"Sprint" by Milan Moller: October 2024 2nd Place

My legs pump and start to whir. Faster, faster. I’m Margot, the only Olympian kid. I’m the fastest sprinter in the world. I am currently sprinting in an Olympics 20-mile race, so please excuse me. 

All the advice my coach has been screaming at me the last few weeks comes racing back into my head: start strong, focus on your lane, land your feet right. My feet are whirring, and I don’t think I have ever gone this fast. Doubt swirls into my mind. 

“Wow! Margot Hart is two miles away from beating the Olympic record! Oh—oh my gosh! She’s done it! Margot L. Hart is going 40, 50, 60 miles per hour! 70, 80, 90…” 

Oh my goodness! Am I really going that fast!?

“150…”

I decide to stop. This is scary. I start to push my feet into brake zone, but…they won’t.   

SOMEONE! HELP! 

My every limb starts to glow an eerie blue light. Suddenly, I see a swirling blue mist ahead of me.

Stop! I don’t want to go through that creepy misty stuff! STOOOOOP!

But my body doesn’t listen. My feet are still whirring in a whirlwind of speed.

I make a last desperate attempt to stop.

It doesn’t work.

And now I’m about to sprint right into that swirling mist.

WHOOOSH!

Wow. This is amazing. I’m swirling through a smoky blue mist, just floating. Words, numbers, codes--they’re spinning all around me. I don’t understand. Did I run so fast that I ran into a different world? What’s happening?

The misty smoke starts to carry me, FAST. Very fast. Too fast. My ears ring, my feet ache, and my hands tingle. Tears prick my eyes.

My stomach lurches as the mist screeches to a stop. It ushers me out into a huge blue city—no—paradise; but it doesn’t feel like a city. It feels…different. Like it’s not a place.

Blue skyscrapers are positioned behind a blue gate cutting a blue beach off. A woman with blue skin and electric blue hair floats up to me and says,

 “Welcome to the twenty-fifth hour.”