抖阴社区 To Rank 2022 -- Contest Collection

Round 7 - Brown Belt: Sharp Shooter

'You said you'd be back by noon,' she scolds in a deceptively soft voice, fingers clutching the collar of my jacket. 'What happened?'

'Traitors,' is my quiet reply as I withdraw from her regretfully. I was ready to say more, to explain to the fullest extent Simon and I's encounter with nosy soldiers scouting downtown where we'd been scavenging, but the fear flickering in her eyes, the anger burning there... it all stops me. It stops me because I know her, because I know with just a glance that she'd been consumed with worry the entire time we were gone. So instead, I stick with: 'We got... held up.'

'Leo, the dormitory!'

Scarlet and I whip around to face Simon, frantic and staring wide-eyed out of the windows. He looks back at us, pointing to something outside.

'There's something wrong!'

Without a moment's hesitation, Scarlet and I rush over to the weapons table, grabbing whatever rifle is closest. With quick instructions for her to stay inside and a stolen kiss, I'm sprinting down the stairs and across the sunset-lit square outside the dining hall, Simon following closely with a pistol clattering in his hand and frantic air quickly leaving his nose and mouth. A minute is all the time it takes for us to get inside the East Dormitory, the place where all the Patriots are gathered, our fast footsteps and unsteady breathing accompanied by distant shouting the more we ran. 

'What floor did you see them on?!' I shout over my shoulder, flying around this corner and that with my rifle clutched tightly in my hands.

'Top floor!' Simon shouts back. 'Study room!' 

Nodding to myself I double my speed, taking the steps in the middle stairwell two and three at a time until I reach the top. The moving shadows on the wall outside of the room in question, the yelling and banging drifting from within it– it's enough to make my head rattle, to instill gut-twisting uneasiness in a mind already full of it. If Simon saw Traitors, if they got in here and no one on our side has weapons on them...

I reach the end of the hallway quickly, boots screeching to a halt on the tile floor just outside the door as my eyes sweep over the scene, rifle raised and forefinger on the trigger. That's when my mouth cracks open and my eyes widen in surprise, the weapon in my hands lowering slowly, slowly, slowly. 

Windows. The windows are open. The windows are wide open and the lights are on. And the people. They're all clumped together and fighting to get to the center of the crowd, fighting with each other, shouting at each other.

And Traitors are just outside the campus. If they catch one glimpse of this, hear one word from this place, our home is gone. Sanctuary is gone.

'W-what are they doing?!' Simon asks behind me in an anxious whisper. 'The windows are supposed to be-'

'Closed,' I finish, slinging my rifle on my shoulder and, hands balled tightly into fists, stepping into the room. 'The windows are supposed to be closed.'

'Give me the damn note! You couldn't even get the first word right!'

'Shut up and let her keep trying! She's done more than you have so far!'

The pandemonium continues, growing louder the deeper I get into the throng of people. Noticing me, some of the members of the screaming match grow silent, staring up at me with an air of caution. Others remain uncaring, turning to their neighbor or pushing into each other to get closer to the action. Regardless, I push my way into the circle, a nervous Simon right on my heels.

It isn't until I reach this center that I get a good idea of what's going on. Morse Code: The Essential Language, that's the first sight that registers in my mind followed by a worn, ripped piece of paper floating every second into a different set of hands. A sheet of paper sits on a table next to the book, one of the Patriots bent over it and writing anxiously.

There's only one thing I can do to alert them:

'Traitors!'

That's all it takes. Everyone in the room, men and women alike, perk up, eyes wide with unadulterated terror as they shoot to the center of the circle, as they shoot to me. I glare back at all of them, gripping the edge of the wooden table so hard my fingers grow cold. Silence. Just silence.

'Now you're listening,' I growl, paralyzing everyone in sight without having to move a muscle extra. 'Now you're aware. Close the windows. Now.'

There's slight hesitation, but a few Patriots at the outside of the circle heed my order, the cool air from outside prohibited from entering and light from the room forbidden from shining elsewhere. Sighing heavily, I fix my glare on Miguel, the Patriot's former leader and the man who just so happens to be holding the paper in question.

'Give that to me.' 

The command is quiet, but he obeys immediately, arm shooting out and the beat-up note shaking just inches away from my chest. I snatch it from him and, clutching the edges with calloused fingers, study it thoroughly. Dots and dashes scrawled messily on the sheet. Drops of blood claiming their permanent place in capillaries.

It's an encrypted message taken from the hands of a dead man.

'W-we got it from a Traitor and have been trying to decipher it, but none of us know how,' a woman around the table says, sliding the cleaner sheet of paper on its surface over to me. I try to read it, but my effort is futile. Letters are mismatched and words just don't belong.

'We need to go back to the beginning to figure this out,' Simon cuts in, stepping up to my side and meeting my eye with a determination that sends a shiver down my back. 'I can do it, I learned this in school.'

Armed with a pen and a new sheet of paper, Simon gets to work, letters turning into words and words forming cohesive sentences in no time at all. When he's finished, he reads out the message:

Sharp Shooter,
I know you and the other survivors are there. So do they, and they're planning to burn that school until everyone's ash. Get them out before it's too late, I can't stall them anymore.

'Sharp Shooter?' Miguel asks, the whites of his eyes splotched red from what I can only assume to be stress. 'Who the hell is Sharp Shooter?'

The blood freezes in my veins as I reread the letter. Lieutenant Benny Ghaleger, my old friend and now-dead traitor of the Patriots, created that nickname in Afghanistan.

'Sharp Shooter's a Traitor!'

I was a soldier in Afghanistan.

'He'll sell us out and get us killed!'

I'm Sharp Shooter.

Chaos, again, ensues. The bickering, the panicked screams, the heat of the room -- I almost can't stand it. Imperceptibly, my dead stare shifts to the side, to Simon staring up at me with... a smile?

He takes my hand firmly in his, shaking it and nodding up at me. 'You're one of us. No matter what.'

I nod back in understanding, in gratitude, before looking with horror at the window, towards the dining hall hidden from sight beyond it. 'They're coming. Secure everyone in the basement! I need to get Scarlet out of there before-"

An explosion shakes the building,  debris and fire flooding the room around us and extinguishing the light.

The Traitors are here.