He sprinted, his powerful legs heaving with the strain of propelling his massive 6 foot 3 inch frame forward. His lungs sucked in as much air as they could in the short span they were allowed. They were gaining on him. Two distinct shapes in the distance. 17.2 meters and closing.

As he glanced back a few moments before he could just make out their features with the ambient lighting from the houses and dim street lights. Their faces were wolf like, but sinister, hideously contorted. They were howling, but only he could hear it. Long ethereal tormented howls filled his night. His v-band augmented reality display identified them as level 6 ghosts. They were there, but not really there. The two runners were also wearing v-bands, and running in another part of the world. They were chosen by v-net as competitors and spawned on his run.

He chuckled to himself, as to them he appeared as Astro Boy. These young kids had no originality, thinking they could psych older runners. But this was serious. If he let them gain ground he risked his level 7 standing in the league.

‘Show my last ghost’ he said out loud while running, seemingly to himself. His previous self spawned in front of him, running his previous run. He could see he was slacking off and the two wolf like ghosts were gaining. He forced his legs to increase his pace, and sucked in more oxygen. He started gaining on his past ghost and pulling away from his pursuers.

Suddenly his vision went black, and then it was back, but instead of the familiar scene in front of him he saw trees densely packed together. He was in a forest. The scene was moving fast, bouncing up and down, left and right. He kept running straight along the path he was on, but couldn’t see where he was going. His v-band was showing him someone from somewhere else. What the frak was happening!

All this happened in seconds, so he kept running, confused, and expecting that the v-band would correct itself. The scene from his v-band lurched as if the person fell, and then was facing up looking at the trees and dark sky. The vision started to darken, but before it went completely dark he saw what looked like a primitive hunter standing over him. He looked big, muscly, but with short arms, and was carrying a large spear.

Running