September 2030

Airguns

I might not have learned specifically about poison in airguns, but I know them both separately very well. They both even had their own classes called shooting weapons, and poison. Creative? I don't think so. But there's no need to come up with complicated descriptions to make things sound harder or more sophisticated. Simplicity and logic is the key. I still couldn't agree more. Feelings have no place in war.

A new projectile is fired in our direction. Make yourself harder to hit. I bend down, and run in an uneven pattern to be a harder target. The shots are coming from a barn close to another abandoned farm. I sprint towards the wall of it, and position myself under the window where I think the hideously bad sniper is placed. Probably self taught and unexperienced. I'm probably already noticed, but whoever it is seems to want to shoot the guy and not me, and no one seems to run away to save themself as I get closer. If it's that important to finish what was started that you're ready to die, it's pretty serious. Or crazy. But I'd rather face something serious than something crazy.

For the first time in a long while I start to doubt. Not the current situation, but my decision to team up with the football player dude. Of all the people I could've chosen, I somehow managed to chose someone that people obviously are trying to kill.

I should've made that conclusion hours ago just based on his scars and the long hidden knife, but I guess I just thought it was some next level survival stuff among the citizens. I prefer the more discreet and sophisticated ways. Quiet, quick and without witnesses. Compared to his clumsy and probably unbalanced knife, my own is light, balanced and sharp. It's effective. Stupid citizens, thinking the knife with the largest blade win.

I turn around the corner of the barn, completely focused on the target of the moment. As I move into the shadows under the roof a new capsule is fired, and when I get inside through an opening where a door used to be, I can hear the sniper reaching for another one. The heat becomes more tolerable as I get inside, but a fusty smell seems to be the reason for no one staying here. Or maybe the sniper is, but I'm not able to identify anything that looks like it could belong and be useful to a person. The barn is only filled with hay, useless pieces of wood, and dark scrap metal piled up in a corner. The only source of light is from the outside, and even if the sun isn't out, it's still bright, so I can clearly see the the rusty ladder leading up to a loft.

I wait for the sniper to shoot again to be sure that the airgun is temporarily harmless before I start to climb up. I do it with ease, not hesitating for a second, and as I climb down again half a minute later, I'm just as calm.

I've done this too many times to act any other way.