Let's Take the Road Before Us

Prologue

The snow flurried around me in great wisps, swirling and twirling like dancers on a stage. The crisp air seeped through my layers of clothes but was finally halted by my long underwear. My legs posed, slightly bent at the knees, ready for flight.

"One... Two... Three... Go!"

I used my muscular arms to propel me through the gates, whipping down the hill like a runner off the starting blocks. Which was, in a way, what I was.

Immediately, the wind started whipping at my clothes and already-numb face, but I hardly noticed the cold. Adrenaline started pumping through my veins, making me feel alive. Really alive. I felt lost in my own world, king of the mountain. I wish I could live my whole life like that, with that feeling from endorphins.

Not of that mattered, though. All my focus was on the approaching red fabric flapping in the wind. The first flag.

My mind told my legs to lean to the left, my neurons carrying the command down to my legs in a millisecond. My muscles responded without hesitation, already used to this kind of thing. Without looking, I could already tell that the tips of my skis had turned to the left, changing my direction to swerve around the flag.

The marker flew by and I could feel, in some inexplicable way, that I was beating my record.

Each flag came and went, came and went. My legs, and by extension my skis, responding to every color, every stimulus. Red, blue, red, blue. One, two, three. One, turn. Two, turn. Three, turn. They all blurred by as I weaved, turned, swerved.

After about a minute of intense concentration and exercise, I cleared the last flag. Now, just a short dip to the flag. Nothing, really. Insignificant.

To trim that extra little time that could mean the difference between breaking my PR or not, I bent my knees so I was minimizing the resistance. My poles crossed behind my back like strange spikes growing from my vertebrae.

Purple and green spots materialized in my vision. They swirled around like some optical illusion, but I ignored it completely. That always happened when I was going fast.

Within a second, I zipped across the finish line. I hockey stopped almost right away, causing fresh powder to spray up in front of me. The disturbed snow drifted, like a wall, towards me and blinded me. White room, we called it.

I started to relax as I unclenched my muscles and let go of a breath I didn't realize I had been holding. After I had released that one, a barrage of quick breaths bombarded me. My lungs burned, but it felt amazing. The cold air cooled them down, along with my overworked muscles.

A woman completely wrapped up in layer upon layer of clothing started jogging towards me, her breath swirling in front of her as she approached. As I was waiting for her, I pulled down my ski mask so I could breath freely.

"Nice job Dean! You PRed!" Her voice grew closer and closer until she was directly in front of me. I leaned down and pressed my lips to her's as she smiled beneath me. She tasted sweet, like hot cocoa.

When she pulled away she said, "That's a day's work! You've improved!"

This was what Lisa always did, she wanted to get off the mountain so we could maybe cuddle and watch a movie. I always disagreed; she wasn't my main priority like everyone expected. Skiing was.

Silently, I shook my head. "Again."