In the sweltering summer of the European countryside, the sound of cicadas and the river flowing could be heard.
Among the noises, was the heavy breathing of a teenage boy.
Despite his relatively young age, under his basketball shorts and t-shirt, he was fairly well built and toned.
His short dark brown hair was pulled back by the air and wet with sweat.
He stood still looking down into the river flowing through the valley.
“Hey, Jean! Slow down will ya?!”
The boy, Jean, turned to face the direction of the voice.
Jogging towards him was a group of teenagers, similar in age.
Jean took a sip from his water bottle as he waved at them.
“Sorry, I just started jogging, and before I knew it, I ended up pretty far ahead,”
The boy who had been at the front of the group behind Jean leaned on Jean's shoulders before looking at him with a face of exhaustion and agony.
“You were just jogging, and you ended up five miles ahead of us!?”
Jean gave him an apologetic smile as he responded;
“Sorry Joel, I’ll slow down,”
Joel eventually pushed himself off Jean's shoulder and gave him a hard smack on the back.
Jean, caught off guard, tripped forward a bit, but caught himself before falling.
“Seriously, we keep telling you to participate in the track meets. If you did, maybe we’d actually win something every once in a while,” Joel said with a hint of despair.
A girl with long dark hair, tied in a ponytail, stepped out from the back of the group and joined the conversation;
“Joel’s right Jean! A lot of us are graduating this year, and honestly, I don’t want to graduate and say that I was part of a sports team that never won anything!”
Jean let out a laugh as he said;
“Sorry Liz, but you know I don’t like standing out,”
“Agh! Well, do whatever you want! Just know that I’ll never forgive you if you don’t participate in at least one event before the season ends!”
The rest of the group laughed at Joel's lackluster scolding of Jean.
Eventually, Joel rallied everyone and together, with Jean, they jogged back towards the school.
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Back at the school, Jean quickly took a shower in the boy’s locker room and got dressed.
As he left the room, he pulled out his phone to check the time.
4:30…
He put his phone back in his pocket and began walking towards the gates of the school.
Jean walked along a cement path for about fifteen minutes before coming across a set of stairs going down into the valley.
He took the stairs and found himself in a small town.
There were tons of people who had just finished work and were beginning to head home.
The produce stands and stalls remained open and the convenience stores neon open signs remained bright.
Jean walked past all the shops and people and eventually found himself in a cul-de-sac.
He stopped in front of a white house and shuffled around in his bag for keys.
After finding them, he opened the front door to the house and walked in.
From the kitchen, he heard a gravely, yet warm and welcoming voice.
“Welcome back Jean, how was track?”
A man around the age of 56, with short graying hair and an equally graying beard, peaked his head into the entryway of the house.
Jean took his shoes off as he responded;
“It was fine Klaus,”
The man, Klaus, laughed.
“You know you really ought to go to one of those track meets,”
Jean dropped his bags on the table in the kitchen.
The aromatic smell of basil and oregano filled the room.
“I told you, I don’t like standing out.”
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“So, you’re confident that you’d win all the events?”
Jean took a seat at the kitchen table and stretched his arms.
“No, I mean, it’s just that I end up running ahead of my teammates all the time even when I’m just jogging. If I were to run in an event, wouldn’t that make me stand out even more?”
“Why don’t you want to stand out? Isn’t it a good thing to be fast in a sport like track?”
“I don’t know. I guess, I just feel weird when I compare myself to others,”
Klaus turned off the stove and let out an exaggerated laugh.
“The worries of a teenage boy! You shouldn’t feel like you need to hide yourself. Sometimes, people need some motivation to get things rolling again. And from the looks of it, your school's team definitely needs something like that.”
“I just don’t want them to hate me or anything,”
“I didn’t raise you to be cocky. If you’re honest with them and considerate, they won’t have a reason to hate you,”
Jean let out a brief sigh before cracking a smile.
“I guess you’re right,”
“So, are you going to run in an event?”
“Yeah, I guess so.”
The two of them smiled at each other as Klaus began pouring soup into bowls.
“Ah! Go wash your hands!” Klaus yelled as Jean was about to start eating his food.
“Oh! My bad,”
Jean quickly got up and rushed to get washed.
Klaus had a wry smile on his face as he pushed up his glasses.
As Klaus sat there he couldn’t help but think;
I hope he can continue to live like this.
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The next day, after classes had finished, Jean made his way towards the track field.
As he made his way there, he noticed the stands were full of people.
Both people he knew and those who were strangers.
On the side of the track, stood his teammates who were stretching and preparing to run.
Joel, turned his shaved head to see Jean walking down onto the track.
A huge smile grew on his face as he placed his water bottle down on a nearby bench.
“You came!”
Joel stretched his arms and legs as Jean made his way over to the rest of the team.
Jean smiled and gave Joel a couple of pats on the back.
“I can’t have you being angry at me for ruining your last year of track!”
“You know! You’re actually a really great guy Jean!” Joel said with enthusiasm.
From behind the two of them, a girls voice called out;
“Look who decided to finally show up,”
Jean turned around to see who it was;
“I decided that I wouldn’t let you guy’s down this time,” Jean replied.
Elizabeth, or Liz as Jean would say, had her long and silky dark brown hair tied up in a ponytail. She was wearing the track teams tank-top jersey and some black running shorts. Her skin was reasonably tanned. Many of the boys' eyes unconsciously wandered to her hourglass-like figure as her clothes stuck closely to her body. Her long legs and above-average breasts made her a popular topic amongst the boys in the school.
She snapped back up from a brief stretch and gave a supportive smile and a thumbs up to Jean.
“Don’t disappoint us, Jean!”
Jean, Liz, and Joel eventually made their way to their respective events as the crowd began chanting in preparation for the first event.
*****
Jean stretched his legs as he stood in his lane on the track.
There were five other lanes next to him spread out in front and behind him.
The other five contestants were all tall and well built.
Joel was standing in the inside lane of the track.
Two lanes separated them.
As Jean was stretching and breathing, the announcer began to speak!
“Welcome ladies and gentlemen to the track meet between Garden Groves Highschool and Cornett Highschool! We’re starting the day off with the 100-meter dash.”
As the announcement continued, the starter walked to the sidelines of the track and prepared to signal the start of the race.
“Runner’s take your mark!”
All the runners including Jean got down and tucked themselves into the starting position.
A few seconds after, the starting gun went off with bang!
Immediately, Jean pushed off the block with all his might and began running forward.
Jean had his eyes closed during the start and after only a brief second after, he opened his eyes to see that he was already ahead of everybody else.
“What a display of speed right from the get-go!” the announcer shouted.
Jean instinctively started to slow his pace a little bit while still maintaining his position.
He looked back to see Joel, who was three positions behind him.
After slowing his pace, the two runners directly behind Jean began to close the gap slowly.
Jean faced forward once more and steadied his pace, keeping in mind the distance between him and the runner behind him.
I’ll make this runner exhaust himself as we reach the finish line and then I’ll make a break for it!
Jean hatched a plan and put it into action.
He increased his speed a little.
Enough to provoke the runner behind him to start exerting more energy to keep up.
Jean peeked behind him to see the runner behind sweating and breathing harder than before.
Jean’s plan was working.
Moving his attention back in front of him, he increased his speed a little more, and by then, the runner who was on Jean’s tail had fallen back behind Joel.
Seeing this, Joel began to get excited and picked up the pace for the last stretch of the race.
Through some smart thinking and maneuvering, Joel now ended up right behind Jean as the two of them neared the finish line.
Jean looked back to meet Joel eye-to-eye, and they both smiled at each other.
As the two of them were about to cross the finish line, screams echoed from the crowds.
Confused Jean looked into the crowd and noticed looks of panic amongst the spectators.
He turned his head behind him once more and saw that Joel was no longer there.
Jean immediately stopped himself from running.
He scanned the area and noticed a cloud of dust and dirt in the middle of the field.
The color in Jean’s face sank away, and his eyes began to shake uncontrollably.
His vision was getting unstable as he tracked a trail of blood from the track lanes to the field itself.
As the dust and dirt settled, he saw a large hairy bat-like creature hunched over a body.
The more Jean looked, the more he realized.
The body was squashed to a pulp, and its guts were spread out across the grass.
Yet the bodies face remained untouched.
Tears began to well up in Jean’s eye’s as he remained unable to move.
“JOEL!”