No Rest for the Wicked (thinking about deleting idk)

#2 Don't be slow, your life depends on it

Adrenalin kicked in. We were in top gear, even Max with his injured hand had sprung to his feet. Bren was already right ahead of us, and Max was gradually catching up to him. They had left both of their rifles behind, I quickly picked one up and began to sprint. Trees brushes past me, dirt crunched beneath my feet. I felt the cool breeze against my cheek, it warned me that death was near.

I could have almost sworn I could hear a clock ticking inside my head. There didn't seem to be any living creatures in sight, no birds, no deer, no insects. It worried me a little, we seemed to be making a lot of noise. Us, and the bomb, that is. It was going at the same pace as my heart. Faster, faster, faster, so fast I thought that even I was going to explode.

I looked behind me to see whether there was anyone following me. And funnily enough, there was. Crammed behind a rock, about 1 metre tall and the first one I'd seen, was a soldier. He was in full camouflage army uniform, and I skidded to a halt as soon as I saw him. I was running out of time, for god's sake there was a bomb counting down about to blow me up any second now. But something told me though to give it a try. So I did.

"HEY!" I called out to him. He fell backwards then scrambled back up to his feet. I could see from where I was standing that he wasn't armed, an amateur officer. Me on the other hand, I had my rifle strapped to my back. He looked like he was about to faint. I slowly went to reach out my rifle, and he backed away. In slow motion I checked to see where Max and Bren were. Nowhere in sight.

"Go," I said. "I know you can understand me. Just go." He looked at me strangely. I didn't get to see the rest after that. There just wasn't enough time. Besides, he was a goner anyway.

I turned around and started sprinting again, my face had the word "stress" written all over it. I had know idea where the bomb was, when it would explode, where Max and Bren were...

My mind entered a deep flashback. My 5th birthday, my first crush, my year 6 graduation, my 200m athletics event. I came 2nd last in that race, I remember feeling like such a dork. Everyone was laughing at me, I almost tripped over my own shoelace coming over the finish line. People were laughing, telling me that the only thing I would ever be good at was Maths, which I hated. From then onwards, I practiced and practiced, all until I became the fastest girl in my grade. Somehow, I earned more respect from the kids at school. The kids who had made fun of me...

I came out of my daze and realized that I was still running. What made it even better was I could see the two of them, Bren and Max, jogging. I called out to them and they both looked at me. One of them smiled back. Max. He looked awfully pale. They stopped for me to catch up, as it seemed we were out of range.

"Are you alright?" he asked, still catching his breath. Max, the one who had been shot in the hand 15 minutes ago, was asking me whether I was 'alright'.

"No I'm fine," I said. "Never felt so fit in my life!" Bren looked at me, as if saying 'Now's not the time for jokes'. He was probably right, we'd only just gotten away in time.

"Wait a second, has the bomb even gone off?" I asked. If it had, then we would have most certainly heard it.

As if I'd jinxed it or something, the ground shook. I fell onto my knees, as I couldn't hold onto anything. There was a big loud 'BOOM!!' and a shock wave which made my head crack to one side. A cloud of smoke formed a mushroom cloud right above a cluster of trees a couple metres away from us. I inhaled the smoke and choked on it. It was like inhaling 60 packets of cigarettes at one time.

Bren was yelling something at me, but I couldn't hear over the rumble.

"He-l-p co-ome ov-"

"What? I can't hear you!!"

But then I realized why. Max had collapsed. And he wasn't waking up.