asleep and let it pass.

"Hey! You guys, Come help me."

"What happened?"

"What's wrong with him?"

"I don't know, he just stopped and sat. I can't understand anything he's saying."

"Tina, what should we do?"

"He... we should, let's take him to the nurses office."

I had to block everything out, my head was pounding, it felt like someone was living in my head and pounding haphazardly, trying to break free from my skull. It was so painful, at that moment, I was ready to have my whole head detached from my body to make it stop.

The events that followed were vague. I was on the field, then in the nurse's office.

Tina and Mike were by my side. The room was too bright.

I got up to vomit.
Motion sick.

Hope and the nurse were talking to Tina. It had gotten dark.

I got up to vomit.

My throat was dry, I drank some water but got up almost immediately to vomit again. The nurse gave me an injection to make it stop, I wondered why she didn't give it to me sooner.

As I looked around the room a few hours later, the worst of the pain was gone. I sat up, feeling much better. One would think I was faking the whole thing.

The room was silent, an occasional beep from the air conditioner the only sound to be heard. The other two beds in the bay were empty, it was eerie.

I was still in my P.E attire, the clothing damp from the sweating I had done during my episode. My hair was a mess, I held my head in my hands and raked through it. This is the first time it happened in public, while at school, too far to get to my medication on time.
Hopefully no one thought I was wierd or frail because of it.