Interwoven ✔️

43~ A Shot of Life

"This morning all of you will learn how to properly shoot a gun." Jimin pressed a gun into my hands without looking at me and kept walking down the line of trainees. When he reached the end of the row and everyone had a gun, he pointed at the targets on the wall across from us. "To pass this session, you'll need to be able to hit inside the center ring on the target least once before lunch. Otherwise you're going home."

I swallowed hard. Now I realized how the Initiation night had just been another test. The targets stood roughly 5 yards away from where we were behind the red line on the ground. Five circles were painted on them, the center ring the smallest. There was no way someone hungover would be able to hit the inner ring. And even if you weren't hungover the task seemed next to impossible. It looked no larger than a bottle cap from this distance.

As if reading my thoughts one of the human trainees, number 37, near me scoffed. "Are you kidding me?" He burst out. "How the hell are expected to hit the center ring? I bet even you can't hit that center ring! You're no older than all of us."

I winced and several trainees around me shift uneasily. This guy was a moron to think he could talk back to a trainer like that, regardless of the trainer's age. I risked a glance at Jimin.

The silver-haired trainer's face was colder than a glacier. My heart jumped into my throat when he slowly approached, each step calculated. As he drew near all the trainees, including me, moved back to give him a clear path to the bigmouth trainee— who looked like he was now regretting all life choices.

"I'm willing to bet," said Jimin softly, deadly. "And you can have a first row view." He jerked his head to the far wall. "Stand in front of the target."

Incredulous gasps and murmurs rippled around me but immediately cut short when Jimin swung around to glare at the rest of the trainees, eyes daring anyone to say anything else.

Conflict tore across the Number 37's face before he slowly trudged across the distance to the opposite wall. The target was raised high enough off the ground that when the trainee stood before it, his skull covered half of the center ring. The other half was the tiniest of crescent, no more than two inches, above his scalp.

My mouth dried. It would take an impossibly perfect shot to hit the center ring and not blow out Number 37's brains in the process. Someone gripped my arm— a red headed Outworlder girl, her eyes huge. I didn't shake her off.

Jimin flipped the gun in his hand carelessly, getting his point across to everyone like a punch to the gut: the trainee's life was in his hands. Him playing with his gun was equivalent to playing with the trainee's life. Just one slip of the finger, one tenth of a centimeter's inaccuracy, and Number 37 would be dead.

"All eyes one me," he announced. As if everyone wasn't already staring at him. "Take a good look on my posture and how I fire. If I do everything right, your fellow trainee here, Number 37, will still have a head after this. Maybe he'll even grow a brain in the process."

No one missed the blunt 'if'.

I set my jaw as I watched Jimin face the wall, facing Number 37. He stood with feet shoulder width apart. His arms rigid in front of him. Both hands held the gun pointing directly at Number 37's head.

Everyone held their breath. One second. Two seconds. Silence.

The bang was so loud it echoed through the training room. I flinched.

No one moved. Number 37 slumped to the ground, limp.

Jimin calmly lowered his gun. "Get up."

The bullet hole had gone clean through the top of the center ring, right in the small space between the rim and the trainee's head.