Huff... huff...
A light brown skinned teen with a helmet and a cycling shades pushed through the uphill roads of Sumulong Highway, Antipolo with a tall bike, a Jiant Road Bike. The sun was scorching hot, simmering the asphalt road, it can fried the skin of any people that it gets contact with. Even though, he still hasn't met his limit doing a loop in this route.
For a moment he felt a little tired so he lowers his speed a little to cruising.
"Hey, are you Alex?" A man in his twenties wearing a dark blue jersey in his right side calls him.
He saw him and responded. "Yes?"
"You've been riding the route few times? I've seen you before I even start and now you're climbing again?" The man asks.
"Oh... Yeah, I've been riding for..." He looks at his sports watch"
6:18:02 - TIME
27kp/h - AS
"Ahm, it says 6 hours..." Alex respond.
The man was shocked. "In this route only?"
Alex responded "yeah, this route is my training ground."
The man again reacts "Oh man, you're really a beast—"
Alex then stand up and sprint for the last uphill and finish the last loop of the loop leaving the man behind. It's a remarkable achievement of him riding for that long while maintaining a good speed and loopinng in this route since he's been newbie to cycling, only riding for few months.
He just turned left after finishing the last uphill and the loop, now he's in downhill. Suddenly, adrenaline burst out making him speed as fast as he could in the downhill, over speeding cars and even motorcycle.
Then—
BEEEEEEP!!!
A family car going on the road on the right suddenly pop up. Alex was shocked and didn't have time to react. In a moment a feeling that the time have slowed, cars, trees and birds feels like slowed giving Alex a time to finally react and avoid collision with the car.
He pull his rear breaks as strong as he could making him skid and slow down, then he swerved to the left and continue to speed up. He felt relief.
He went straight to the traffic like a cat, passing cars one by one while avoiding collisions.
"What a ride..." He whispered.
He went straight to his house in the outskirts of the town to rest.
When he goes back to his house, his house is big, but he's the only one living there. It's cleaned from the inside to the outside. The house are organized even though he lives there alone.
He parked his bike carefully inside his home and take a bath.
After taking a bath he went to his bedroom to play his playbox 7 gifted by his grandmother in his las birthday.
- - -
On the table there's fried chicken, spaghetti fruits, rice and specially a cake. Written on the cake is:
- "Happy 18th Birthday, Alexandre.
From Grandma and Grandpa."
His grandparents are singing happy birthday in front of him and looking happy.
His grandma went to him and having a box gift wrapped in his hand.
"I have a gift for you Alex."
"What is it, ma? Alex responds excited.
And then she shows her a box.
And then his senses was back to what it was now, a game console which was the latest and expensive back then.
"Thank you, ma." He whispered.
Then he opened the game console, as the console loads he wait for it and then his phone rang.
TING!
He grabbed his phone in his right side, the notification was a message.
- From: Vince
> "Heyyy, what's up? We're having a party dude why won't you come? We're drinking!"
"Ahh, not again, Vince." He murmured
Alex replied.
- To Vince
> "Sorry, Vince. I have no time for that right now. You know that I stopped doing things like that and doing better now."
He looked at his photo frame inside his room in front of him and whispered.
"I need to be better."
TING!
His phone rang again. Another message was sent by Vince.
- From Vince
> "Oh, yeah? What if I tell you that Anthea was here too? It's rare occurrence I know. Anyways you should be here before 6:00pm, bye."
Alex was surprised when he saw the name "Anthea" in the text, because Anthea don't usually hang out with that type of people, she's is high school crush of Alex, that he was in love but it's a shame that he never confess for it.
He hesitated for a moment. But he made a decision not to drink again, he courage himself that he need to be better specially he's young.
He then lays down on his bed, thinking of what to do later on, then he saw the family photo. His mother him and his father, happy and complete.
Alex just looked at there blankly and then he remembered something.
He hears ambulance on his ears but there's no ambulance. And then he remembered the day when he was in the scene he was a kid when his parents died.
He was there looking at the crashed car, his parents there lying in the ground, his father inside. Everything around him is dark, it's just his parents, crashed car and him. Then he saw a shadow figure and look at it.
He then was pulled by a police officer losing a sight of that shadow figure. In a moment he tripped and falls and goes back to his senses.
He whispered "Mom... Dad...."