Who's the winner

Short story describing the intensity of a race and whats the true purpose of winning.

It evoked with a swift breeze that came with leafs and dust. The dust bewildered and dazed their eyes. They inhaled the glass like dust that entered their throats. Everybody was constricted contiguous with no room to flee. There were at least thirty people on the meager starting line. Sweat began to form into marbles on the back of their heads. The sweat lackadaisically formed into droplet pearls that then trickled off like when icicles melt. The droplets then hit the ground with a meteoric splash of dust. They kicked their back feet repeatedly lifting the surrounding dust into the air. Their heels nervously rocked up and down causing small rocks to shift under their feet with every lift.

 

Everyone’s arms lay on their sides slightly angled. With one foot forward and one back with about a two-foot gap in-between. Their clammy fingers twitched and fiddled as they readied themselves. The stressful air was heavy that made the skin on their heads wanting to concave. The fear and adrenaline traveled around and bounced off one another. The intensity flowed through their veins. One looked down, and stuck his lips out to be followed by a thick gunshot like spit that drilled into the ground.

 

Their knees were feeble and palms were sweaty. They waited impatiently ready to jolt at any split second. Time began to gradually plummet as the gunner marched to the anterior. The gunners voice appeared faded in their heads and they watched his lips flap in a circular motion. The gunner then said “runner’s ready” and lifted his gun into the air. The next prolonged second later, he pulled his index finger down and off the gun fired. The crack of his gun pierced their ears to react a ring in their heads that sent an imaginary electric shock.  Simultaneously they all exploded forward with a thrust of a jet airplane out of the starting line. Everybody started with a sprint then declined overtime to a slight lethargic paced gallop. It was a fast race and the crowds were blazing. As they ran by the crowds it appeared blurry, like looking through an opaque non-translucent glass window. Their vision and perception was obscured. The wild stampede shook the ground and created a sand storm of dust as they went bye.

 

As the lap number increased, their breaths did as well. Through out the race they all were constantly crashing and banging against each other like bumper cars at amusement parks. There breaths gradually increased from one breathe every five seconds to four, to three, to two, and then to one. Posterior seven laps complete they were now on their final lap. They brushed their tongue along the roof of their mouths that felt like licking the skin of a lizard. There was one man; he held most of his energy for this last lap. He was penultimate, almost in last place now, with still a half a lap remaining. He accelerated forward from a canter to a gallop so nimble that he couldn’t feel his legs moving. He slowly conveyed to second place at the rear of the first place man. He was now 100 meters till the finish. His stride increased and his feet moved quicker. He was way ahead of the other runners. It was between him and another runner at this rate. They switched off by passing each other neck and neck and only a few meters away. He was imminent to cross the finish line. The two were so tangled while at such a high acceleration, gravity took its toll and together they both fell. They tumbled dramatically smacking their shoulders and heads to the ground, opening flesh wounds, and creating slight fractures to their ligaments.

 

They rolled to the ground collecting dust all over them. He got up immediately being the one less hurt. He had intersecting red lines all over his face, knees, and elbows. The other one looked like he had sprained his ankle. He cringed in pain as he looked up at him. He looked helpless, and without hope but it wasn’t his face that expressed uncertainty, it was his eyes. He looked to the finish line and nodded. He then glanced at the crowd with everybody on his or her tiptoes. They had looks of suspense while clinging on to whatever they could. They watched every movement of them. He looked back at his competitor. He picked him up and the crowd cheered in respect and appreciated his philanthropic. As soon as the injured one regained strength he ran to get first place. The other one was extremely fatigued and because of his lack of strength he dropped at the finish line with a timber in second place.