It's the final countdown {complete!}

3

Craig drags me to a Laser Tag place behind the cinema. It looks fairly new, but the queue to get inside is surprisingly short.

"Wanna play?" Craig asks, gesturing to the building.

"You bet." I grin.

We join the queue and are inside within ten minutes.

A spotty teenager is sat beside the entrance cash register, lazily pressing buttons and almost throwing tickets at customers. He rolls his eyes when he sees us.

"Welcome to Laser Tag. How many tickets are you buying today?" He asks with an annoyed sigh.

"Two please." Craig hands him the money.

The teenager slaps the tickets into Craig's hands and shoves the money into the cash register so harshly the notes crumple. He grabs a handful of coins and dumps them into my hand.

"Next." He grumbles.

I put the change in Craig's wallet as we walk through the entrance and into the waiting area. Since a game is currently being played in each arena, we have an estimated waiting time of six minutes.
We sit on the crappy plastic seats and watch one of the games displayed on a small monitor on the wall.

After fourteen minutes, another spotty teenager beckons everyone in the waiting room into a large, badly lit room with the laser vests hung up on the wall.

"We have the red team and the blue team. Pick which team you'll be on and put on the vest with the correct colour," she explains lazily, "you may not switch teams halfway through and you may not remove your vests halfway through. Sir please don't try and put on two vests!"

Craig pulls on one of the blue vests and aims the gun at me jokingly.
I turn go the wall to go and grab a blue vest, but there aren't any left. Crap.

"Oh no, I'll have to be on the red team." I sigh.

"That's not a problem. We can go against each other." Craig points out.

I pull on the remaining vest and hold the gun comfortably in my hand.

The teenager leads the blue team to the blue entrance and gives us vague instructions on how to get to ours. Luckily it isn't too hard to find so we're in the dark room in a matter of minutes.

The area is almost completely dark, the only sources of light being our vests and small, round purple lights dotted around. It won't be easy hiding from the opposing team if our jackets are this bright.

There are lots of platforms, pillars and crawl-spaces filling the space, some closer than others. The second the game starts, I'm hiding in the crawl-space to ambush whoever has a similar idea.

From across the room I can see the bright blue lights of the other team's targets. I could probably shoot them from over here, depending on how far the range is on the lasers.

"Alright everyone!" A woman's voice comes through hidden speakers, "you will have fifteen minutes to shoot as many opposing targets as possible. You may not cover your targets, take off your vests or hold someone down to repeatedly shoot their targets. Once someone is shot, their guns and targets will be frozen for seven seconds. Whether that will be to their advantage depends on how you play. Also, if you get hit five times you are out of the game. Anyways, we hope you have lots of fun! Three, two, one, go!"

Fun, upbeat music starts playing and everyone starts running. I rush over to the crawl-space and slide into it, getting halfway in before deciding to stop and wait for someone to come.

Outside, lasers are being fired and people are screaming, cheering and laughing.

"Let's hide in the crawl space!" A young girl whispers from the opening, "the red team will never find us in here."

I quietly lift up my gun and aim where the girl and her friend will be. Within seconds, a ginger child with thick glasses is mere inches from me and his face falls when he sees me.

"Hi. Nice to meet you." I smile before pressing the trigger and shooting his chest.

The kid groans.

"Jasmin! Go back, there's a guy in here!" The ginger kid starts backing up, "Jasmin, move your fat ass out of the way before I shove my ass in your face."

The children soon leave and I keep my gun pointed in front of me as I wait in silence.

A pair of boots run past the opening, followed by a pair of bare feet. Gross.

"Tweek? Where are you?" I hear Craig calling.

I tense up, not wanting to be caught by him just yet. I have a feeling I'm the only person who hasn't been shot yet and I'd rather not change that.

"Tweek?" He calls out again.

I spot Craig's shoes a few feet away from the opening. Someone runs past him and shoots his chest.

"Shit, one more hit and I'm out." Craig mutters.

Carefully, I move so I'm lying on my side so that I can see what Craig is doing.
He lifts his gun and shoots his attacker in retaliation, and then cheers.

"Yes! You're out!" He grins.

A buzzing sound comes over the speakers.

"Two minutes left, everyone, and two players left! Who will win?" The woman's voice asks.

Craig runs off in the opposite direction of the crawl space, so I quickly crawl out and duck behind a small wall before he spots me.
He's on the opposite side of the arena, too far to shoot but close enough to see the blue glow.

I dart across the floor to hide behind a pillar that gets me a little bit closer to Craig. I lift my gun and peek around the corner.

His back is exposed. I could get him from here. Except...

"Tweek! Found you!" He suddenly spins around and runs towards me, "don't think you're getting away!"

When he's arm's distance away from me, I press my gun against his chest target.

"My team is going to win this," I tell him, "the points are tied. You've got one hit left."

Craig lifts his hands in defeat, gun dropping to the floor.
I give him a suspicious look.

"You're just gonna let me win?" I ask, unsure of what to do.

"Yup," he smiles, "you got me."

"Okay then." I shrug.

I pull the trigger and Craig's targets all flash red.

Sighing, he picks up his gun and trudges towards the exit.

All of the mini purple lights turn red and the red team flood into the arena.

"Congratulations red team! You have won," the woman's voice congratulates us, "you will all receive a ten dollar gift certificate for any participating stores. Have an excellent day."

I follow my team out of the arena and into a back room, where we all hang our vests and laser guns on the wall.
Craig tackles me with a hug the second I'm out of the vest.

"I thought you were gonna trick me at the last second," I laugh, "I can't believe I beat you!"

"You're good at this!" Craig smiles.

"We should come back one day. Maybe our anniversary or your birthday next month?" I suggest.

Craig's smile drops for a second, but then reappears.

"Yeah. We should," he takes my hand in his, "c'mon, I've got another surprise for you."