"The Lightspeed Experience"

Wrote a story in tuition today. That's what tuition class's for: to write stories while the teacher potters about in front. Anyway, here it is, if you don't mind reading it:

"The Lightspeed Experience"
by An Idiot

I clambered into my seat, settling down gingerly on the worn leather. My hands found their way to the metal handholds built into the car, feeling the sticky legacy left behind by who knew how many pairs of sweaty hands that had been on this ride of doom.

'The Lightspeed Experience', they called it, possibly alluding to how fast it can make you lose your lunch if you had the guts (or few enough brain cells) to risk your life on this deathtrap. A network of rails elevated high above the ground, complete with horrifying drops and death-defying (I hope) loops, the Experience was one mean roller coaster.

You couldn't tell that from the faces around me, though. Excited anticipation was plastered onto every face but mine, and I noticed that some were even eying the closest drop with what can only be described as crazed, insane longing. But I had to do it; I had to somehow survive this hellish ride with my lunch intact, because even though I couldn't see them, I knew my friends were watching nearby, perhaps even filming it with Kat's new camcorder. It was my rite of manhood, they insisted. Do it, and I would be a man.

Personally, I thought they were more keen on uploading a new video onto YouTube, aptly titled "Chicken-Guts Teen Loses It on Roller Coaster" than actually seeing me complete my "passage into manhood".

"Everything okay?" a cheerful voice asked, and I turned to see the ride attendant grinning down at me, checking to see if I had my safety belt engaged. I did; the worn fabric hanging loosely around my waist boosting my confidence substantially. I could almost feel the air rushing past me as I plummeted to the ground... thrown free from the speeding train to meet the ground in a personal, and fatal way...

Despite that, I nodded a silent yes, and felt the grim touch of despair as the attendant walked over to a control panel, her high heels sounding ominously on the metal platform.

"Here we go, guys!" she called enthusiastically from her post, and the train gave a sudden lurch forwards, clunking down the railway admist the cheer of my compatriots. I resigned myself to cruel fate and offered a prayer to whoever might be listening Upstairs.

Slowly, but all too surely, the train pulled out of the station, and we emerged into the brilliant sunlight. The sun hung resplendent in the all-too-blue sky, looking too cheerful to fit with my current mood. We approached the first rise, and as the train strained up the incline, all I could see was the ocean-blue sky, clear and beautiful; a sick, false promise of calm. The upbeat mood of the other passengers had mellowed into silent waiting, their previously animated chatter reduced to a hushed reverance as we moved inexorably towards the apex of our climb; the calm before the storm.

A small breeze brushed against my face, somehow syphoning away a part of my senses with each soft caress, until only a cold, dead numbness remained. Vaguely, I noticed that there was a void where my stomach used to be.

And we fell.

"Ghaaaaaaaargh!!!" I yelled as the train thundered down the rails, the mighty iron serpent curving around the tracks, clinging onto the thin metal miraculously as it twisted and turned. Friction held no sway here, and inertia gleefully took charge, propelling us ever forwards like a hyperpowered missile.

The world came past in flashes: the blue sky, twisting metal tracks and glimpses of ecstasy on delirious faces of screaming passengers. Howls assaulted my ears, not just from the rushing wind, but ululating from the throats of the feverish fanatics waving their arms in the air. My heart leapt and fell, flew and crashed with every descent, the buffeting wind beating my eyes shut and forcing the air from my lungs.

But despite the wild discomfort, a strange feeling trickled into my consciousness. Nerves numb with terror suddenly leapt back into life, sparking a fire that burned throughout my body with frightening intensity. I could feel the blood pumping through my veins, could see the world dancing by in vibrant colors as if through a kaleidoscope, and I felt the strong buffet of the wind. Strong and animalistic, spearing through my hair as I hurtled through the air.

I forced my head back against the wind, raising it towards the heavens, and bellowed a primal roar. Adrenaline coursed through my body, a raging fire unquenchable by fear or disquiet.

Not to be outdone, my fellow passengers screamed hoarse warcries of their own, shaking the very air as we roared down the tracks, past terror and doubt, onwards to death or glory.