"I am Unnamed. My title is dead."
In the World, the Planet, and the Base, it's either be number one or die.
The alternative to dying, however, is to become an Unnamed. Turning eighteen means that you will compete for your name. Come out on top, you...
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The number twenty-five is the first thing on the Runner's mind as his eyes open before they're supposed to. Everyone is still asleep while his mind is on overdrive. The events of the past few days, of the past year run through his head just like he had been running for his life yesterday.
He slips down from the top bunk and gets dressed, throwing his just-cleaned-yesterday jacket on and his shoes that are starting to smell. The day is just beginning, the sun not even over the horizon yet as he takes off into the darkness that is starting to ebb away. So many emotions play in his heart as he laps the World once, twice... Why him? Why does he have to be the one to take on the Unnamed rebellion-revolution group? He saw what happened to Rachel last year, and there's no telling where Stark disappeared to. If they can do that to their own people, who knows what they are able to do to the people they're against? The people like the Runner?
Today's training is rough on the Runner. His mind isn't focused on what is going on outside of him, let alone what he is doing. Thoughts lead him astray and his pacing slows every so often. Mortimer the Elite Solver has to scold him a few times to snap the boy out of it, which he never has to do. The Runner doesn't see the boy all day, even as he runs errands and messages for the Elite Solver, which take him literally everywhere inside of the World.
He climbs in his bed, both mentally and physically exhausted. The obsession over what he needs to do next before the Competitions in twenty-five days has strained him. He has no trouble falling asleep.
The next morning, he wakes up at the right time and gets to exercise with the rest of the Runners in his building. He still runs ahead and laps everyone, but not as much as before all of the things with the Unnamed happened. He pushes himself harder and harder as he sprints, making himself even more tired than he should be after a warm-up.
Mortimer gives him several messages to deliver, and he runs across the hot, cracked pavement and through the still, dry air. His jacket clings to him as if he'd been drenched with water.
Twenty-four, he thinks to himself as he makes his last stop.
The Runner has trouble sleeping after his head hits the pillow. Soon he is dreaming. It's not a pleasant dream, no. He relives the death of Harmony, of Rachel, except that he's standing before them, like how the boy had been standing when he made the Runner run on the track. The only difference is, is that in the dream, the Runner was the one that pulled the trigger.
He wakes up in cold sweat, well before daybreak and goes to sit on the stool by the window Harmony had been outside the night he first saw her. The night sky is like a dark blue blanket and the stars remind the Runner of little spots of light. The way the sparkle and twinkle remind him of the camera flashes at the Competitions.
He stays like that until dawn, the sun breaking him from his thoughts.
Twenty-three.
The Runner hears other Runners start to wake up and shuffle around. He goes into the small kitchen that branches off of the big bedroom for the Runners and heats up some extra eggs that had been left over from yesterday.
