Edited*
Left foot, right foot. Left foot, right foot.
Breathe in, breathe out. Breathe in, breathe out.
I swiped a bead of sweat dripping from my forehead with the back of my hand and pushed myself even harder. My lungs felt as though they are going to burst if I tried running any further, but the adrenaline rushing through my body kept me going. My heart beat was racing. I could feel my heart itself thumping violently against my rib cage.
'Come on Alana.' I encouraged myself. 'Keep going, don't you dare stop!' I chanted to myself over and over again, urging my legs to just keep running forwards as fast as they could.
'Think of the consequences.' I mentally told myself. 'Don't stop. Push harder.' My legs pumped ever faster than before.
'Stop!' I yelled out, struggling to form the single syllabled word from being so exhausted. I came to a halt, bending at my knees with my hands on my knees gasping for much needed air.
A hand slapped down and my shoulder, slightly shaking my exhausted body. I jumped in fright, not expecting the physical contact to be so rough. I froze. My body was so sore I physically couldn't move anymore. One more step and I would fall over.
'New personal record! Well done Alana, get yourself a drink.' My coach, Tanner, beamed grinning down at me.
'Mhmm' I mumbled and collapsed backwards onto the hot sand. I closed my eyes, tilting my face to the sky attempting to catch the light rays and let my body relax.
My calves were tight from sprinting on the soft sand all afternoon and my arms were tired from all the paddling and weights I had just completed. I felt like I had been going for years without stopping. No amount of recovery time will let my body heal from this training session. More like torture session.
I sat up gasping for air as I felt ice-cold liquid running down my face onto my shoulders and then down my torso. My arms were frozen, fingertips resting on my temples mouth open from shock.
Fits of laughter could be heard to my left and I slowly rotated my head to face Tanner. His face was red and he was almost rolling on the ground from laughing so hard. 'You're, you're face.' He laughed, gasping for air and clutching his stomach.
'If I could walk, you would be a dead boy.' I seethed at him through gritted teeth. Secretly, I don't mind the ice cold water cooling me off after my hard torture session, but he wasn't to know that.
'Boy?! Don't you mean man? A boy does not look like this.' He defended his pride by flexing his arms. His biceps bulged out. He was right, a boy couldn't have as much muscle as he did. Tanner was ripped, there's no denying that. Tanner is a personal trainer, and a good one might I add. He may be arrogant, cocky and a massive pain in the ass but he was a great guy and a fantastic trainer. If you told him what areas you wanted to work on, he would develop a program that would make you succeed- or money back guarantee.
He bent his head down and kissed his bicep, winking at me in the process, and I continued to glare at him playfully. 'Come on Lani, I know you loooove it.' He said in a sing song voice. I rolled my eyes at him and stuck out my hand waiting for him to pull me up to my feet and in a standing position so I could attempt to get home. I smiled up innocently at him when he looked down at me with an 'are you crazy' facial expression.
'Come on!' I whined. 'I'm in pain here because of you. The least you can do is help me up.' Tanner huffed and grasped my hand in his and pulled me to my feet effortlessly. 'Thank you.' I smiled up at him and limped off to my bag. My legs felt like they were on fire and they burned every time I slightly moved them.
'So! What are we going to do now?' Tanner questioned me with excitement in his voice after I had finished cooling down. His deep brown eyes were staring intensely at me waiting for my answer.
'Well, I don't know about you, but I'm going to bed.' I said yawning.
'Alana, honey, I know I'm hot. That's a fact. And you're an attractive girl, really you are but I couldn't do it to Blake. I mean, sleeping with my best mates little sister might be crossing the line.' He said with fake humor evident in his voice.
'You're an inappropriate person. Grow up. Honestly, you know I didn't mean that.' I grunted in annoyance to him. This earned a smirk and a wink while he said 'You wish you could have this,' while gesturing to his body. I glared at him for about 3 seconds with an unamused expression and turned on my heel and walked over to my car.
'Screw you.' I muttered under my breath.
'What did I just tell you? It's crossing the line. If Blake wasn't your brother, I would happily give you what you wanted.' I didn't have to turn around to know he would be wiggling his eyebrows in a suggestive motion and being a perverted person. I flipped him the bird over my shoulder and kept walking.
'Come on Lani, you're no fun.' He whined like a small child.
'You're not two years old Tan, stop acting like a baby and let me go home and sleep. I'm tired.' I complained.
'I won't stop whining until you stop complaining.' He smirked.
With a small smile on my face, I slid into my 2002 silver Camry and wound my window down. 'Same time tomorrow?' I asked.
'Sure thing Lani, be prepared, tomorrow we will start working on your fitness, and we can work it up from there!' Tanner exclaimed. I looked at him in shock.
'Then what did I just do today?'
'An easy training session.' He said with a mischievous glint in his eye. I gaped at him, my eyes blinking rapidly as I tried to comprehend that today's session wasn't hard supposedly. If today was fun, I was screwed tomorrow. I was sore all over and still out of breath from today. 'Oh and Lani?' Tanner questioned me.
'Yeah?'
'Tomorrow, bring a bucket.' He winked at me and strolled off to his car parked a couple of parks away from me.
Crap.
************
Throwing my keys into the small bowl next to my front door, I pried the door closed and sighed. Home sweet home, I thought to myself in delight. I made a beeline straight to the kitchen and grabbed out my half eaten bag of red liquorish, my favorite food in the whole word. Lie. That's actually false. It's a tie between red liquorish and Pringles for first place. Nothing can, and ever will, beat red liquorish and Pringles.
My home, isn't necessarily a home. It's a small two bedroom box living on a street with bigger, more luxurious homes surrounding it. How our box even got onto this street, I would have no clue. The house was made from brick. All in all, it didn't look to bad, but looked bad because the other houses were better.
Inside, the floors were made of wood. The walls were painted white and everything was furnished quite nicely. I live in the box with Blake, but I practically live alone. Blake was constantly at work in other states constructing and fixing buildings and only gets the opportunity to come home for a week every month before he flies off again. He knew that Tanner and I got along really well, and thought Tanner could be my brother while he wasn't there to fill the position. It's the thought that counts, right?
I went straight to the bathroom and ran myself a hot bath to help soothe my muscles. The steam rose from the water causing the windows and mirror to fog up. My training clothes fell to the floor, and I gritted me teeth as I entered the hot water. My foot felt numb from the hot water touching my skin. A couple minutes later, my body had adjusted to water and I was happily munching away on my liquorish with my eyes closed in peace. This is the life, I thought to myself.
After polishing off the half bag of liquorish, my hands and toes looked like prunes and I thought it would be best to get out of the bath. It was only 8:30, but I had work tomorrow so I made my way into my room.
Clothes were flung everywhere, my bed was unmade and clothes were falling off clothes hangers making my dresser overflow. My desk had papers and books thrown all over it and my laptop was sitting on my bed waiting for me.
Sliding under my Donna cover, I was puffing slightly. I'm not gonna lie, it took a lot of effort to dodge and jump over everything on my floor. I wasn't the neatest person. Scratch that. I was a pig. I wasn't even sure how that came to be. All I did was sit on my bed in the one spot and go on my phone or laptop. It's like everything in my room has a mind of their own, choosing to magically move and be in the way 24/7.
Opening up megashare, I clicked the link for the latest episode of Pretty Little Liars I had eagerly awaiting for.
BEEP BEEP BEEP.
Groaning, my hand left the warmth from under my doona and went on a quest to find the device that was playing the irritating noise to wake me from my slumber. 'God help me!' I yelled to nobody when I heard my lamp drop to the floor with a loud thud.
Slipping out of bed, I jumped over all the crap laying on the floor and puffed my way into the kitchen. I poured myself a bowl of sultana bran and slumped down on the couch and turned on the TV.
Breaking news! The TV blared out. Turning the volume down, I munched on my cereal and listened to the breaking news.
'Last night a man appeared in the hospital, claiming to be attacked by a wild animal. What was this animal? Mr Coleman described the animal to look like an overgrown wolf. It had all characteristics of the wild animal, but the height didn't seem normal. With a large wolf averaging the height of three foot at the shoulder, this one was seen to be around the five and a half to 6 foot mark.
The screen changed from the proper looking news woman to footage of the man in a hospital bed covered in bandages. He would have to be in his late 20's, early 30's. His eyes had black bags underneath them, signaling the restless sleep, or lack of it. His black hair was scuffed up and his eyes brown were wide with fright.
'It looked like a wolf!' He explained, fear evident in his voice. 'But it was huge! Like, not normally huge. This thing was almost 6 and a half foot tall!' His voice was filled with fear, but he also sounded like he was trying to convince everyone he wasn't crazy. 'We need to find this thing. I was lucky to come out alive from this, and I would hate for someone to go through what I just did.' He stated.
The screen went back to the news woman.
'The local animal control are out in the area in Apollo Bay where Mr Coleman was said to be looking for this 'wolf,' she explained and put air quotes around the word wolf. 'We will keep you updated throughout the day.'
Shutting off the TV, I went to the laundry and grabbed my work uniform. Denim shorts and a purple singlet top- just the way I like it. I work at a rip curl shop. Rip curl for those who don't know is a surf shop. We sell men's, woman's, girls and boys clothes, surfboards, bathers, towels, back-packs, shoulder bags; pretty much anything involving the beach and you can find it here.
I had completely forgotten about the news report, not really caring about it. Don't get me wrong, I feel sorry for the Mr Coleman guy and all, but the place the 'attack' was, was located about a two and a half hours' drive away from me at the least. I never go to Apollo Bay. It's a pretty sketchy place because bad people live there. Drug dealers, drug addicts, people with guns, a huge gang, you name something bad you can find in a city and you will more than likely find it in Apollo Bay.
***
:Rf