Private Ready... set ..... Riddle

Sam’s lungs were on fire as he forced his screaming legs to continue running. It’s a habit he had picked up during the holiday season as he had realized that his level of activity and smoking habit were catching up to him. Things as simple as picking up a stack of books and climbing up two flights of stairs, which should have been easy, required him to take a second to catch his breath.

That being said, knowing he had an issue and dealing with it was a separate issue as he constantly seemed to contemplate stopping his run and getting a pizza and maybe pulling out a cigarette as he ate.

Maybe that greasy feeling was worth not feeling this sign of weakness leaving the body called pain. The worst part of it wasn’t even the run itself, it was what happened after when his legs would start to store the lactic acid that he had made during his run into his legs. That hurt.

After a couple more minutes of running his eyes trained on an interesting figure. One he had met before, this sphinx was definitely someone who would leave a lasting impression as she was quite a bit larger than a normal lion. She had also seemed to determine his race at a glimpse and at first it frightened him. She had, at the time, assumed that he didn’t know what he was, and seemed to let it slide when he left the building.

He could never come to terms with what he was. He felt so…. Unnatural at times. He hadn’t asked for this change in lifestyle or graduation from the mortal coil. He sighed and then it hit him. She was a perfect distraction. Maybe if he could distract himself from the pain caused by his run, then he could justify to himself that he had done a wholesome run even though he barely did anything.

He made a beeline for Ankh with a smile.

“Hi! Nice to see you again! the last time I saw you was back in the M3C, so I thought to say hi!”

Samuel chuckled a little bit, taking a second more to calm his involuntary yet incessant heavy breathing pattern. Was he always this incapable of running a little bit?

He looked at ankh with a wry grin

“To be frank, I am using this conversation as a way to delay the inevitable run that I have to do to get back home.”

Samuel looked up from his tired and slightly hunched position to look at the sphinx in front of him, and one of the first things his eyes drifted to was the book that seemed to hang from Ankh’s hands After taking a second to read the title, he smiled. He had figured that Ankh would at least find riddles semi interesting, noting what he perceived to be the reputation that sphinxes seemed to have around the tricky word puzzles. As a kid, he actually found Sphinxes to be interesting and larger than life examples of how words could be used effectively for that reason. Sam, as a result, had a voracious and insatiable love for riddles.

“Is that a book of riddles that you are holding? Sorry, I just managed to catch a glimpse of the book and just couldn’t stop myself as I love riddles, I used to play day long games of riddles with my mother whenever she wasn’t busy with her work. At times, we would even make our own. Words seemed to hold a special importance to her, even more than they do for me. She seemed to want to make sure that I understood that from a young age and all.”