His feet pounded the street as hard as he could make them, and it was only enough to keep him moving slightly faster than a brisk walk. His calves felt like something was tearing them apart, just peeling the muscle fibers away from the bone. He choked down another breath as he came to the top of the hill. 

[i]C'mon, Mark, it's right there! C'mon, c'mon! Last push, Mark, last push![/i]

He tried to give it his all for the last few yards. He tried to reach down into his socks and pull out everything he had left in him. It must not have been much, because all he could really do was lengthen his stride for about fifteen seconds. It made his side cramp painfully in protest. Mark stumbled into his driveway and slowed to a crawling walk, raising his hands up above his head as he desperately tried to suck air. As he made the short trip to his doorstep, he looked back down the road, then pulled his phone out of the case clipped to his hip and swiped the screen to stop his clock.

"Tw-twenty-eight, huff, minutes. Give or take." he mumbled, as he leaned against his door so he could focus on turning the knob and not falling on his ass. "Three miles. Goddammit, I used to be able to, huff, huff, I used to be able to do that in nineteen." That still wouldn't have been good enough. He'd seen somebody on the cross-country team do it in fifteen, back in high school.

Both of his parents were gone. They were retired now, but still worked part time jobs, mostly because they couldn't stand to sit around the house and watch their one-remaining nest egg, the one they'd pushed harder than any of the others, be a worthless loser. He was grateful for the silence, at least. He grabbed a bottle of water from the fridge and forced himself to take it slow so he wouldn't throw up or suck it down his windpipe. Still moving slowly, painfully, he did his cool-down stretches and hoped that would be enough to keep his legs from cramping up. Then he moved out of the living room, heading to his bedroom on the other side of the house. He lurched in, bumped his hip on his desk with a muttered curse, and sat down on the bed to yank off his running shoes. As he tossed them to the floor, a glint caught his eye. 

That die. He didn't know why he'd picked it up, he had no idea where it could have been or what it was from. It had just...caught his eye, like it had just now. It'd been a momentary distraction from...from...

[i]Dammit.[/i]

The dojo had been the only place in the world he had ever felt like he fit in. To some people, taking Karate lessons was a hobby. For him it was practically his life. It was all he really had in this world. Once he had a few friends, not many, but enough to feel like he wasn't such a freak. Then they'd left. He had a good record, strong academic standing...then he'd nearly flunked, and driven himself into suicidal thoughts, and all for a degree that he might as well have wiped his ass with. Once he'd even had a dog, and no matter how bad his life got, at least his real best friend had always loved him and greeted him with a wagging tail. Not anymore.

He felt the tears threatening to well up again. In a sudden fit of fury he reached out and grabbed the die, hurling it. It bounced off his desk, ricocheted off the wall, then clattered along the floorboards.

Somehow, just like before, it caught his eye...along with the number it landed on...