Joe sweated and wiped away the blood that was streaming from his eyes and nose. He had just placed his foot on step 100, where he was instantly crushed into the ground. The air was like a vice upon him, squeezing every aspect of his body that he could barely think. Each breath he sucked in was like trying to draw air underwater, each lung refusing to inflate like a compressed plastic bag. Unfortunately, he had fallen forward so now a return to 99 was impossible. Second by agonising second ticked by. One. More. Breath.

Each moment, Joe felt his head become lighter, his thoughts slower. Whether it was the blood loss or the lack of oxygen it was hard to tell. Vibrant images and strange sounds passed through his brain as it was slowly starved. Images of his life on the street, since forgotten. Images of the River Thames were he had spent nights pissed on the embankment. A beauty through the haze. A new feeling of nostalgia hit him as he observed the memories, a sense for all that time wasted at the bottom of a bottle. A phantom pain caressed his arm as he forced his lungs to partially inflate.

Darkness began creeping in at the edges of his images, like spidery cracks. A new image now, one of his father at his desk, magnifying glass in hand peering at a pebble. The darkness began eating at the image, and the image in response started to whirl and distort. Joe focused his mind on the back of his father’s head, which began to turn to look at Joe. It would be too late though, Joe would not see his father’s face, the darkness had eaten the magnifying glass and the pebble. It was swallowing the rest up, but still Joe focused on his dad’s head, he would see his dad’s face once more, one final time. ‘You will not take him from me’ he growled, reaching out with his hand in real life for the image of his father in front of him. Tensing every muscle in his body he forced himself to turn over, to reach his knees. The image of his father was now but a pinprick, a memory of a memory. Still he did not let his eyes waver from where he had glued them to his dad’s head.

This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

With a surge of will, he shot his right leg out, his strong leg and placed it hard on the

step. Blood cascaded out of his nose and ears spraying the steps beneath him. He ignored the bloody fountain, placing his once defunct arm on his knee to leverage himself up and pushed. The image was gone, all that he saw now was but a bloody haze. Yet he persevered. He stood and stared at where the image of his father had been and as his legs straightened out he felt a release. A burst of euphoria hit him like a truck and then he dropped. Exhausted beyond reason, he flopped to the step like a puppet with its strings cut. A slight smile was left playing across his bloody lips, he had done it.