Mom always warned me ‘Faust, one day you’re going to piss someone off you can’t outrun.’ Of course I never believed her, why should I have? I was the single fastest man in the world! By someone’s god I earned that damned title, because when I entered the game I changed the nature of the sport. I was a revolutionary. Other guys didn’t run to win anymore, they couldn’t. The only shot they had was second place, because I was number one, the only number one. I sure as hell knew it, and they sure as hell knew it. A world built on the values of the self made man crumbled before me as I taught it a cruel lesson: heroes were in fact born, not made.

  That is not to say I didn’t train. For me, training was an unavoidable consequence of my condition. One might ask, ‘what is this condition you speak of?’ Well, some might say I’m ‘too big for my britches’, or even call me a narcissist, but I think that’s a bit extreme, don’t you? Regardless, some people can get away with such a condition. They have power. Some are big. Some are mean. Some have connections. Me? I well, I’m just one asshole.

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

  The best piece of advice I’ve ever heard in my whole life was not ‘be yourself”, although that has probably not helped in my case. It was actually ‘fast people don’t get caught’, and as you can imagine, my shrivelled black heart took to it. While others ran for fun, or to lose one or none of their already too many pounds, I was running for my life. Soon enough, nobody could lay a hand on me, and in time, no man could match me. I learned to run on a primal level, which set me apart from those who could at best only take second.

  With the acquired skill of running for my life my ego exploded from inordinate to unconscionable. As the fastest man in the world I was not famous; I was notorious. Rumor had it I was a cheater: steroids, doping, black magic, the works. Some even spoke of a deal with the devil. To those who thought such things, I may have pitied their narrow peasant minds if I had a soul. Despite this, some people loved to hate me. Most just hated me. I had no problem with that, in fact, it empowered me. I became a god among men, one that fed on the hatred generated by mere mortals.

  Ah, if only I was truly immortal.