Chapter 2 - Simon on the track then military men come

It was only four strides from the finish line when Simon Fischer felt an immense pain in his leg.

Prior to the pain he concentrated on his footwork, reminding himself that the key to winning a sprint is to spend less time on the ground and more in the air. Amateur runners typically took fifty to fifty five steps to complete the one hundred meter sprint, while professionals like Usain Bolt, could complete the distance in as few as forty one. 

Today's training session wasn't about speed, it was about technique, it was about ensuring every stride was executed as flawlessly as the last and repeating this over and over and over again until it became a secondary muscle memory, until Simon's legs took on a mind of their own, allowing his thoughts to be calm and free from distraction. Having a clear and focused mind was an imperative part of the professional mindset, something Simon had studied extensively and practiced daily. 

Simon was in a fasted state, his last meal was eaten over fourteen hours earlier. He preferred to train this way, he felt a sharpening of his mental acuity when his body was burning stored fat for fuel instead of undertaking the energy sapping process of digesting recently eaten food. 

With only eight meters to the finish line Simon felt what would best be described as a numbness. It started at his heel, but this quickly turned into an ice-vein that raced up his Achilles tendon and the back of his leg to his right buttock. Next came a white hot pain that spread out around his calf and thigh like molten lava just beneath his skin. 

Simon tried as best he could to arrest his momentum and slow his six-foot-five, one hundred and eighty pound frame without succumbing to gravity, but he failed and tumbled to the ground, grazing skin from his knees and palms as he went. 

Simon muted a cry as he consciously turned his descent into a tumble. Another pro-tip he learned many years earlier from his running mentor and trainer. The tumble reduced the amount of skin he would leave on the track. When he finally came to a stop there was a moment of calm, a time where his brain had shut off all receptors, but just as quickly as they had been muted, they reactivated, allowing through the throb and sting of pain from the various parts of his body that now required basic medical attention. 

Simon had been training alone. He preferred it this way, there were less distractions and more time actually spent running than when he teamed up with a buddy or even a trainer. He was the only person on the field, having worked out a deal with the night grounds keeper to let him train as late as he liked. It cost him one hundred and fifty dollars a week for this privilege, but he figured it was worth it to have such high grade facilities all to himself. 

Simon first checked his knees and hands. He found a large chunk of skin had been torn from his left knee, presumably my first point of contact when I hit the ground, and an equally large graze on his right hand. Content that these wounds were superficial only he turned his attention to the cause of the fall. He tried to straighten his leg, but was met by an incredible jolt of pain, starting at his buttock ending at his heel. This worried him far more than the grazing of his skin. 

External injuries heal in days, weeks at the worst. Internal wounds heel in months if you're lucky, sometimes never. This less than optimistic, yet intellectually honest thought sprang to mind as Simon tried, yet failed to stand up. He tried again to get his body vertical, but again he did not succeed. He allowed himself to fall backwards and lie on the track, he cupped his hands around his face so as to block out the bright light from the stadium lights and focus on the night sky above. He focused on his breathing, on the various points of pain across his body all vying for remediation.

As he lay like this he didn't notice the three large men walking intently toward him. He didn't notice that they were dressed in pro-combat military gear. It also went unnoticed that two of them held hand guns by their side and the third had an AR-15 assault rifle abutted to his shoulder, the sight of which was fixed on Simon.

If he'd known what was going to happen to him over the course of the night and just how much pain he was yet to endure, Simon would have savoured this comparatively calm and pain-free moment. Alas, as he lay there catching his breath, he didn't know that within seconds his life was about to change for ever. And his understanding of pain and suffering was about to vastly expand.