Fireapple Syndrome

Death.

"Inertia comes from the Latin word 'iners', properly meaning 'idle'. The term, coined by Kepler and refined by Newton, is defined as mass' resistance to change in its state of motion. Whether still or swift, the universe would have you in your current state. Roughly 2,000 years before Newton, the Chinese philosopher Mozi words the notion ",... if there is no opposing force ... the motion will never stop.""

   Several hundred miles away from where I write these words, a man I didn't know was under the influence of a physics lesson, fortifying the dead men's ideals, and the devil may care universe cut the string of the fireapple.

   He was running at basic when the syndrome made itself known. The sort of disease that goes unforseen because they were never looking for it in the first place. The sort of disease that has a name, but, people don't say it. Thunderous heartbeats to run to, to run from, however you like it. Faster and faster, they kept on, whether liked or not. And in mid-stride, in that nameless place in time between two beats, the thunder stopped. The storms evanesced. The seas of the world became still at the drop of a hat. And all the world began to wither as even the ripples stilled.

   Immediately after the initial force impressed, there was no change in his momentum. He kept with the runners beside him for those first moments. The initial force could therefore be said to have had no effect on his inertia. And as such, the initial force, the syndrome, was still unseen, despite have thrown out its distorted face. Dead oceans were roaring down the concrete at over 18 miles an hour, still synchronized with beats that were not there.

   Within the secondary moments, the secondary force took hold. The structured musculature collapsed. A leg faltered.
Stubborn and indignant, Inertia held frighteningly true as Momentum kept the Velocity in check.
   The oceans began to plummet.
   A hydraulic tailspin.
   Windscream.
   The fireapple fell from orbit, dropping into the cold spaces beneath its axis, immersed in

   Within the third second, the third force came into play.
And he struck the concrete to a sickening rhyme of shattering jawbone and the sad flailing of limbs, still subject to Inertia.
The turning-of-heads moment did not happen right away. The runners beside were ahead a good distance, still yet unaware of his drop.
The oceans of the fireapple planet were calm and spilling their way onto the track as the devil may care universe spun new strings.

   The students of the physics lesson looked on, and stopped their note-taking. There was something... sinister in this class. The great teacher assured the class that there was more than a first law to be noticed here.
   That without the leg faltering, there would not have been the crash.
   That without the heart stopping, there would not have been the leg faltering.
   Fire is fire, and smoke is smoke.
   But where there's smoke, there's haze.
   That those who play with fire are ironically not called firemen, but arsonists.
   And so, class, there are rogue forces in physics, which trigger an entire reactionary set of forces.
   That Third Law held sway over all.
   The rustling of pen on paper ensued.

   The runners kept ahead as he slipped into the sweet subjection to blackout.
Three seconds in, he was three seconds dead.

Author's Note

Excuse any errors