Here Is What I Know
A.N. Important update for Outlier in the author's note at the bottom!
Takes place after the events of Endgame, from the viewpoint of Wally West. Further explanation in the author's note at the bottom.
Here is what I know.
Allow me to lay it out for you.
Gives me something to pass the time,
Am I right?
I've got a pair of worn red sneakers
And Band-Aids on the blisters on my feet.
Those have been there a while.
I can feel dozens of scrapes on my shins
And bruises on my elbows
Underneath this bright canary yellow suit I'm wearing.
Can't help that.
I've tripped and spilled across the earth more times than I can count.
Not one black eye but two
And some road rash on my back and backside to boot.
Sprained my left ankle twice
And my right one three times.
My throat's raw from coughing.
And my eyes are burning,
Tearing up in the constant blast of wind in my face.
Even behind these red round goggles
That've been strapped to my head since I began.
Way back when.
Honestly,
I've given up trying to stop this perpetual nose bleed.
And I can't hear.
My ears went deaf long ago.
Left, right, left, right.
There's a pattern.
I know there's a pattern to all this.
Somewhere, somehow.
Some rhyme or reason for what I'm doing.
It sucks, though,
Since I don't have the slightest clue what it could be.
Think I broke my arm a little,
Four collisions back,
In a run-in with a semi.
Jammed my ring finger pretty badly, too,
When I tripped over a curb back there.
Those are minor annoyances at this point.
You know,
It's a good thing I don't have fallen arches, huh?
This would have been way worse had I been flat-footed.
Forgotten what water tastes like,
Can't remember food.
All I feel, all I crave is more air in my lungs
That drives me, keeps me moving.
Here is what I know.
This isn't a race or a marathon.
I know that for a fact.
There's no one else in front or behind me.
I'm completely alone, that's for sure.
There's just me and my legs
And the path that stretches endlessly in front of my eyes.
And I can't.
Stop.
Running.
It's not "won't."
It's "can't."
I've wondered sometimes if maybe there was a reason why I'm doing this.
Maybe there was a starting line of sorts
Somewhere in the beginning.
On your mark, get set, go, right?
A shotgun start.
Maybe I was running towards something.
Well.
It wouldn't have been a trophy or a plaque or anything dumb like that.
Did I have a goal, maybe?
Some task I just had to accomplish?
I don't know.
Heck, maybe in the age and era before,
I was a coward.
Maybe this thing I'm doing
Was me running away.
But that train of thought just leads to even more questions.
Running away from what?
From my fate?
From monsters?
From brussels sprouts?
Wait, brussels sprouts?
Where the heck did that come from?
Huh.
That's the thing.
Memories are funny.
I distinctly remember hating brussels sprouts.
But ironically enough,
I've forgotten my own name.
Who knows how long I've been doing this?
How old am I now?
Or is it, how young am I now?
Time, what the heck is that?
For some reason, I feel like
Time has always meant exactly zilch to me.
Even before I began this insane run.
There's a clock in the gauntlet on my right arm,
But I guess it's gotta be broken.
One moment the seconds are spinning faster than even I can track.
Hours are passing like heart beats
And minutes are a blur.
Next thing I know, the time is stopped.
Frozen.
Still.
I live in the beat between one millisecond and the next.
And once,
I swear,
I saw the time turn backwards.
But you know what?
All of that doesn't matter.
The pain?
The clock?
The ridiculous uniform?
Even the reason why?
None of it matters.
Not to me, not now.
No.
No, I need to stick to what's solid,
Firm,
Resolute,
Here in my mind.
The one shred of sanity I have left.
So,
Here is what I know.
The only thing my brain can hold on to
When other thoughts
And fears
And desires
And memories
And dreams
Scatter in the wake of my sneakers
Is this one thought,
Circling around and around in my field of vision.
Almost as if I was running in circles,
Like a cyclone, a twister of energy.
Run.
Faster.
And.
Don't.
Stop.
Just.
Run.
So I do.
"Keep it together, Wall-man, think it through. This is what you know..."
A.N. A little peek into our favorite young speedster as he's locked in his perpetual sprint. Our boy has been doing this for quite some time. The reason why the lines are clumped together was so that I could try to show how he frames his thoughts. He's together, in a sense, doing his best to hold his sanity in place by focusing on what he knows as fact (that's the logical scientist in him coming out), but his mind is still windblown, randomized, non-linear, just like his body. Basically, Wally's pretty much bordering on an existential crisis, so to avoid a total meltdown, he concentrates. "Keep it together, Wall-man, think it through. This is what you know..."
More will follow in the near, sorry more like distant, future. But I had this brain spark and I had to write it down. Please leave a review if you have any likes/dislikes/comments!
BY THE WAY! Those of you who are reading Outlier and have been ticked off/sad since I'm a massive jerk and haven't updated in about two months, my apologies! I've got a couple of excuses, though! I've been crazy busy, for one, since this is my senior year in high school and college is just around the corner.
More importantly, I've been engaged in constant warfare against my arch-nemesis, ALLERGIES, which makes my head all fuzzy twenty-four-seven and thus not conducive to writing a Chapter 7. You think I'm exaggerating, people. I'm not. My head feels like grade-A, 100% pure, unadulterated mush. It's not pretty.
BUT! I have read and laughed (or cried excitedly) over each and every one of your reviews (yes, I do read them all, multiple times) and I have felt dramatically inspired to give it a shot soon.
(Seriously, you guys have no idea. I've only published SIX CHAPTERS, and you guys have sent over SIXTY REVIEWS. I honestly didn't think I had any story-writing skills until you wonderful people let me know! Eternal gratitude!)
So I'm going to try to shoot for a new chapter by this upcoming Sunday, as a deadline. Deadlines make the world go round, as I always say. (Though I hate deadlines. Procrastination is my greatest weakness, as you can tell.)
And looking back at all that gushing and rambling, I can see how writing a chapter earlier would have been a royal mess. I'll be sure to tidy up my writing before I post, I promise.
Anyways, thank you all for reading, and let me know what you think of this one-shot! If you want, you can think of it as a sort-of-kind-of prologue for the future story Limits, which I plan to write as Part 3 of the Outlier trilogy (more details on my profile page). Since that story is waiting for me so far in the future that I have no plans for it at the moment, don't expect more updates on this thingie for a while. I would say months, but seeing as how much progress I've actually made, years, even DECADES seem more accurate.
I hope I don't take that long, though. XD
Yours,
Iron Woobie