Too late

When your run is intense,

you get your body prepared,

it endures the full length

but for that one last turn...

When your build hits the wall

your muscles freeze heavily

and hard and disobedient

your chest is stuck with air still!

When your hands reach the floor

for your legs lost the war

with the earths incessant pull.

When breathing becomes a forced

sore conflict between air lacking

and the agonizing inhaling process.

"Body Limit" by Lupin Lois

We passed the entrance without any incidents, just passing the cards on the automatic doors. But then heard an enraged scream and before a pain scream followed we started racing desperately through the woods. I lost my shoes and I stopped hearing the lightest foot steps behind me, instead there were gulps of air pushed around and the puffy paws of Akita and the others puncturing the floor with all velocity. Like an instinct we were a pack of raged wolfs and a sky sentinel. Though he didn't seem to be gaining terrain on me. I closed my eyes to focus on the poorly lighted trees on the way.

My form was inhuman, I could tell! For one, I knew this rising heat in my chest of adrenaline and rage, with an inexplicable urge to bite. Also I could hear the sound of small animals all around, touching the dry leaves on the floor, the light heart beats of tiny rodents hidden in the tree trunks. I could hear their movements and sense the ``colours'' they created in the moist air. I could hear Akita's pulse in a precise way. I could feel the flavor of the grass in the air and perceive the miscellany of odors created by a cluster of invidious ahead. My sight tunneled focusing beyond my presence and I could , smell it all and feel it all as if the world extended itself under my paws readable as a children books. The trees flashed past us, as we crawled and jumped and raced, missing most of the small branches now. Adrenaline seemed to have switched a turbo on my senses, that allowed me to decide more rapidly, the kind of decisions that seem to never reach my brain, a parallel processing of each part of my body. Could this be muscle memory?

- ``Something is wrong!'' - I could hear foot steps, plenty of them... behind us. I couldn't tell who from, but I could tell it was a huge amount of people that trembled the ground and hurried towards the college.

- ``What?'' - Akita answered, his words suspended in between goals of air.

- ``We will have company in a few minutes!'' - The words dropped from over the tree tops, where a dark shadow surfed in high velocity the wind currents.

I started to identify the most familiar smells, distinguishing even the number of invidious and concern filled my chest. The number of wingmen was higher than that of other families, considering the elite was basically restricted to wingmen, it was not stupid to assume that we were out-numbered. I hope the ambush factor worked, or we would be really lost. If my father with his guys hadn't been able to over-power the elite, together with the earlier freed council members and other objectors of this insane act, then the bat trainer held the president and the minister in his hands. And if they were already confined in some way we were no match for the elite squad. I slowed my run, calculating which would be worst and how probable. If we had them, then any time now we could be needed, for they wouldn't surrender silently and we should just get there as fast as possible. On the other hand, if they had us then we had to fall back and think of a sneakier way to infiltrate the enemy's barrier and free our troops. Hopefully we hadn't been sensed yet.

- ``What the!!!'' - sounded behind me... I didn't care, he could complain as much as he wanted as long as we would stop and think.

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, disclosing my surroundings. I took another and the painted area I was able to see was deeper into the trees and larger. I could feel vertical air currents and a strong familiar sense, and behind me I heard the voices of irritated complains liberating the sweat breath I loved. Spikes and the guys were shortly behind but they weren't as desperate for air. - ``Schhhhh!!!''

I stopped breathing with my lungs almost full, slowing my heart beat and calming my mind so I could concentrate. I let the air out slowly and then collected as much as I could, as slow as I could. My whiskers tinkled, my neck hair stood up as a pallet of colors overloaded my senses. I concentrated on the clearing. I could feel the sweat, stress and confusion in many different tones... I could feel my father and my trainer and the minister and the president, from within several odors I didn't recognize in particular and some I barely did as bodily fluids. There was a lot of tension and no movement so we were in the right moment. I focused on the Dark Knight, I searched his smell and it was tainted with nervous pain and stress, but also some relaxation, some sense of salvation. I focused on my father but I didn't recognize his feelings so well, it didn't feel bad, just different, like exaltation. ``One more'' - I focused on the trainer, I had seen him in several situations now and knew his smell through out them enough to recognize a wise fear as though he feared not for himself but for someone else. - ``We should go!''

- ``What the hell just happened?'' - Akita's voice made me open my eyes. The pale Bulldog twisted his head in a silent question mark and Spikes just let out a smirk at me as though he found us stopping hilarious. The Retriever just looked puzzled and serene at me, I wonder if anything could rock his boat ever?

- ``I figured that if we were over-powered we needed a smoother approach, but I sense that both the Dark Knight and the trainer are feeling some sort of relief, so we can go and as fast as possible, I sense the batmen are very tense and in the verge of doing something stupid!''

- ``I could have told you that! I can see from up here, you know? My trainer was contained and is trying hard to instigate the rest of the elite to fight. They are not obeying which means they didn't know the minister was imprisoned until just now.''

I closed my eyes again and started running again! - ``Waiting for?'' - I threw to the others through the strong wind of the run. And we four picked up the pace fairly fast.