The track raced under his feet as they pounded the pavement. His vision was tunneled, the only thing in sight being the finish line that was closing in fast. There was one Asian guy ahead of him by a couple feet and another white guy close on his heels. Caim knew that if he lost first place it would still be a close race and that was what he was going for at least. Screw you Dad. I'm not going to win. I'm not going to help you to prove anything, because I know that you would use my win against others. Despite the thought he sped up a little, trying to at least close the distance a little more. The guy didn't notice, or if he did he didn't care. Caim found that most other racers just wanted either to win or to lose a close and fair race. Caim personally didn't care about winning, no matter how much his father drilled him, but when he did win he didn't make a big deal about it like some people.

The finish line was coming up fast and Caim absentmindedly picked Mia's face out from the crowd on the sidelines; his mind seemed on auto-pilot to find his red and black haired friend. Despite his search, he stayed focus on his pumping legs and a couple seconds later he felt the groove that marked the finish. He had completed the race in second place.

He slowed to a jog for a couple paces until he stopped; bending over with his hands on his knees he took a deep breath. He straightened and went back to the finish, shaking hands and congratulating the other runners. When Mia burst out of the crowd and sprinted up to him he pulled her into a tight hug, accidently picking her up in the process. And Dad thinks that mutants are soulless, heartless monsters.

"That was awesome!" she cried. "You were great!"

He laughed and set her down.

"You were really close too. I overheard the guy talking with his friends about how he thought you were going to pass him." She pushed her frayed red bangs out of her face and used her hand as a visor as she tilted her head up to smile at him.

For a second I was, but I don't want to give my dad the satisfaction. It'll set him off for another rant tonight about white supremacy and I don't want to be the reason for that discussion. "I was at my limit," he replied, smiling.

"You just had a couple more steps though!"

"You know I don't care about winning." He walked over and grabbed his bag from where he had dropped it onto the grass.

"I know you don't, but I'm just saying," Mia replied, jogging after him after slinging her own bag over her shoulder. "Was it just those couple steps too many?"

I could have passed him without a second thought; a couple steps would have been too simple. "Exactly." He settled down under a tree off to the side of the track and fished a water bottle out of his bag. Mia plopped down behind him and rested her hands on his shoulders. "That's it champ, drink, you deserve it," she joked in her fake Brooklyn boxer coach voice. She rubbed his shoulders and he took another drink of water. "I'll beat him next time boss," he replied, going along with the joke. She smacked his right shoulder and moved to sit next to him. "That was your last event right?" she asked.

Unfortunately ."Yep." He took another drink of water and lay back on the grass, closing his eyes. He wasn't tired, but the darkness behind his eyelids was comforting.

"So what are you going to do now?" Mia asked. "Do you want to come over and play or something?" By play she meant play the guitar. Caim had been learning how to play for the past couple years and he went over to Mia's house on a regular basis to accompany her while she played her electric keyboard. Her parents liked him and Caim felt more comfortable at the Zang's house than at his own. Mia's parents were so secure with him that they actually told Mia to tell him that she was a mutant after they returned from a two month long leave of absence. One day Caim had gone to school and Mia wasn't there. Nor was she there the day after that, or the day after that, and there was no answer on their telephone or at their house. When they came back they explained that they had gone to China to visit family, specifically family who were also mutants.

Mia was pretty much a dragon, which was the simple way she explained it upon being informed by her parents that Caim could be trusted and told. She could breathe fire and her nails were sharpened to claws; she frequently had to clip them to avoid hurting somebody or breaking something.

"Caim?" She snapped her fingers and he blinked, opening his eyes. He had drifted off for a couple seconds, though it felt like several minutes. "Yeah?" he replied.

"So do you want to come over?" She was picking up her backpack as he sat up and ran a hand through his hair to dislodge the grass and dirt. I shouldn't. Dad's picking me up... God damn. What the heck am I going to say to him so that he won't? My phone died? He'll ask why I didn't borrow somebody else's. There's nothing to tell him. "Sure," he replied despite his internal argument. He slung his bag over his shoulder and stood up, pulling his cell phone from its pocket. As he opened it to turn it off he read the time. 4:48. Damn. He turned it off and put it away, securing his bag on his shoulders. Mia was already starting up the hill when he began to follow. He called out, smiling. "Wait a second!"

She turned around and stuck her tongue out. "You're the runner, catch up!" She started to run towards the crosswalk and Caim raced after her. He made it to the crosswalk just as she was crossing and the light was starting to change. She turned and started to walk backwards, teasing him with her smile. "Slow poke!" she called.

He smiled and checked down the street, intending on j-walking, when he saw his father's car approaching. Oh no. There was a pause where everything seemed suspended, like in action films where they slowed down the shot to show the path of the bullet, but then everything picked up before Caim had a chance to say or do anything. His father's car slowed for a split second but then suddenly it was going too fast. Caim opened his mouth to shout at Mia, who wasn't even close to the safety of the sidewalk, but he didn't get the chance. There was a sickening crunch as his father's car struck his best friend, sending her small body flying back to the pavement. Her head hit the ground and red seeped from beneath her, slowly surrounding her head.

All Caim could do was stare. There were no thoughts, no words, no actions. A terrible non-silence descended on him where all the happy noises of the day, birds chirping and kids laughing and music playing, continued to go on as though the most terrible event in history hadn't just happened. Caim wished that he were in a movie, where everything would go silent and he'd fall to his knees and scream, but he was stuck in the real world. There was no silence, he didn't fall to his knees - in fact he stood as straight as a board - and he didn't scream, he couldn't scream. He watched as his father stepped out of his car just as the first person realized what had happened and let out the scream that Caim wanted to release. "911!" the lady shrieked. "Somebody call 911!" She hurried to Mia's side while Caim took a step back, his eyes not leaving his father's tall skinny figure that was turning to him.

In this moment of distress, this moment of horror and the source of what he knew would be countless nightmares, Caim did what he did second best. He did what was terribly embedded in his brain from prehistoric instinct: he ran. As he did, a pain seared through his right shoulder, nearly causing him to stop. When he finally did stop, sitting down, shaking, his phone smashed several blocks away, his wallet empty, on the first train out of the city, he pulled down the corner of his shirt and found a blazing red fire tattoo marking the back of his right shoulder.