OVERPOPULAS

Chapter 14

The room again transformed into a dojo, but on the other far side near where me and Slinca were, a bunch of sandbags dropped down from the ceiling. And where the sword rack used to be is now a gun rack with multiple guns. It had a variety of handguns, assault rifles and shotguns.

"Heh, more of my style." Fred said under his breath.

"You may notice there are a large variety of guns." Yurinami said. "You may know how to use a simple handgun, due to your education at school. But, you may not know how to use the big guns, like a shotgun or let's say a sniping rifle."

This seemed like a huge leap in lessons, yesterday was just simple sword fighting, now it's about shooting guns. But, I'm not an expert like Yurinami, so I guess I shouldn't question it that much.

"Today is a competition. Whoever can shoot the most sandbags in 30 seconds with a semi-automatic rifle. WINS!" Yurinami shouted. It seemed simple enough, though I don't know how many people here have shot a rifle. My dad always said he would teach me but he never got around to it.

After Yurinami finished the instructions and rules for the competition, everyone went over to the gun rack.

"My dad has tons of these back home. But they don't compare to these beauties." Fred said, as he admired the gun, inspecting every inch of it.

"Stop being a gun creep and just take it." Ian said, as he gave Penny a gun.

"I'm sorry my interests are 'creepy' to you."

"It kind of is when you are literally looking down the barrel of it."

"Do you think the part I'm looking at is the barrel? Or are you that stupid!?" Fred held up the gun to Ian's face.

"Whatever it is. It doesn't matter!"

"It does matter! You fucking cocksucker."

"What did you say?"

"Please just stop, it's only the second day and you guys are still bickering." Penny interrupted.

"Not to mention you guys act like children." Slinca said, walking up to the gun rack. She grabbed a gun off the top shelf and threw it up in the air and catched it perfectly.

"Oooo boy, do we have a little show off." Fred interjected.

"Oh eat shit you bitch." Slinca snapped back. She seemed more bitter than yesterday. It's most likely due to me and my loud mouth. God, what was I thinking? I followed everyone else and grabbed a gun off the rack. It was heavier than I expected. I almost dropped it on the ground. Everyone was over near the sandbags over by the ceiling.

The sandbags were lined up like one of those carnival games my mom talked about one time. It looked like they were tied to a mechanism that moved left to right or right to left. It was hard to tell. I stood with everyone else. It felt so weird standing in a room with a bunch of people with a gun and being so trusting that none of them were going to shoot at each other.

"Any volunteers who want to go first?" Yurinami asked us. Jesse raised her hand and stepped forward in front of us, facing the sandbags. "Great." Yurinami continued. "What you have in your hand is a special military rifle with a 100-round clip. It's semi-automatic, weighs like a normal standard issue rifle. The targets will move from left to right for fifteen seconds then the targets will move from right to left for the last remaining fifteen seconds. Got it?"

"Yep." Jesse responded.

"Alright on the count of three, the trial will start." Yurinami announced. I straightened my posture. I wanted to see how Jesse was with a gun. Pretty much everyone else in the room was.