Death Maze Race - Part 2

I was at a train station among many other contestants, and I immediately knew that I was taking part in the second ever “Death Maze Race,” and as it was I was the winner and sole survivor of the last race (sorry Ben). The first lap of the race was over and people were amazed at just how incredibly good I was at this whole “Death Maze Race” thing. Among the contestants were my dear old friends David Bentz, Tyler Stephenson, and Duncan McLean. They were very happy having me with them as it had made the race thus far, very easy.

I instinctively knew the rules had changed this time around, the last race was a winner takes all, hence why I was the only person who survived the ordeal, this time around as long as you could complete the race you would survive, but whoever got there first got something special... I have no idea what it was suppose to be; knowing this, my friends and I banding together to survive the second ever “Death Maze Race,” made sense right? We also had a bunch of tag along vagabonds whom I seemed to know but couldn’t place a name to the faces, regardless everyone was very grateful that I lead them through this ordeal and we were all going to survive together. Someone even suggested they let me win when we got to the end since I was the man when it came to avoiding traps and finding clues.

All this praise and responsibility was getting to me so I excused myself inside a convenience store/bar, as settings are often blurred together in dreams, when I see behind the counter my favourite girl in the whole world. I am very happy to see, as I always am in real life as well, and I approach her, much the same I do in real life, with a smile and general sense of confidence and unease. I say some usual things about how pretty she is and how it’s nice to see her, but eventually the conversation turns around into the dream itself, the Death Maze Race. I try to act cool to my obvious superiority in the contest not wanting to come off arrogant, but its hard being the only person to survive the first race and dominating the second thus far, but I reassure her that surviving this time around will be easy... for me.

I’m not sure when, but I do know why, I began to work my way around the bar counter and I stand back to the wall at the entrance. I had wanted to wrap my arms around my favourite girl in the whole world but I refrained not wanting to distract her from working. I loomed there for a while before she found the time to come over to me and she asked me why I was looking so worried.

I told her, “I don’t like my friends thinking I’m so much better at this than them, I’m worried they are going to trust me too much and I’m going to let them down. People die in the race, and while... I’m very confident I can keep myself alive, keeping others alive is a completely different matter.”

She assures me everything will be alright, but I continue.

“It unnerves me hearing my friends praise me, I’m not smarter than them, I’m not sure I’m better at the race than any of them, they are a very talented bunch.”

She puts her hands on my chest, like she’s holding me up against the wall, keeping me from falling, and she says to me, “Colin, you are so lucky to have friends who think so highly of you and believe in you so much.”

I look her in the eyes, smile, and I say, “I’m not lucky enough.”

Unlike real life I don’t need to explain to her what I mean, and we stare at each other in sad silence for a very long time, the entire time I never break my smile, I’m just happy having her this close to me. Noticing the moment has lasted too long and she is becoming uncomfortable I tell her she’s right and I thank her for being a friend and set off on my journey.

I don’t remember much of the race after that, my band of friends and I journeyed out into the open city streets and there is a great long bridge, which looks a lot like the San Francisco Bridge, though I’ve never been. We cross about halfway and out of nowhere I know we have to climb the bridge’s tall cables and reach the summit. The climb is great and most of our companions fall behind. The four of us, David, Tyler, Duncan and me reach the peak of the bridge’s cables and find an elevator which ironically takes us down past the bridge’s road and deep into the river below. We ended up fighting/avoiding alligators in underground tunnels, and that’s about where I woke up.