Annihilation//Breath v.2 Runner: Personal Log_01
Marathon is breath work. For anyone who hasn't done breath work, it in my opinion is one of the hardest things to practice. Breathing is something we do in every moment without thinking about it. We just breath. To breath consciously then is a choice. A choice that leads to a practice. A practice that leads to whatever one is trying to achieve for themselves big or small. There are many different kinds of breath work. Do I want to do box breathing? Or lions breath? Am I trying to calm myself or am I in practice? If I'm practicing my breath work what am I hoping to achieve? Am I doing yoga? Is it to further the practice? Is it to ease into meditation? To be still. To let things come and go. Thoughts like bumblebees milling from flower to flower. Pollinating the mind.
>://Breath in Runner
>://Breath out Runn... Connection Scrambled
... Bullets rip through the air behind me I don't have time to keep breathing calmly the breath work has changed. I'm sprinting for my life. Another Runner is... somewhere behind me but I'm sprinting as fast as I can in the opposite direction. Breathing. One foot falling hard in front of the other like hitting an anvil over and over with mighty swings. Except I don't want to be seen. I don't want to be heard. I'm working on myself right now and I'll be damned if the outside world is going to shatter that visage.
>://Breath in Runner
My shields explode with a loud crackle, obliterated by a group of UESC bots rounding the corner in front of me. My Stealth.exe is still on cool down only four more seconds till recharge. Is that other Runner still giving chase?
>://Breath out Runner
My feet fill my ears. The artificial thuds coming down wet, cold, sticky, hard, as I move like a blur through an ever changing environment. Prefab units sprinkled like broken toys across a landscape slowly taking back what always belonged. I do not belong here. I am artificial. My breath is not. A cloud of spores erupts next to me slowly making their way towards my ever moving blur. I'm breathing. I'm running. I'm alive. I'm calm. My heart gives away the lie. It's jack hammering in my chest. Just keep breathing. You're still breathing.
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//RUN_COMPLETE
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>://Breath in Runner
I guess I died. I don't remember what killed me. It doesn't matter. They gave me a new shell. A new body. I'm breathing. Breath on borrowed time? No. I'm breathing. The run starts again. Orient. Breath. Where am I? That building looks recognizable. Those colors look familiar. Gun shots echo through the trees. I put one foot in front of the other.
>://Breath out Runner
>://Breath in Runner
Marathon is a game of practice. It is patience and execution, feel free to take the double meaning on execution. It is running in and out of moments and turning your brain one-eighty because the situation changed in the time it took you to breath in - the breath holds in your artificial lungs. It's hearing foot falls above and slightly behind that give way to your gut reactively clenching, a spike in heart rate and the reminder to just breath. Just keep breathing. You are alive. You will make it out of this Runner. To hold your breath is death. To stop is death. You are a Runner do what you were made to do. Run. Breath.
And breathing gives way to something much easier, much more serene. Just like all your runs previous, just like all your runs before you, maybe the run you are on right now it will come and go. The moment will pass. All of this, the glistening cathedral that is the UESC Marathon, the monuments built high and broken are constantly coming to pass. Happening. You can only hold these moments like breath briefly before letting them go into a much wider world. Universe.
>://Breath ou... Connection Lost
It happened again. You were busy hacking a console and someone was happy to down you while you just breathed. In and out. In and out. I'm not breathing anymore. It's only a moment. Is that another runner down the hall? It looks like your antagonist isn't breathing anymore either. Both of you caught in a moment between breaths. It would have been nice to exfil with that schema. That's OK, it was never yours to begin with. It was always theirs. Whoever they are. Still breathing.
>://Breath in Runner
I'm breathing. Maybe I'll have a good run. Back to it. Feeling dreary. Want to feel the rain fire synapsis on my artificial skin. Outpost seems lovely this time of day. Just keep breathing. Anyone else running?
The Pinwheel looms like some ancient crustaceous god locked in place. It does not breath. It longs to have//to inhale new air, to exhale old. That's what you're here for Runner. To help it breath again. I'm good at that. I have doors to open, rust//UESC to shake loose. Open this tomb so that it might breath again. Like you Runner. Don't forget to breath. In and out. In and out.
Rains getting hot. My little corner of meditation. Tucked away under a stairwell. Away from the noise. Away from the sparklingly hot rain. It looks beautiful as it splashes and trickles across surfaces that don't belong. Shell integrity can only maintain for twelve more minutes before forced exfil. I'm still breathing.
>://Breath out Runner
Rain stopped. Time to go. Objective changed. I don't remember when. You carry stories long past. What will they tell if you exfil out still breathing? Oh. While you were breathing two exfils vanished. Their last breath. I wonder who they were. Ah. a guarded exfil. Perfect.
Three hundred meters seems like an eternity stretched out before me. I'll never make it to the exfil. Just keep breathing. The hot rain starts up again. One of the Pinwheel's arms extends far far away and over you like a protective guardian. This god wants to see you live. The scorching glittering rain won't harm you here, Runner. Three minutes to forced exfil. I'm still breathing.
The UESC bots spot me in the cargo container I've made my temporary fortress. Breath. I let out a small puck skimming it off my palm with two fingers as I breath out. Unfortunately it went far. The bots ignore the smoke wall behind them focusing their sites on me. Yellow eyes turning furious red. In a flurry of gun fire I'm down. I'm still breathing. Crawl! Exfil. Breath.
I'm still breathing.