A Disturbing Dream 7

I'm walking into a condo that has been retrofitted like a dorm. It's in Chicago. I'm with fourteen other twenty somethings and we all choose bunks. We're in a cycling competition. The following morning we have three days to bike one thousand miles. We've been picked at random and our participation is not negotiable. There is an unnamed prize for winning and some unnamed penalty for not finishing the race or finishing over the set time limit. No one states this information explicitly it seems that I know this information going in.

Everyone starts unpacking their bags and repacking smaller back packs to use for the race. There's is a lot of excitement and jocularity between the men and women I'm with which I'm excluding myself from. I'm packing granola bars, dried fruit, beef jerky, a camera, and an audio recorder. I have no desire to win and I have no doubt that I will finish the race under time. I'm actually looking forward to staying up all night biking, testing the limits of my endurance. I plan on documenting as much of the race as I can because the particulars of the race have never been made public.

Right when I've finished packing another competitor comes up to me. He's tall, lanky, and well muscled. He looks like a cyclist.

Jack: You better watch your ass out there on the rode.
(At this point all the other competitors are looking at us, I don't really care about the school yard antics, I get the feeling everyone else is more into the hierarchy of this situation then I am.)
Me: I'm sorry?
Jack: It's a long race. People get hurt. Some die.
Me: Well...you know what they say. We all gotta go sometime, just a question of when.
Jack: I'm winning this thing. No one's stopping me.
Me: Good luck, friend.

We stare at each other for a while and then he storms off. Time passes, everyone's going to bed. I can't sleep. Eventually it starts to get lighter out. Pre-dawn. I see Jack out the window making his way to the garage. After a couple minutes the garage opens and he rides out on his bike. I yell to wake everyone up and we all scramble to get on the road.

I'm in a gas station. It's 50 hours into the trip and I've stopped to use the bathroom and to buy food. I feel like a zombie. I feel like my body is caught in jello. It's hard to move and I can only do so slowly. There are two other competitors in line in front of me. The door opens, a bell rings, Jack is standing there with a shotgun. It's obvious fatigue has had an effect on him. He labors to raise the gun. Feeling shoots back into me and I lunge.

I awoke.