Nightingale - Dreamnotfound

||One...Two...Three...||

I had stared death in the eyes once before, and it was the most heart-racing, bone chilling experience of my life. Looking down the barrel of a gun, unknowing just how bad the impact of the bullet would hurt had he aimed just below a fatal shot. It was the only experience that kept me on the other side of the gun.

Lying down next to George, I aimed my gun up to the sky. If I shot now, I wondered where the bullet would land. Would it build enough force to kill whoever it landed on? Would it have an impact at all?

"Careful not to be seen," George said. I gazed at him. I could see through his clout goggles that he was staring at my gun in the air.

"Commons can have guns," I replied, resting my gun down on my chest. "A few years ago a whole gang of them did."

"That's scary."

"I'm surprised you didn't take part in it. You're a rebel against the government, after all."

He laughed softly. "There's a lot of them. Not just me. They're all over the Slums. Not a lot of them go far, though. They usually give up before the Specialties can detect them."

"Did you ever join those movements?"

"Nope. I had my own movement in mind."

"A solo movement?" I scoffed with a smile. "What kind of impact would that make?"

He shrugged. "I got the head Specialties, you, and—what was it?—two other Specialties after me. So I'd say a pretty large impact."

"I don't even get it."

"Get what?"

"Why I'm even here. What could possibly be in those files that has so many people on your ass?"

"You'd be surprised."

I aimed my gun high into the air. On the other side of my gun was the sky. Clear, open space. Nowhere to go but up. If only it could always be that way. If only George didn't have to be on the other side. But it seemed to always be that way from the moment we met a month ago to now. If only there was another way. A way where he didn't have to find himself looking down the barrel of a gun.

And I taught his killers everything they'd need to know. I closed one of my eyes, remembering exactly what I had said to them during our first session of training up on the rooftop. "Align your sight with the front sight," I murmured to myself, aligning myself with the gun. "Don't look directly at your target."

I held the gun steady in the air as a deafening gunshot cracked broke the lazy morning quiet. My gun slipped from my hand as I, as everyone else in the perimeter did, scrambled to my feet.

"Clay!" George shouted, "What did I tell you!?"

"I didn't do it!" I shouted back, grabbing my gun as I heard a familiar laugh.

"I told you they'd be here, Tubbo," Tommy said, popping his head into the area. The moment he entered, all the Commons had fled as if they were repelled by just the uniforms alone. Tubbo entered close behind him, spinning his gun around his finger and catching it as it flew out of his grasp.

"Tommy," I said, crossing my arms. "How'd you find us?"

"Tubbo and I have lived in the Slums our entire lives. We both know firsthand that this is the best place to go to avoid the Specialty."

George slid behind me as I said, "You're not killing him."

"We don't want to kill him, Dream. But this is our first mission," Tubbo said. "The most important mission. You told us yourself. It determines everything from our ranking to our reputation to the kind of missions we're entrusted with."