A cool breeze pounds on my back as pens tirelessly scratch on paper, putting peoples imagination in the week. Brains whir all around me, gears clicking into motion, spitting out words that become stories, stories that become winners. The pressure is too much. I pound my wrist bone into the flimsy carbon copy paper, shaking my pen around, and bouncing it up-and-down on my thumb. My brain feels dead, my creativity halted and drained from me like a hose, all of my ideas already poured out onto notebooks and scrap paper most likely at the nearest dump, being stepped on by squirrels and chewed away at by various bugs. I should've treasured my imagination more, written whatever I had time, and used every last drop to its fullest potential. I wish I saved every good story I'd ever written, showing them off and saving them somewhere safe for publication later so I would be able to hold a hard copy instead of relying on a vague memory. but here I am at the writing competition, watching yellow papers fill up with blue and black scrawls, seeing judges score stories that will surely be mine, wishing I had an idea to make a readers reality. My fingernail bleeds, a jump and Beatty read substance pulling at the top of my cuticle pouring over that I just like a waterfall. I hear feet pounding, nails clicking, lightbulbs dinging over everybody's head but mine, and I can't help but feel like a failure. I can still remember the warm and pleasant feeling I had last year when I headed up onto the podium to collect my overall award. How good it felt to know I fit in with this crowd being able to say that I was just as good of a writer as anyone. If I try hard enough I can still remember the bubbly sensation I had in my stomach as I held my shiny plastic trophy high in the air. But looking down at my empty paper, the only words written out being my title and my name, I know that I won't win again.

"Five minutes left".

Pressure builds inside of me, starting in my stomach and creeping up into my throat. I feel like I need to throw up, empty my limp body of my nerves and fear I have of failing. But my brain does nothing. It's sits there like an old computer, collecting dust and refusing to function, my body flailing around like it uprooted weed. Time runs out and I realize I have a phobia of failing at the writing competition, but it looks like I already have.