Landon's Run

This week we were asked to present a work of fiction sparked by a prompt. I won't waist much time in saying what a prompt means to me or whether it is helpful or not as I have done that in a previous post entitled "Poetry Prompts." What I would like to say, however is that I found this assignment to be rather enjoyable.

I am currently working on a large project, a fictional novel, and I have taken any opportunity that I could in order to get deeper into the minds of my characters and the world in which they live in. With that being said, I found a prompt last month and it read as followed:

Write about a race--running race, rat race, a race to the hospital--any race.

This prompt gave me the advantage to write a scene in my novel that I thought was not ready to be written yet. Sure enough, I found that it was, and it was so much fun to write the first draft. The main character's name is Landon Pierce and here is his run.

Landon’s Run

I ran, I ran faster than I have ever ran before. I was a track star in high school—finishing first place in every race but my speed was never as high as it was now. To tell you the truth, I wasn’t worrying about those things back there. Whatever they were, they weren’t gonna catch up with me—not for a while at least. At the rate I was going not even God could catch up with me. My only concern was to reach her—I had to reach Eva. I knew Jude could take care of himself and I knew that he wouldn’t let anyone or anything get to Eva but I just had to be sure; it was my responsibility.

I pushed on; I felt the sweat pour on the sides of my face, down my cheeks, in between my ears, off my nose, around my neck, stinging my eyes like mosquito bites on the surface of your skin on a hot day. The sweat didn’t matter and neither did I, all that mattered to me right now was reaching her, my love, the one that trusts me, who believes in me, and expects me to be there in her darkest moments. This was a dark moment indeed, but I wasn’t there, I wasn’t with her. I would just kill my…I would just die if…if anything happened to her. If those things were to reach her before I did.

I jumped over the Honda parked on 7^th Avenue as if I was some sort of Olympic star. I flew pass the horde of screaming people—terrified and in utter confusion. The sirens on the fire engine trucks in the distance were loud. They became ear-piercing as our paths crossed. The police cars were speeding, coming straight in my direction, heading toward the insanity that I left a few avenues behind. I swiftly turned on 23^rd Street, near missing the head of the police car. I heard a crash and turned around for a second to see the police cars head that nearly crippled me, wrapped around a cable pole. I didn’t stop though; I pushed random people out of my way as I sprinted. Those people, they stood around, watching the police cars and fire engines race by, unapparent of the massacre that was rising further downtown. My legs were starting to give in but I refused to give up. Not until I reach the school, not until I reach Eva. That’s all that I could think to myself as my heart pounded beats faster than a humming bird.