Читать книгу Secret doors - Dirk Lützelberger - Страница 8

Chapter 3

The sun was already higher on the horizon today, when he laced his shoes once more to do his workout. By now he had got the hang of motivating himself and had scouted out a nice, about ten-kilometer-long loop where he could really let off steam. He left his holiday flat and stretched out in front of the door. He enjoyed the view of the rugged mountains and the woods that ran up the slopes like ivy looking for the path on a house wall. The weather had not let him down during his entire vacation and he sucked the fresh mountain air deep into his lungs. After a few squats and other loosening-up and stretching exercises, he slowly started to trot off to complete his penultimate round before he would travel back home in the next few days.

He usually took it slow for the first kilometer and today he didn’t intend to change that. Rather he enjoyed the dry paths that meandered through the first part of the forest. Past the ant hill, whose industrious inhabitants apparently always had something to do. He was happy that he was on vacation and not doing his job on the rat race of some company. Although he was self-employed, he did not usually rest until fourteen hours. Not even on the weekends he would have loved to spend with friends. He walked past the raised blind, which stood at the edge of the forest as if waiting for victims and looked out over the clearing. The thought that a hunter was waiting for an animal to shoot it from a distance did bother him a lot. Therefore, he had often planned to do without meat completely, but just as with various other of his intentions, this one could not be realized in the long run. Rather, he told himself that a hunter was after game, whereas his prized steak was bred especially for it. This comparison, however, was misleading, of which he was aware and so he tried to keep his meat consumption at least to a minimum. As he jogged out into the open clearing, he picked up the pace. Today he felt superior to everyone and went to his limits, as he thought. A marathon professional would certainly still have overtaken him running backwards, but he was proud of his speed and snorted threateningly with every step he took.

The pain that he suddenly felt in his chest again did not worry him, as he had already noticed it during the last few days of running. He comforted himself with the thought that it had disappeared again by itself the last time. He felt fit and did not give in, he only paid attention to evenly breathing in and out. In the past it was usually his spleen that did not want to supply the increased needed amount of blood when he exerted himself. That will surely be over in a moment, he encouraged himself.

Behind the next bend the path rose steeply and wound its way back into the forest. It was a good opportunity to increase the speed and effort once again. If only these stabbing pains in his chest had disappeared again, but with every step he took he felt his body resisting the torture further. When he started the ascent, he had not been able to run any faster. He decided to just keep up the speed and hope that the pain did not increase. He staggered to the left and saw the trench coming towards him. He still tried to counter-steer, but his legs were already failing. His eyes were still able to see the trench, but his brain was no longer able to give sufficient impulses to absorb the impending fall. When he tipped forward and fell into the ditch without any resistance, his senses no longer perceived the situation. When his body hit the bottom of the dried-up ditch, he felt no more pain. He was already dead.