Lilly POV

I felt my knees begin to feel weak after running for about four minutes. We are almost at the firing range, in fact, I can see it up ahead. Garth is running besides me, this run seems like a piece of cake for him, which doesn't surprise me. The firing range is getting more visible now that we are very close. It consists of a building on the left side, a long shack type thing with booths from where you shoot from, and in each booth there is a counter and a few racks for hanging rifles and headphones. Downrange consists of the dry desert dirt; all cracked and dehydrated. As well as a large slope which turns into a hill towards the end of the range. The range itself is probable 300 meters long, which I don't know if that's big or not.

As we arrived at the range, everybody slowing down from a running to a walking pace, I noticed that David, Garth, Humphrey, James, Salty, and even Kate seemed like that run was a walk in the park. I noticed Mooch was still missing and turn around to see him sluggishly running about 200 feet back. Some of us laughed at him amused but James reminded us that we will all be faced with challenges this week and not to laugh at Mooch.

As Mooch approached us and gasped for air, James motioned for us to walk into the small building beside the range. Inside there were a few rooms, the one we were in looked to be a briefing room of some sort. With a few rows of long grey metal benches facing the front and a single chair facing the grey benches. James sat in the black chair in the front of the room as asked for us to sit in the benches. The eight of us all fit in one of the large benches and we all waited to hear what James would tell us.

As I waited I looked up at the ceiling and walls, which were not decorated at all and were made out of the same material as the benches we sat on. There were dents in the metal walls and ceilings and the acoustics in the room caused everything to echo slightly. I haven't been in many rooms made of metal walls and ceilings, but I didn't mind the odd construction.

James slowly got up and looked at us and began to speak.

"You all are here to help save your friend, and that's what you may think your goal is while your preparing for you mission. But that is not true. It is your objective to save your friend, but your goal to keep the people you are sitting next to safe. Your goal is to make sure they survive and that you survive," James began to walk around a little. "Each day of this 'camp' will help make this goal more achievable as well as freeing your friend Shakey. This includes today. Today you will learn how to handle a fire arm safely, what to do if it jams, and how to shoot. Usually we would require you to know how to disassemble and reassemble you weapons, but because of the severity of the situation we don't have time for that. Also the odds of a firearm malfunctioning in a day of use is highly unlikely. So from 4:30 until dark I will train you to safely use a gun, and after we finish I will show you how to clear your gun in the case it jams, however that usually doesn't happen to often. Now, I'd like everybody to move into the next room."

We all got up and moved towards the only other door in the room besides the one we walked through a few minutes earlier. We shuffled through single file as James led the way. As I stepped through to the new room I saw nine small desks laid out in a square configuration, on each desk lay three different guns. A pistol, assault rifle, and a long range rifle as well as ammunition, attachments, and magazines.

"Everybody choose a desk, and look up here" James ordered.

As we hesitantly walked over to the desks, James grabbed one and pulled it to the front of the room. It made a screeching noise in the metal floor and I winced at the high pitched sound.

I stood at a desk between mooch and Garth, and looked at the weapons in front if me. The boxes of ammunition all read .22 caliber, as Satereous said earlier, we would waste real ammunition today. The pistol is a Sig Sauer p226, the assault rifle seems to be an m4A1, and the long range rifle doesn't have words on it so I'm not sure what it is.

James picked up the pistol magazine and a box of ammunition. " Everyone open a box of pistol ammunition below your pistol on the table as well as a magazine,". We all did what he asked.

"Pick up a bullet and place it in the mag with the tip of the bullet facing out," he demonstrated this for us. Each magazine holds nine bullets, so repeat this weight more times."

We all picked up bullets from the box and clicked them into the magazines until they were full.

"Good," James said, "Now repeat this with two more pistol magazines. When you finish that, do the same thing for your assault rifle. It holds 18 rounds of the .22 caliber assault riffle rounds. Once you load three assault rifle clips, load three long range rifle clips. It only holds 5 bullets; the .22 long rifle bullets. Don't worry about mixing the bullets up because if you try loading the wrong bullets into a magazine, you'll easily tell they won't fit right." He demonstrated by trying to put a pistol bullet into the assault rifle clip. "Now have at it. If you need help, ask me."

James began walking around the room inspecting our work. Since this was very easy he usually only had good things to say. The only bad thing he would say is to go faster since we are running out of time.

Once we finished he had each of us carry out all our guns and magazines to a booth outside in the range. It took about ten trips back and fourth to carry a total of three guns and nine clips. James also made it clear not to load any gun until he said so.

about five minutes later we were all outside at our own booths waiting for James to come back out. Garth was in the booth next to my right and I was in the booth on the far left of the range. There were targets set up about 20 meters away. The targets were thin sheets of metal with rings on them to serve as a bull's eye and rings.

"This is cool," I said to Garth.

"Yeah I've never shot a gun before. I think it will be fun!" He said.

Just then James came out of the building with a pistol and a magazine. He stood behind our booths standing where we stood an hour ago when we arrived at the range.

"Everyone look over at me," he said loudly so everyone could hear. "To load your pistol, simply slide the top back to cock it, and it should stay in the back position. When you run out of ammo it will stay in this position with the slide back. Now take a magazine and slide it into the handle firmly until it stops and you hear a click. Then push this button above your trigger and the slide will return to the neutral position with the hammer back. Take off your safety and the gun is ready to fire. All the guns in front of you are semi automatic. Never put your finger on the trigger until your gun is aimed at your target. Never point the gun at anybody even if there are no bullets in it. Before you fire, make sure you earphones are on your head to prevent from damaging your ears. Now. Pick up your pistols and repeat the steps I showed you. But first put your earphones in," James finished.

We all did what he said and loaded our guns and began firing. It was still very loud even with headphones, and before I knew it I was out if ammo. So I loaded another clip and continued firing until I had no more pistol ammo left. Then I heard James voice over a loud speaker saying to fire the assault rifle and long range gun. We all figured out how to load them since it was similar to the pistol. My favorite gun was the sniper because it had the most kick and I liked the accuracy Zander feeling the stock slam my shoulder. Once everyone finished, James told us to set our guns down and take off our head phones and go retrieve our targets.

I did pretty well considering I never shot a gun before. I missed a lot but about 20 rounds hit the metal plate. I looked at everyone else's targets and most of them had more hits than me. But I was sure if improve in the next few days.

"Good job everyone. You all did fairly well for your first day. I'd like to show you how to clear a jammed gun." He picked up a pistol and put in a beat up bullet. He loaded it in and pointed the gun to the sky and pulled the trigger. Nothing happened. "Watch carefully" James stated. He pulled back the slide really hard and reached his fingers into the breach to pull out the bullet. He used his fingernail to pull the bullet out by the lip in the back casing of the shell and when he got it loose he slid the bullet back and slammed the side of the gun on his left hand and the bullet fell out.

"I will show you better ways to clear a gun but that's just the easiest way but it doesn't work all the time. Looks like your ride back to central camp is here. Go have dinner and get to bed." James waved us goodbye as we boarded the large jeep and drove back to camp. I watched James walked back into the building by the range and then disappear from view.

When we got back to camp we went to the mess hall to eat the pasta they made. It was alright, but we were all so hungry no one spoke when we ate. Once we finished we all went back to our cabins and washed up and went to bed. We were all exhausted from our days work. I looked at my phone and saw it was almost ten o'clock. I couldn't remember the last time I went to bed this early. As Humohrey went to shit the lights off, he said goodnight to us all and we all wished him a good night as well as we all drifted off to sleep.

Life is full of surprises. You never know when you will go through rough years or when you will fly by good years. I think to myself about how I have so much more time left on Earth if I live safely, and how there is so much time left to live out precious moments. I see people around me who look hurt and torn down by their sad thoughts. I think these people are ignorant for not seeing a good future a head of them. But we are all these people. Every one of us is ignorant in some way and everyone of us holds onto sad memories. If we help other people see the good in life and the world, we can instill happiness in their hearts and smiles on their faces.

Wow. Its been so long since I wrote a chapter so I made sure this was a long one! I'm sorry I haven't written in a while even though I said I would write more consistently. I hope you all enjoyed this chapter and I will write more soon.

Special thanks to A&O Kate and Humphrey

XxthedarkshadowxX

LilyandMe

and Ghost98