“I feel so sick right now. I don’t want to keep running. I want to stop!” Tiffany suddenly caught my arm and said in panting loud breaths. We were doing our PE class final: 500 meters timed. The goal was to finish in four minutes. 

“Okay, you need to finish this on time. I know you still want to keep the top score in the grade right? You don’t want your mother judging you at New Year’s dinner and deciding not to give you lucky money, right? If you don’t want to see that happen, you need to keep running. I know it’s hard, but you need to continue,” I encouraged. 

Tiffany didn’t take her hand away from my arm. In fact, she started coughing. She was still trying to talk, but the cough made her run slower, and she put her right arm at her stomach. She took a long time to speak words. “Lucy, I feel bad, like I can’t breathe. I really need to stop. I can’t run anymore.” 

Her face became a violaceous color, and her feet looked as though they just could not move forward. I guided her to the bleachers. With my stern voice I said, “If you want to rest, take a fifteen-second break, fine, but I really need to go. I need this PE grade to keep first place and get into a good middle school.” 

Tiffany looked at the sky. It was gray and dark that day, although it was ten o’clock in the morning. There was no sun in the sky; maybe there was once, but the dust covered everything and made seeing beyond a half meter impossible. Meanwhile, Tiffany was still coughing. She found a spot to lie down on the bleachers, her hands and teeth shaking as if she were freezing. It was fifteen degrees outside, not surprising since it was winter in Beijing, the time when the coal factories burn fuel around the clock to keep people warm in their homes. 

She didn’t have enough energy to stand, so I pulled her back onto the track, deciding that I would run a little bit slower to help her along. After I checked the time, I knew we could make it. I said, “Come on, Tiffy, we have already completed 300 meters. Let’s go, let’s go! You only have 200 meters left.” 

Using both arms to cover her heart and stomach, she didn’t say anything but didn’t stop coughing. A crow flying across the sky landed on the flower brushes, its wings covered in dust and black oily dirt. Seeing it, I felt bad for a second but kept running. In the previous two months, dead birds were everywhere in the city. Even my neighbor’s dog also passed away after the daily walk in the park. I looked back at the sky, the gray color becoming darker and darker, the wind blowing across my face, the weird trash and oil smell mixing in my nose. I coughed with a pain in my chest and stopped for a second. I turned around, and Tiffany was not at my side. She was at the end of the lane. I realized I needed to wait for her, so I ran back to the end. I went side by side with her, her face looking deathly white. She breathed hard and deep and didn’t talk. “Come on, there are only 100 meters left. You can make this!” I was encouraging her and never realized what would happen next. 

We reached the final turn of the track. I was at the outside and Tiffany was inside. I passed the small “lake,” which was just a pond with dirty greenish water, where dead fish had floated to the top. With a hard sound like a stone hitting the earth, I heard Tiffany falling down. She lay there, and at first, I thought she was tired. I crossed the finish line and ran back to check her. That was when I realized something bad had happened to her. Her legs kept shaking, like my neighbor’s dog before it died, her breathing was deep along with a heavy cough, and blood trickled out of her mouth. I sat next to her and yelled her name: “Tiffany! Tiffany! Tiffany! What’s wrong? Can you hear me?” 

She didn’t reply and her leg suddenly didn’t move. I yelled to my PE teacher, the woman who sat on the bleachers coloring her nails. “Mrs. Li! Mrs. Li! Something is wrong with Tiffany! Could you please call the hospital? She needs help! The woman didn’t raise her head. She just replied, “Every year, students act like they are sick during the PE final.” I was almost crying at that time. The wind blew harder, and the dirty smell kept going into my nose. Tiffany’s breath was lighter and lighter. I yelled loudly, but those students, our classmates, were just standing there, some with review books in their hands so they could study during breaks. One said, “Sorry, my grade is more important. I have a math final next.” 

Our principal was heading downstairs at that time, so I ran to her and yelled, a crying sound in my voice, “Please, please, please, please call the hospital. Tiffany needs help!” 

The principal called the hospital, and the ambulance arrived speedily. Tiffany was carried away to the emergency room. The crow flew across the field with a scary and harsh birdcall, and the P.E. teacher’s nail polish bottle fell on the ground, the polish turning the ground red like blood. 

That day, I went to the hospital to see Tiffany, who had already been in the surgery room for two hours. Her mother had come from the Environmental Protection Center, where she worked and received the call. At the time, she was having a meeting with the other researchers in the center. She came in her business suit crying like a little girl. She didn’t know what to do. She sat on the hospital chair, used her hands to hold her head, and her eyes looked through the window to the outside, with no emotion, just tears. I stood there. I could hear what she was saying to herself, “Why I didn’t figure it out early enough? What’s wrong with my girl?” 

After five hours, the doctors came out. They took off their masks and walked to Tiffany’s mother. They hugged her and we all understood what had happened. The girl who loved dancing and acting, who had a friendly and kind personality, would never be with us anymore. Tiffany’s mother didn’t move. 

Later, I got to know the reason why Tiffany passed away. Her death was caused by the air pollution in Beijing. Yes, we all wore masks, but in the face of toxic pollution, the masks did little to keep us safe or calm our minds. They actually helped reduce pollution less than 1%. Tiffany didn’t have strong lungs or a strong heart, and the pollution gave her lung cancer and took her life. 

I never saw Tiffany’s family again. They moved to Britain, the place where Tiffany wanted to live her whole life. In Beijing, winter came again and again. The snow fell every year, but the sky was never white anymore. I still wear the face mask every day in winter. I look at the dark gray sky mixing with the clouds, and it is like looking in the face of the Death God, and the Death God is smiling.