The Ability

Chapter 2

As if my body heard my wish, everything just stopped. For a moment, I thought if this was a part of dying. Am I going to heaven or hell? So I waited, nothing happened. I pinched myself and held my breath. Wincing in pain, I realised that I was pinching myself too hard. Wait a minute. I could still feel pain and I still felt the urge to breathe when my breath was held. I was in a delimma. Was I alive or am I dead. After a moment of brainstorming, I decided that being in a delimma was definitely a sign of me still being alive.

My headache and me not being able to breathe. Everything just stopped as sudden as when the ordeal began. Just like that. I looked aroung me. Everyone and everything seemed normal. Nobody seemed to notice what just happened to me.Realising I was curled up in a ball outside my doorstep, I quickly picked myself up and grabbed my phone, which was lying on the floor waiting to be stepped on. I brushed off the dust on my clothes and straightened my shirt. Did no one notice what happened to me or did they just think I was a weirdo? I put two fingers on my wrist to check my pulse but I did not find the pulse so fast or too slow. I walked around. My head felt perfectly fine, no sign of what happened earlier.

Checking that I took everything with me after the terrible(or should I say horrifying) experience I endured just a few moments before, I turned to the jogging lane. I jogged at a much slower pace than usual. And by usual I mean the pace I had been going before I started my number one piority of writing the best book that my readers would enjoy. Being in fear of going through the hell-like experience was definitely not a good feeling. I made sure I took in enough oxygen and walked when I felt tired. Soon after I started jogging, I caughed sight of Grace, my best friend in school. I turned to her direction to talk to her. Coincidentally, she turned towards me. Her tired face lit up. At first, the sides of her mouth twitched. Then, it started to curl up and soon enough, she was grinning from ear to ear and waving me over like a mad woman. Now she made it look like she was the one who saw me first. No fair. But I shook it off because she is what I call a best friend.

Rolling my eyes, I half run half jogged my way over to her. After we confirmed our secret passcode, we stopped at the side to chat for a bit. Before we got back to our jogging business, I suggested we race each other once around the perimeter of the park. I saw Grace's jaw drop but she quickly recovered and instantly agreed to race. Part of me knew that I was going to win because I had always been the faster one between us and besides, Grace said she had been jogging for about half an hour now and most of her energy would have beed drained off by now. "Ready...steady...GO!" Both us screamed before charging off. As expected, she dropped behind me, panting, and soon she was a good 30 metres behind me. At the sight of that, I picked up my speed to put more distance between us. Soon enough, I was running at a speed so fast I thought my legs would just fly and I wouldn't be surprised.

As soon as I went round the bend where no one could see me, the strangest thing happened. My legs started to lift me off the ground. Like literally. Off. The. Ground. Contradicting to what I thought, I started to panic. My breathing quickened. Just then the searing headache came back and this time, the part where I couldn't breathe came at the same time. The pain was overwhelming. I screamed in pain. I shouted for help. But no one heard me maybe because I was gasping for air at the same time. I thought, this time I am really going to die. My body cannot possibly take this excruciating pain two times in a row. I started to feel light-headed. By then I could hardly talk because I knew that even if I continued to shout for help, no one would hear me and I would waste what little oxygen I had left in my body. Right before I blacked out, I saw Grace run around the bend and stare in shock as my head hit the ground. Would I ever survive? Was my last thought.