Running Blind // Discontinued

Prologue

The sun beat down on my head. Sweat was forming along my brow, and my muscles were starting to ache. All my body wanted to do was shut down, but I wouldn't let it. I pushed forward, letting my feet touch the sandy earth. I could see the other girl, next to me, but I wasn't about to let her win.

I could hear the crowd's vicious cheers, echoing through the grey skies like the roar of thunder.
The voices of my family, my friends, pushed me forward on the wings of an angel. I could smell the grease of hamburgers and nachos being served by the food truck, nearby. I could taste the sweat that pooled on my lips. 

But I could see everything.

The crowd's colorful shirts, the electric green grass, still dusted with frozen dew after the rain that fell earlier that day. I could see the dark red curls of my auburn hair that had fallen from half thought out ponytail I had put it up in upon leaving the peeling yellow bus with rotting seats and a broken air conditioner.

Back then everything was so colorful. Each item I saw had a definite shape, it had a texture I could trace with my eyes. The world was so bright. And I was among it. Running down the track, in a scarlet red uniform and matching hair. I was so colorful, like everything else. I suppose that it's something everyone just takes for granted, until they lose it.

I pushed myself towards finish line that had just come into my line of sight. My strides became longer, and I felt my body give its last burst of energy as I sprinted forward. There were no words to describe the way I felt at that very moment, when my legs were screaming in agony and I had used my last breath. Although, there was nothing I'd ever trade it for.

When I was running, it felt like anything is possible. Like any one of my crazy dreams was possible. It felt like I was flying, like I had grown a pair of wings and was soaring through the usually grey skies, not even bothering to look at the small little towns below me, as I ran. And even though my physical body screamed as I pushed it to its limits, in my mindthere was nowhere I'd rather be.

As I ran through the finish line, not stopping until I felt the coach's firm hand patting my shoulder, and I stood, hunched over, with my hand's on my knees, and the sun's rays pressing down on my forehead. I had beat the other girl, if only by a second. I stood like that as my friends ran from the stands and congratulated me, already starting to reapply my makeup, and my boyfriend came down, the tiniest of hints of a smile on his face, to kiss my cheek.

A little while later, I learned my time, which I hadn't seen when I crossed the finish line. Eighteen minutes and forty three seconds, which put me in first place overall, the girl behind me coming in, only a second later. That wasn't too bad for a 3 mile course, but I knew I could do better. I should do better.

My friends had told me I expected too much from myself, as I was only in seventh grade.

I smiled as I heard my friends say how beautiful I looked, and my boyfriend say I was the best thing that had ever happened to him. These people warmed my heart. They were those people who made me feel important, and wanted in life. My friends, my boyfriend, they were what made my life perfect.

At school, everyone knew who I was, everyone wanted to be me. I wasn't all that smart, but I was all that pretty, athletic and popular as hell. I was the person everyone cared about, and I had to keep it that way. I had to keep being new and surprising, so when I was offered a ride home with my friends, I accepted it without batting an eye.

When a beer was thrust into my hand by my boyfriend, saying to drink up, I did, and when he bragged about how he'd gotten one of the upperclassmen to get it for us, I listened, and congratulated him. We all rode home together, an upperclassman I didn't recognize sitting in the front seat, swaying slightly. He'd had his fair of alcohol that night.

We all had.

I was so drunk, I didn't think much of it. Well besides how I hoped we did this every Friday night from now until forever. There was another boy I recognized from the cross-country team in the passenger side. He looked so much like the driver I automatically assumed they were brothers. I didn't know his name though. He was quiet, but his brother got us whatever we wanted so everyone liked him.

That was when I felt us swerve. It was almost like I was in a dream, or something. It must have been the alcohol, I can remember thinking. Why else would we swerve like that? Unless the car had... I remember how I saw the lights before anyone else did, although my brain was sluggish and didn't respond.

I felt the jolt forward, my unbuckled body slamming against something as my world was thrust into an inky blackness and in that moment I lost my way back to the light.