Princess; b.parish (EDITING)

Chapter Sixteen

As much as Princess hated to admit it, she needed help on her shooting skills, and according to Zombie "she's the best around, she can help".

And as much as she hated to admit it, he was right.

"Okay!" She yelled, as she walked down the line of kids "Don't be so scared of your weapon. You gotta think that the gun is a part of you. Not the gun firing, you firing."

They all put their protective earmuffs on and began firing. Some of them hitting the target dead center, others not even hitting anywhere near the target itself.

Princess tried to block out the fact that there was a kid who hasn't even finished elementary school shooting a military grade gun right next to her, a kid who was being expected to shoot it to kill.

She did her best, and ended up making a few perfect shots and some others that only reminded her that she needed to be better. She wasn't taking any chances, no mistakes.

When the group finished they took off the earmuffs and looked to Ringer.

"Try it again." She commanded, and they all went to put their earmuffs back on but they were interrupted by the door behind them opening.

Sergeant Reznik was standing with an impassive glare, completely expressionless. "Zombie, Princess, the Colonel wants to see you two, now."

Princess and Zombies eyes shot to meet each other's, fear quite evident in both of their expressions. The two of them tried their best to ease the other with only their expressions as they walked towards the door, attempting to have nobody notice.

They followed Reznik to the control room, each turn making them more and more anxious.

The two of them were starving for each other. Wanting with all their hearts to reach out for the other and grab their hand, tell them it would be ok, even if they knew it would be. Anything to make the other feel better.

They entered the control room and were immediately face to face with all sorts of hustle and bustle, men in uniform talking and handing each other information. Vosch noticed their presence and walked away from his previous work over to the two of them. They greeted him with the standard salute and he began their apparently too secret meeting as everyone scattered whom were previously around them.

He led them to the left wall where a large blue map took up most of the space. "Simultaneous attacks on the lastof our metropolitan areas. A full-on invasion. This is it." He said, pointing to a small area in the middle of the map, with a large 'X' over it.

"The 5th Wave." Zombie began, sending a brief look to Princess. "It's started?"

"Yeah." Vosch said solemnly, showing more emotion than Princess had ever seen from him before. "Here, I want to show you something." He said, walking to the table behind them and coming back with two helmets. Both with an attached eye piece on their right sides.  "These employ the same technology as the detector viewer from medical. We've improved it. Made it mobile." He passed both of them to the two teens. "The idea is to allow our soldiers in the field to instantly differentiate between friend and foe. You look at the enemy through this and it lights 'em up green. We can see them before they know they've been seen.We take back the advantage. The only thing left to do now is test the optics in live conditions."

He took both of the helmets back, placing them back on the table alongside 9 identical ones, the only differentiation between them in size.

" Which is why tomorrow at 2100, I'm sending four squads into battle equipped with these helmets. Your squad will be among those four." He said, making Princess' heart drop.

She wasn't sure why, she knew that this fate was inevitable. After months in living in the barrack she learned to give up hope on waiting for their freedom. Waiting to hear the voice telling her it was all a test, or her alarm clock to wake her up from her bad dream.

She just couldn't believe that tomorrow she would come face to face with the thing she had trained for but never dwelled on. The war that raged on beyond the walls of the army base.

Zombie was evidently thinking the same things, as his expression was identical to Princess'. "Yes, sir." He said softly

"Make me proud, son. Bring that squad back in one piece."

The two of them walked out after those words, worried if they stood before Vosch for one second longer he would give them other news. More tragedy and heartbreak. More of a reason to loose hope in the future that they had no clue what it held.

874 words // I can't express how sorry I am for not updating but also this story is in no way a top priority to me. I am going through the most difficult part of the semester and have personal obligations that come before anything that happens online. I hope you enjoyed this update, it's getting more and more serious and I am so excited!!