章 5: The First Mission

I went downstairs and sat down at the table, throughout breakfast I talked with my mother about random school things after finishing breakfast I head back to my room. I did what any sensible teen would do when stressed. I played video games to take my mind off of the situation. I didn't feel like playing FPS games so I played a few time wasters.

After a while of casually playing games with the thought of my up and coming mission on my mind, I hear my door open and my mother calls me for lunch. We talk about whatever and after eating she begins to get her stuff together for her nightshift. This normally didn't mean much more to me than that she was going to be gone all night and I would have to cook again but now it means that I have to prepare as well.

I say bye to my mother and head back to my room to go over my plan one last time in my head. I gather whatever miscellaneous info I can on the store and wait. After an hour, I hear my mom's car leave the driveway and grab my gear. Being on the street with my plastic bag in hand I walk towards the store in the early evening glow. When I get to the store it's well into the evening so I quickly begin to look around for cameras while thinking about what would happen if I got caught, as the time for action inches nearer and nearer and I begin sweating bullets. I find no evidence of obvious cameras and the store is clear, I flip around and walk towards the alley.

I head into the spacious alley away from prying eyes and put my gear on, I throw my jacket over my shoulders, put my loaded gun in my inner jacket pocket, I pull my balaclava slowly over my head, slide my hand over my hair to smooth the fabric out, I put the zippo my dad left me in my back pocket and grabbed the lighter fluid, I was ready. "Just calm down you won't be caught; you got this. No matter what it's just another mission in another stupid game" I pepped myself up, chambered a round with a *Chick Chick*, and walked up to the empty store like I owned the place, I smashed the glass with my pistol and to my surprise no alarm.

I looked around briefly before heading into the store, there was glass everywhere but other than that it was a normal fairly normal convenience store, there were bottles of name brand cola on the shelves, large bags of chips hanging on racks, and large fridges full of drinks in the back in the back. Not wanting to stick around and wait for the police to show up I began to throw lighter fluid all over the entire store, just as I was almost finished, I heard a bunch of muffled noises and dropped the bottle of lighter fluid, slightly startled I made my way towards the sound.

Is that a mix of heavy breathing and distress? I walked towards the back room and threw open the old sheet metal door, the sounds only got louder, I aimed my gun towards the sounds and prepared to shoot. My ears were assaulted by a woman's cry for help and that's when I noticed it, I was in a soundproofed room and there was a woman undressed and in tears along with a middle-aged man hunched over her.

The middle-aged man turned back and I saw the woman's eyes turn to terror as I heard two loud bangs. I shot my weapon several times in desperation and hit the man twice in the back and once in the neck killing him instantly. I gathered the woman's clothes and grabbed her hand rushing her outside, she was in complete shambles and struggled to put on her clothes, I wasn't much better myself. With only adrenaline keeping me going I leader her further from the store.

Once we were clear of the building, I lit the trail of lighter fluid and watched the store go up in a blaze of glory. In a panic and frenzied state, I told the woman to get out of here and ran. I ran like my life depended on it, I didn't know what to do and even more so I didn't want to be caught.

Somewhere near my house, I ran into an alley and collapsed. I looked down and noticed a trail of blood leading from a hole on the right side of my stomach. I sat myself up against the wall of the building and tried to calm my breathing.

The pain hit me very quickly and I burst into tears. Bawling, I took my combat knife, tore off my jacket, and bit down on the sheathe, I pried the bloody bullet from my opened wound with the tip of my knife all the while on the verge of screaming, tears streamed from my eyes and I tried to calm myself.

I barely kept myself from screaming as the pain assaulted me in waves. Tore my shirt off so I could use it to create a makeshift bandage. I tied it as tight as I could and limped back to my house. Inside the house, I limped over to the first aid cabinet and grabbed some gauze, changing out my blood-soaked grey shirt with a proper bandage I managed to stop the bleeding a bit, the technique isn't polished but I learned it from my mother briefly when I was younger. I sat down next to my jacket with gritted teeth as the pain hasn't just magically disappeared like I thought it would. I looked at the state I was in, there was a hole in the jacket and some blood had spilled out onto the exterior but most of it was on the interior. I finished inspecting my jacket and looked down at my pants in horror.

"t-t-that's not my b-blood" I almost vomited seeing the blood splatter on parts of my pant legs. If the pain hadn't brought me to my senses then I would have created a very big mess. As I was reeling in horror I stripped and threw all my clothes into the wash, I carefully put on clothes while trying to avoid painful movements. limping back towards the first aid cabinet I pulled out some of the various prescription pain killers my mother had brought back from her work after what had happened to dad. The only one I had knowledge of was Oxycodone since I was told to never touch it as it was highly addictive. I looked up the dosage online for relieving extreme pain and took the recommended amount, I also grabbed some antibiotics to avoid infection.

I stood there for a moment before realizing I wasn't going to feel anything any time soon so I walked to my room, I made sure to take back the dosage needed for at least a few days and hid it. I carefully placed myself onto my bed and while laying down I carefully cleared the gun and put it back in its case before throwing the rest of the loadout under the bed. I let the pain killers set in and finally I was able to peacefully fall asleep.