The Shooting Rematch

Unable to contain his giggling, the little boy shot his friends with squishy polyurethane foam nerf bullets, from his expensive blaster before they even had a chance to aim at him with their pathetic cheap pistols. There was no way they could beat him when he was equipped with The Judge: his favourite nerf gun which he adored and was inseparable from. One girl dashed away, as quick as a bullet train, and he chased her before she could get away.

"Slow down Milly!" he shouted.

"And let you win? No way Zane!" she yelled back.

Unfortunately, she couldn't help but peek back to see how close he was getting and that blunder caused her to trip over herself.

"Ow!"

"Haha gotcha!"

"No fair!" she sulked as the soft bullet bounced off her head. Then she smirked, "you'll never get Griffin. He always win."

As Zane rolled his eyes, Milly crawled away around the side of the block. He followed her around the corner; Milly vanished. In the place of the girl was a woman. Lying on the ground, drenched in the blood, Zane saw a hole in her heart. She gazed at him with lifeless empty eyes.

"Zane, why are you doing this?" the woman sobbed but no tears managed to leave her eyes.

"It was because you were always on Griffin's side, Milly," Zane replied.

"I wish we could go back to when we were innocent children playing with harmless toy guns and having never felt the cruel cold touch of real ones," she closed her eyes and Zane knew she would never open them again.

Stepping over more corpses of his childhood friends, he made his way to a shabby building. Its windows- at least the ones remaining- were filthy and no longer transparent. The derelict structure looked rotten and worn down; the ideal setting for his final battle.

He entered and was immediately confronted by a tall man with dark brown eyes and spiky black hair- his suit was of the same colour- and he stood slouching against the wall in the bare room. The interior wasn't any better than the outside: the floor, walls and ceiling were decaying.

"Hey Zane, it's been a while. Why are you killing all your dear friends?" the man questioned.

"My friends?" Zane scowled, "don't act like you ever saw me as a friend, Griffin. I know what you did to Maya."

"Who?"

"Don't even remember the name of your dear friend's sister?" Zane frowned and empathised the words 'dear friend's' sarcastically, "the one you killed?"

"I kill a lot of people," Griffin shrugged.

The way he dismissed it so casually enraged Zane and he aimed his pistol at the murderer.

"And I'll kill you!" he snapped, "ever since you guys joined that gang, you had changed. I found out that my little sister caught you- as you would say- disposing of a body, so you murdered her without a thought. She was only fourteen!" he paused before continuing, "I just can't believe that Milly and the others helped you cover it up. I thought we were friends but I guess I was the only one who truly valued our friendship."
Griffin swore he could see a sense of sorrow and misery on Zane's face.

"Well? What will you do? You can't defeat me; you never could."

"It won't be the same as when we were kids."

"We'll see about that," Griffin abruptly drew his gun and shot at Zane's chest three times. As the man collapsed to the ground, his pistol dropped from his hand and he curled up with his back toward Griffin.

"Looks like you were wrong," Griffin stated as he slowly strode to Zane.

"Nope," Zane swirled around and revealed the knife he'd planted under his sleeve. As he slipped it out and plunged it into his enemy's thigh, which oozed the red liquid, Griffin shrieked. Then Zane jumped onto the screaming man and drove the sharp object into his chest; they both tumbled onto the ground.

"Ugh," Griffin called out as he noticed why Zane was still alive, "you were wearing a bulletproof vest."

Ignoring his remark, Zane stood up and stumbled to the door; even though the bullets didn't kill him, they still caused his torso to ache like crazy.

He opened the door and was about to leave when he heard Griffin whisper.

"I always considered you a friend... I still do..." then he passed away.

Zane turned around to ask what kind of psychopath tries to kill their friend and saw a little boy clutching a nerf gun as if it was worth a million pounds. He was grinning and radiated with joy which warmed Zane's heart.

"Hey Zane, wanna have a rematch?" the boy asked with hopeful eyes.

"No more guns Griffin. I'm done," said Zane as he left his best friend's lifeless body, with tears swelling up in his eyes.