Fear

• Landon Griggs, Grade 5
• Short Story
• 2019

Fear

My hands and legs were trembling, with blood rushing to my head. The red crimson lights were blaring at me, as the seconds were ticking down. I couldn’t cope with the stress, but I had to. It felt like there was a thousand butterflies in my stomach, fluttering around. I could hear the multitude of people outside, eagerly waiting for me. I nervously walked down what seemed like a thousand steps. Seeing everyone watch me, I felt like I was going to faint. I anxiously began muttering my words, as people started murmuring. I talked for what seemed like hours, getting softer every sentence. I felt like I was going to lose my voice, from the shortage of air I had. But then, all of a sudden I stopped. I looked around for a second, and felt terrified, watching everyone’s eyes staring at me. My heart rate rapidly began increasing, as if it were to burst out of my chest and knock someone out. My head began thumping, and I began shaking again. I looked back down at my cards, as tears began filling up in my eyes. Mum began mouthing “Keep going. It’s alright.” I took a big gulp of air, rubbed the tears out of my eyes, and began to enunciate my words. I finally finished. I was walking up all the stairs again, and felt exhausted and that I had done a terrible job. I felt devastated. Mum came up and saw me. She was very kind and was comforting me. She said that “If you did the best you could, that’s all you could do.” She told me of some ways that she had to cope with extremely hard problems. I felt very sad for her, and said “Thank you.” I then went over to hug her. We then went back down to sit in our seats. Then the time came, as everyone impatiently waited for it. It looked like their faces were going to erupt, and I think mine was too. The adjudicators calmly walked down the stairs, handed out the medals, congratulated everyone on what a good job they had done, then walked back up to the discussion room, and then everyone quitely, calmly waited to see who had won. And then all of a sudden, the doors creaked open and everyone applauded as the adjudicators walked down the stairs of the auditorium, getting down to the lower stage. The adjudicator slowly opened his book and got out his notes. I wonder what was going on in his mind, and if he wanted to make us be patient. He then said in to the microphone with a deep voice, “The Winner Of This Competition Is, Lachlan Martin.” I couldn’t believe it, I had won. I raced down the stairs, as confetti guns shot at me, to receive my monstrous trophy. The whole audience was applauding for me. I had won state, and was going to International’s. An orchestral explosion announced my ultimate, victory.