The Race

5:30PM ~ Athletics Track

There he stood at the starting line, the sun was setting creating an awesome orange light in the soon to be dark sky.

Thankful that there was no breeze whatsoever tonight, Mark was excited about the possibility of wiping off a few milliseconds of his time. If he couldn’t win tonight, he wanted to run a personal best time and be as close as he could.

He looked to the crowd, the grandstand was packed with people, plenty from the different halls. They had even got someone to be the announcer, going through each runner and who they were competing for.

“Anddddd in Lane Three, Freshman student from South Wing…. Brandon Flynn!!”

A section of the crowd went to to cheer. Mark looked to his left to see a brown haired boy similar to him in height, the main difference was that tattoos he sported across his right bicep. He gave a quick fist pump to the crowd while remaining focused on the task at hand.

“In Lane Four, Sophomore student from East Hall… Mark Rodgers!!!”

Mark felt his heart beating like crazy inside his chest, he gave a quick wave to the section of the crowd that stood up cheering. From where he was at the starting line, he couldn’t see them clearly so he spent the next few seconds wondering who would be in there.

He was sure Winter and Tiffany would be after there help from the day before. Probably Jess too, Cassidy for sure, maybe guys like Macca even came down to watch him run.

That weight on his shoulders felt like it was only increasing as he wondered how many people he knew were watching. Another extra ten kilos he thought.

“In Lane 5… the number one odds-on favourite… Senior from North Wing…. Kyle Simpson!!!!”

It was the loudest cheer yet, Mark looked to his right, this time looking straight up. The blonde boy, if you could say boy, this was a true man, who was built like a brick house. Kyle didn’t even acknowledge the loud crowd, he was solely thinking about winning the race as everyone had predicted him to do so.

The announcer went through all lanes before one of the college sports coaches who was giving his time up to volunteer, announced it was time.

“Alright boys!! On your marks!!”

“Set….!”

‘BANG’, the starting gun went off and it was game on.