I didn’t wait to see if he’d try again, making my way down the other side of the wall.
It felt like I had been running for my entire life. A throbbing cramp had formed in my side, that I was doing my best to ignore while I continued running. The sweat was so thick now that my entire body was coated in it. It was dripping off the ends of my hair.
The scorching heat hadn't let up at all. If anything, the day was getting hotter.
Just one more obstacle, I told myself.Keep running.
Focusing became an effort. I was repeating a mantra to myself, just one more step. One more. Just one more step.
If I repeated it enough times, I'd at least make it across the finish line before I passed out.
My lungs were well beyond pain at this point, they felt like I had sunburned them from the inside out, then sanded them down with bark. There wasn’t enough energy left to think about the next obstacle before it arrived.
It was an arch made of hollowed out stone, with a ceiling too low to run through and too high to jump or climb over. It was a tunnel. Trepidation spiked. The challenge here was no longer purely physical, but also mental. This was going to be harder than any of the other obstacles, not because of its literal difficulty, but because of how miserable it would be to get back up and run again once I reached the other side of the tunnel.
Sinking onto my knees as I reached the entrance, burning sand scalded my kneecaps and hands, hotter than earlier. I scrambled forward, heaving for air as I crawled. This wasprecious time to try to refill my lungs with air, which were no longer expanding fully when I breathed. I used every second of it.
The tunnel was also an oven. The sun had been baking it, because it was twice as hot inside as out. Dripping sweat blistered against my skin.
Thinking beyond the pain was possible again though. And the stitch in my side was less bothersome. I would be able to finish this race, and maybe, if I was lucky, be fast enough at it to qualify for Voyager service.
It was too soon to let myself hope.
The end of the tunnel was in sight, I needed to get back up.
Stumbling out the other side, I tried to rock back up with a push from my hands onto my feet. I fell backwards onto my ass.
Trying again, this time I used my knees and the wall of the tunnel as leverage to pull myself up. Canting to the right, my leg protested the movement as I tried to stand up straight.
Just one more step.
I sucked in fire for air, forcing my legs to move.
Just one more step.
I was running again, and it hurt so much. Everything now was beyond scorching. My leg muscles were screaming, aching, and seizing up underneath me. My arms were throbbing leaden weights pulling me down, my shoulders searing attachment points. My body had become one solid line of pain, extending from my neck to my ankles. Keeping this up was impossible, I was surely going to die.
Just one more step. One more breath.
I had to make it into the top one hundred. I couldn’t rest for even a second longer than I already had.
Relief hit me with crushing force when the familiar finish line appeared ahead. It was only a few minutes away now. It was too far to see how many people were already on the other side of the line.
I closed my eyes, they weren't helping me much anymore past all the sweat pouring into them. Shaking my head to try to clear some of it, I continued stumbling blindly forward.
One more step.
One. More. Step.
Opening my eyes, the finish line was close now. Falling forward would be enough to cross it.
So that’s exactly what I did. I collapsed on the other side of the line, sprawling out in the sand and wheezing for air like a drowned creature. I had been marinated in sweat, grilled, then pounded into a thin sheet of human meat. Nothing audible made it past the rushing beat of my frenetic heartbeat.
Someone dragged me by the underarms further past the finish line at some point.
I don't know how long I stayed like that. Eventually, I managed to breathe regularly again.
Opening watering eyes, I stared straight up at the sky.
