Characters: Min Hayes When: Early Monday morning Location: Outside Warnings/Rating: None/low Summary: Min goes for a real run Status: Complete/narrative This scenery was much preferable to the previous week's. Colder weather made her feel right at home. It felt like Detroit, at least in temperature. The atmosphere in the dome was much better than the city. She loved being in the city, but not the rampant abandonment and crime, which was bad in her neighborhood. She hadn't lived in such a nice place since...well, ever. It was a good change of pace for her, and hopefully the dawn of a new lifestyle if she could behave herself after the year was up.
All week Min had been struggling with the treadmill. The numbers were off, had to be. There was just no way her speed could have picked up like that, and so quickly. That morning she had given it another try, stopping after it hit the 20 miles per hour mark. Ridiculous. After peeking outside and discovering to her delight the ground was dry once more, she'd decided to go for a real run. That couldn't lie to her. Maybe they were messing with the numbers behind the scene, but for them to influence her surroundings to make her feel like she was running faster was just unthinkable.
And according to her surroundings, the treadmill must have been right. At first it all seemed normal, just a nice little jog in the chilly morning air, but the longer she was out there the slower it felt like Min was moving. So she picked up speed, faster and faster until the trees were flying by her as if she were in a car and not on her own two legs. Yet as fast as she must have been going, there was no feeling of overexertion. It felt natural and good to be running so rapidly. The only part of her bothered by the cold was her face, the rest of her covered in sweatpants and a jacket.
She kept going for what felt like an hour, only out of breath at that moment. Returning to the house, Min went upstairs to her room and sat on the bed staring down at her feet. What the hell was that? Her fingers went to her wrist to check for her pulse. It was only slightly elevated, and she felt fine. All she could do was sit there for a long time. After about a minute her foot began tapping, as if it were impatient for her to move again. The movement was almost a blur.
For the first time she was considering the very real possibility that her speed had increased, and oh, the possibilities. It explained her hunger and speed in eating, her inability to sit still, everything. That just left one question: should she announce her discovery to the others or keep it to herself as long as she could?