Running Scared

"Prompt You or your MC has to do something physically vigorous. Take us through the reaction of their bodies and mind as they complete this task.

Just to make it a little more interesting, I would also like a little setting thrown in there.

Word count limit: 300 (it's a tight fit, but I'm betting you all can do it :) )"


Whew!! Talk about trimming! I shaved almost 200 words to get right at 300 exactly! Phone it in, it's a miracle. lol Kidding aside, these exercises really make you look at every single word to gauge its importance and impact to the story.
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Night swaddled the sky in a gown of velvet darkness. Enfolded the streets in swirls and eddies of light and shadow. With it, the loud barks, croaks, and hoots of the wild echoed off the sides of hulking, bulky monsters - eyes lit with the inner fires of flickering fluorescents. Or incandescents. Silhouettes crossing LCDs playing fake realities.

Six blocks. Knees high, stride long; arms pumping. My sneakered feet hitting concrete with audible thumps. Eyes scanning ahead for cracks and buckles. I couldn't afford a fall. I wished for the moon, but it hid its face from my plight.

Sweat gathered on my brow. I went off my pace for a breath to wipe salt water away from my eyes.

Four more blocks. Breath stuck in my lungs, rattling. Refused more air. Like if old Jim, the really over-weight guy on the next block, sat on my chest and cinched a wide belt around my ribs. Air came and went in great huffing, panicked gasps.

Suffocating. No way I would make it.

Two blocks now. My joints screamed; long disused from sitting hours on the couch playing videos games or at my desk mesmerized by the web. Knees popped. Hips stuttered. Each pounding step, my ankles would surely shatter.

Vision pin holing. Steps faltering. Nothing but the slow motion huff, huff of rattling lungs and thump, thump of pounding feet.

Half a block. Almost there, I thought in the back of my mind - the detached part that watched in abstract third person. Labored breath, slipping joints, incinerated muscles - black, fear driven flight.

My house loomed. Gloomy creature with half lidded eyes.

I leaped with final desperation onto the porch; turned toward my pursuers, half crouching. But they were gone.

I stumbled, wheezing, but relieved, through the door to safety.