Spooky Challenge 2024 — Day 3
It is day three of my October writing challenge. “PLM,” you cry, “The day is almost over. What are you even doing?!”
Okay. Listen here, dear reader. I may or may not have stayed up until 4am the previous night preparing for a DnD adventure for my crew and hand-made physical puzzles. Don’t even. Haha. Why did I do this to myself? I don’t know.
Today’s prompt:
“The runner’s high brings euphoria and a sense of freedom. But one night, that feeling leads down a deadly path of destruction – leaving the runner with no memory of what they’ve done or why.” – Chris Anderson
A Sisyphean Marathon
The man in black shorts and white sports shirt ran through the streets of Denver, though he could not remember why.
Once he had known. Once he had had a reason. He had been running from something concrete. Something with meaning. Something that had filled him with fear and guilt.
Bystanders reached for him, cheeks stained with tears.
They begged him to stop.
They sought to halt him.
He kept running.
Once he had had a name. He had had a life beyond running.
Running used to be a hobby, a way to keep in shape. He had tracked his miles, his speed, his improvements and failings. It was just something in his schedule.
Overhead the sun was failing. It ran like broken yolk. The sky couldn’t cradle it anymore.
Police cars screeched around the corner, cops piled out. Their faces lined deeply with trenches of terror. Their guns shook in their hands.
He couldn’t stop. Wouldn’t stop.
What chased him couldn’t be allowed to catch him. He wouldn’t let it.
They’d have to kill him first.
In his mind, fogged with exertion and sorrow, he urged them to end it. But they hesitated and then it was too late. The wake that followed him distorted them. They screamed, were lost.
He kept running.
His wake chased him.
To be caught would mean an awakening. He couldn’t face it.
His hands stained burgundy with past sins, a heart darkened with a memory he would not allow himself to see.
He heard the child’s cries.
His? Or the one he’d just passed, ruined by his following destruction.
His body refused to feel tired, he expected it to fail. His lungs betrayed him by easily sucking in air, his muscles burned barely, his heart kept a steady, judgementalism tune. His body sought to punish him. His mind screamed to veil him. His crime, his sin, chased him.
His hands hummed with tension, curled in permanent claws as they pumped by his sides. He could feel the memory of a small body, its being thrumming with colic wails.
His mind reeled away.
A woman tried to drive her van into him. His body reacted, dodged, though his mind begged to be released. She disappeared into the distortion behind him, her screams bouncing off the decaying buildings.
Just like her screams had echoed when his sin had been discovered. When he had failed the two people in his life he should have loved the most.
He was weak.
And so, weak, his body fled, his mind a prisoner. Trapped in hell, unable to stop though he begged it all to end.
Denver fell in days, its buildings crumbling to molten ruin. Its people bone and tears in glowing dust. He continued down the highway. Overhead copters churned the air and the cries of a dying child chased him as he ran.
And ran.
And ran.
x PLM
