Lost in the wind

Chapter 1: The beginning

I have my eyes closed.

I hear the birds in the trees, the water running in the creek and I feel the sun burning down on me.

The grass tickles me and for a short, maybe silly moment I feel nothing. I try to stay this way for as long as I can.

Unfortunately my mind won't shut up for long. Sometimes I'm beginning to doubt if maybe I'm starting to loose my mind. Or that it's all a dream and I will wake up in my own bed in Eagle River, Wisconsin but no every time I wake up it's in my childhood bed in a little town called Mustang in Texas.

My biggest problem used to be if I was fit enough to compete, to try to be the best I could be. At the moment I wished that was all I had to worry about though. It all seems like silly problems right now.

It was about a year ago, last time I came home.

My dad died in a car crash. It was raining so bad and some other car got on the wrong side of the road. He was our rock, my biggest fan. My mom adored him.

And then only three months ago my mother got sick so I dropped and left everything and came home again. Only to loose her three weeks after she became sick.

Now I'm alone, in my childhood home. A really big ranch and no clue of what to do. No idea how to keep the ranch going, not knowing if I can even keep the ranch at all. The first couple of weeks a lot of neighbours came out to help on the ranch and they brought over food. But now, they don't come over anymore. I don't blame them, they have their own ranches and family to take care off.

I don't mind. I spend my days here in my favorite spot on the corner of our, no on my property. Right by the creek. Thinking of nothing, well at least I try. But now it's time to go back to the real world. There are a lot of chores waiting on me because I left right after breakfast.

"It's time to go back home boy". Valentin lift ups it's head, still chewing on grass. He doesn't go out much. He is a handfull because he doesn't like everybody but I love to ride him. He is like horses in fairytails are, a palomino stallion with very long white mane and tale. A picture perfect horse, well at least when he is not grumpy. I climb in the saddle and because I want to enjoy our ride a little longer we take the long way back over the other corner of the property.

I give Valentin free reigns and soon he starts in a gallop. That's when I get lost in the wind. I feel nothing but the wind blowing through my hair. I'm not thinking about any problems. "Go boy go", I wisper to him. He takes off and it's almost like we are flying.

I enjoy the moment and get Valentin back to a trot before we are at the corner.

Before I know what's going on, something spooks Valentin. "Easy boy, easy!" he calms a little bit. I look around to try and find whatever made him spook, I don't see anything in the trees. Maybe it was like a fox and Valentin scared him off.

But then I hear a rustling between the trees and turn to look when Valentin spooks again and rears me off. I land on my back, the air leaves my lungs and I hit my head, hard. My head hurts so much. I can't get up. What was Valentin scared off? It must have been an animal but Valentin is used to most animals around here. I hear a faint noise, it's getting louder. Is someone walking behind the trees? Just when I think I see something behind the trees everything goes black.