Code Red

Chapter 1

Lucia was done.

She was done with Chiara (her sister), and Grecia (her best friend). She knew they didn't care about training, but she did. They were supposed to be there at five, and it was already half past that.

"Walk faster!" Yelled Lucia.

"Stop! You're too fast for me!" Shouted Grecia, too tired to continue. They had been walking for miles because Lucia got them lost.

"We're almost there! Hurry!" Lucia could see the camp ahead of them. They sprinted to the entrance and showed the guard their IDs. Chiara looked at the class. They were the last ones there. Again.

"Lucia, you need to get ready faster." whined Chiara.

"Don't talk to me." Responded Lucia. They walked up to their commander, who was obviously pissed.

"Hey girls. 5 laps. Go." He smiled at them. Grecia groaned, but they began the first of their five laps around the camp.

"Should we go through the shortcut?" Chiara asked Lucia, looking back to see if their commander was looking. He wasn't. He was yelling at Daniel.

"Yeah, come on." They snuck past a guard and crawled through a small space, bringing them to the other side of the camp. Then they ran back to the class.

"Got it?" The Commander was saying the instructions for the next exercise.

"What are we doing?" Grecia asked Daniel. Daniel was tall and had slicked back hair, sometimes with a little too much gel. He wore glasses, the kind they used to wear back in 2014, the 'nerd' ones.

"I think we're going to shoot at the holograms, but I honestly wasn't paying any attention." he said. Grecia turned around to ask whoever was behind her, but then she saw it was Julian. Everyone hated Julian. He was a sore loser, a bad sport, and just plain out annoying. He lost one of his hand in battle, so he had a prosthetic one. He took everyone chance to make sure everyone knew how he got it.

"Hey Grecia!" he said smirking.

"Don't look at me." she responded. She turned to Lucia.

"What are we doing?"

"I asked Luis and he said we are practicing our aim." Lucia said. Grecia nodded. Wait. Did they bring their guns? She turned to the area where they put their bags and saw Chiara's bright pink bag standing out. She snuck to it to get everyone's rifles. Opening the bag, and digging through all the makeup, she found their guns. She ran back.

"Here." she handed the guns to Lucia and Chiara.

"And just in time. You're next." said Daniel. Grecia stood on the small circular platform and raised her gun. The lights dimmed and holographic figure started appearing. She shot at them, one after the other.

"Go Grecia!" yelled Chiara, in a mocking tone. Grecia put her gun down. She finished with a score of 18400. The best score was Julians, which was 20500, a perfect score. Grecia was fourth on the leaderboard, with Arken and Daniel ahead of her. She had almost beat Daniel.

"Ha ha, thank you for not beating my score, Grecia."

"You are welcome, Daniel." she said mockingly. Next up was Chiara, who didn't even try. She got a score of 15000. The last person was Lucia. She had made it her goal to beat Julian at everything, because he made her so mad. The lights dimmed, and the simulator began. Lucia shot at everything in sight, even the little blue orbs for extra points. Every shot, her score got higher. 18000. 18100. 18400. She shot again and again, everyone watching in awe and suspense. 20000. She was now 500 points away from beating Julian. Her friends were cheering her on.

Bang.

She shot the last one. And finished with a score of 21000.