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Challenge of the Month VIII
Running. You are (or your character is) running from something. Or running to something. Or maybe you just left the faucet running. The theme this month is running. Fiction or non-fiction, poetry or Prose. $100 purse to our favorite entry. Outstanding entries will be shared with our publishing partners.
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TBHughes
106 reads

Division

Beep. Beep. Beep.

My eyes dart to the monitor. The drum of my heart continues to strum with that light tick, that same tick that has kept my eyes open ever since the doctor found that cluster of life-sucking cells in my brain that grow like a muscle on steroids.

Beep. Beep. Beep.

I don’t want to sleep. If I let my eyes close, there is a good chance they will never open.

Beep. Beep. Beep.

With an unnecessary gremice, I shift. The tubes in my throat and arms pulse with an objection, but I ignore them. I pull the thin piece of linen that is my hospital bed sheet up to my shoulders.

Beep. Beep. Beep.

The moon is full tonight—not a good sign. If I were a wolf, I could howl at the sky like it was my last night on earth, only to wake and find the sun the next morning. If I were a vampire, I could feast on the blood in people’s veins, no remorse in my soul. If I were the devil, I could kno the fear I invoke with the shadows.

But I’m not a supernatural: I’m a human being killed by the destructive force of my own cells.

Beep. Beep...Beep.

My head thunders at the slight change in altitude on the monitor. That last red line falls slightly lower, then the next, then the next. For once, my heart alters away from the clock.

Beep...Beep. Beep.

Time has always been an enemy of mine, but never as much so as now. It’s running. Running. Running. It’s running away—from me, and—I’m not fast enough to grab onto it and—and—slow it down.

Beep beep. Beep.

I gasp for a breath. The voice in my head whispers what it has since the moment I found out I was dying, This is a battle you can’t win. Time is the only Savior before these poisoness cells are your destruction.

My demise. Here. Now. I’m not ready to die.

But my vision is clouded by my own eyelashes, and mist overcomes a room I know isn’t fogged. I see a light go on. Then off. I wait for it to go on. But it doesn’t.

I want to be the one running. I want to win this race against time, against the poison of this...of this...disease. I want to lace my shoes and sprint down the track, outrun the world, leave it all behind.

There’s a light. It shines over my vision.

Beep. Beep. Be—

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