Blood Circus

Chapter 22- The Flashback Chapter 3

" Go on, Liam! What've you got to lose?!" Ronin giggled. She grabbed his arm and tried to drag him towards the sign up desk. But she wasn't very strong, and he barely moved. She let him go and sighed overdramatically. They were at the archery competition in their small town park. Liam enjoyed watching the game, but his aim was terrible. He couldn't hit a target if it was only a meter away. Not that he cared how good he was at archery. He wanted to become a chef, not an archer.

He looked at Ronin. He had always wondered what he'd done to deserve such a beautiful girlfriend. Ronin was small, but so was he. She had long, chocolate coloured hair, currently worn in a high ponytail, a naturaly tanned skin tone, and big green eyes. In the warm summer weather, she wore a purple tank top with denim shorts and beige ballet flats. She was gorgeous to him.

A tall guy approached them. He grinned overconfidently at Liam, looking down on him. He snorted.

" Leave it to the professionals, tiny."

" Do you know any, Brad?" He glared at him, but Ronin burst out laughing. Brad marched away from them as she struggled to stifle her giggles. She then jumped over to the side lines. A white line was painted across the grass to stop people from standing too close. He joined her at the front of the crowd. He noticed someone standing at the gate entrance to the park. It was a girl, but he had never seen her around before. She was watching from the gate. He decided to go talk to her, see I'd she needed any help. He mentioned to Ronin that he would be back in five minutes and she promised to keep a space for him. He gave her a quick kiss on the cheek before heading over to the gate to talk to the girl.

The girl was taller than him, but considering he was only 5 foot 3, that wasn't unusual. She had shoulder length blond hair that shone in the sunlight. Her strange navy blue eyes focused on the field, and she never saw him walk towards her. He called out a 'hey' and she turned to him. He smiled politely. He worked part time in the tourist office, so he was used to seeing strangers around town. The girl returned a friendly smile.

" Hi. Sorry, I just wanted to see what was going on."

" It's fine. Actually, this is the archery tournament. It's free to come and watch or there's free entry."

" Really?"

" Yeah. Come on, you can join me and my girlfriend at the side. I'm Liam by the way. Liam Shilling"

" Sylvia Archer."

" Archer? Are you any good at archery?"

" Funny enough, I'm great at it." She followed him back over to where he had left Ronin. They joined her and he introduced Sylvia to her. Being such a bubbly person, Ronin was more than happy to welcome Sylvia to join them. While they waited for the competition to start, Ronin quizzed Sylvia about herself.

" So where are you from?"

" Blackpool."

" Blackpool?! Why are you away up here then?"

" I travel."

" Travel? So you just, like, drive around to different places?"

" Pretty much."

" Don't you miss your family?" Sylvia went quiet. She looked at the ground.

" I...don't have any." There was an uncomfortable second of silence between them. Liam felt sorry for her. He had grown up in his little town, and he was still very close to his parents. They ran the tourist office as a family business. He couldn't imagin what it would be like to never have a family.

Thankfully, the first challenger prepared to take his shot. Liam, Ronin and Sylvia all focused on him instead of the heavy atmosphere around her words. The target rings were set up on a square white board. There were five rings, blue, green, yellow, orange and red. The points earned for each ring went up by 10 each time, the blue outer ring worth 10 points, and 50 points for hitting the red bullseye. They were place exactly 10 meters away from the contestants. The guy took his three shots, landing two of them in the 30 point ring and missing his last one. The wrote his score next to his name on a large chalkboard. There was currently a total of eight challengers.