NightTide: The Girl With Red Eyes

Types of love… They tried explaining it to me, I have an idea of what is. There’s love for family, friends, and for the person you’ll spend your life with… I think I have an idea, I want to be useful to Jessica, and I want to protect Elizabeth… Is that the difference between family and that person…? I guess I’ll find out eventually, they’ve figured out… So, I should as well.

A nurse came in, she had a roll of bandages and that stuff. I’ve figured it called alcohol now, it burns. She took off the old bandages, the scabs were still there… she took a something thin and touches each scab.

She seemed somewhat pleased. “They’re getting better. The outer bits of the scabs are chipping away meaning the center is starting to heal.”

That sounds good? “Is that a good thing?”

She gave me a smile and then touched my hand with the alcohol stuff, it burned. “Yes, it’s very good.” She finished doing that and started wrapping bandages around my hands.

Its weird, I don’t see how they can easily wrap them around my fingers. I’ve struggled to get band-aids to stay on my hand when I got small cuts. My wrist felt fine but they wanted me to keep that brace on, the nurse and Emilia put it back on after they finished with the bandages.

I was wondering why they kept it on. “Why do I have a wrist brace on?”

She finished tightening the strap and looked at me. “Your wrist grew out crooked, we had to break and straighten it…”

Oh… “How long will I have to leave it? It doesn’t hurt…”

She sighed. “Well I can’t really say. I’ve only been changing your bandages when needed, the doctor would know more…”

After that she walked out… I wasn’t sure what was going to happen today, I could wait for Jessica to show up… If she does, the same for Elizabeth… They might be busy though, I can’t expect them to see me every day. I could try walking around, but I have a hospital gown and no other clothes to put on; this isn’t helped by the fact that it’s hard to open doors.

I was startled by two people walking in, it was Emilia and a man wearing an odd green uniform covered in medals…

He was asking her questions. “What’s her current state of health?” Was he talking about me, they didn’t seems to be paying much attention to me at the moment, but they were in the room.

Emilia replied, somewhat disappointed. “She’s able to walk around, I’ve been told opening doors is rather difficult for her, but this should pass.”

He looked at me for a second then back at her. “Is she able to shoot a gun, I don’t want to stress her, I merely want to see how she pairs up to our current snipers.”

Emilia paused for a moment… “She may be able to, but she’ll need gloves. I don’t want her damaging her hands trying to pull a trigger.”

He smiled, then quickly went back to stone faced. “Ah, that is good to hear, I had these prepared for the off chance she could. I suppose it was a good thing to bring them.” He tossed me a pair of gloves, they had metal plates separated by fabric. I put one on and they lined up perfectly with the joints in my fingers…

Emilia seemed surprised, but quickly got over it. “She is free to leave but we want her to come back by the end of the day… The bandages are being changed daily, the skin isn’t fully grown on her hands and we’re trying to avoid infection… If you plan on taking her anywhere she must agree with it, and you have to get her a change of clothes… Now I’ll leave you two to talk, do not frighten her or I will have you escorted out.” She sounded incredibly serious about that.

He walked over to the bed and knelt down, I pushed that button that raised up the head rest. “Hello, your name is Red yes?” I nodded. He stood up now. “I have a request, if you would humor me?”

I was curious to say the least. “What is it?”

He seemed incredibly calm. “I’ve seen footage of your shooting ability, you’re a rather good shot… I’ve also heard you’re a defector from the organization that attacked base one. I’ve gone over Jessica’s report about you and while I’m not noticing any inconsistencies you seem rather, odd. You don’t know much, you don’t seem intimidating in any sense, yet you show off such shooting ability with those injuries. To say the least I was surprised, I would like to get an idea of how well you can shoot. It may let us know what to expect from them, should they attack again.” That was a lot of to say. “I do not question your loyalty to us, you’ve proven that multiple times over during the attack. I’m sorry if this is making you nervous though.”

I wasn’t nervous… “It’s fine, so what are you wanting me to do? I heard Emilia say something about taking me somewhere.”

He pulled out something, it looked like a piece to a gun, it was the trigger. “Could you see if you can pull the trigger back?” He handed it to me, it wasn’t easy but it also wasn’t hard to pull it back. It made a clicking noise and didn’t seem to cause any pain. “Ah good, I will be heading to the firing range to watch new recruits, I think that if you were to accompany me it would be of great benefit to them.”

He wanted my help? “Ok…”

He smiled, seemingly losing his serious tone. “Ah, thank you. I will be back in a bit with a change of clothes for you, you wear a small correct?” I nodded, then he walked out.

He came back, maybe ten minutes later. He had military fatigues, he stepped out and I put them on… They were itchy and didn’t quite fit right, but I guess I could deal with it. I had a hard time opening the door but I got it open and stepped out.

He was checking his watch and smiled when I came out. “Please, follow me. The firing range isn’t too far.” I followed him, it’s odd.

Base one is more industrial like, but base three is more woodland… for the most part, it still has industrial like areas, it’s just near a forest and they take advantage of that very clearly. There was a path that went deeper into the woods, we followed it and it came out to a clearing… It was dug out of a hillside and had several targets at the end of it, I followed him to a group of people wearing training gear, I’d seen the same outfits around base one as well. He stopped and I almost bumped into him, I managed not to at least.

He looked directly at them. “Alright recruits, I have with me Red Kraus, this is the commander of base one’s sister. She’s also a defector from the organization that nearly destroyed base one.” I heard some whispering. “What was that Jacob, do you have any comments?”

One of them stepped forward, he looked nervous. “Sir! She doesn’t appear to be much!”

He laughed. “Looks can be deceiving…” He pulled a device out of his pocket, it played a video from the warehouse, it was of the three people I shot. “One bullet. Three kills…” more whispering but he didn’t call anyone out. “It should be kept in mind that this was her current state of health.” It changed to a picture of me, when I was missing my hand…

The one named Jacob stepped back, another one jumped forward. “Permission to speak freely sir!?”

The man paused for a second. “Permission granted.”

They kept a very serious tone. “In that picture she appears to be missing her right hand? I’ve noticed she has both hands now. I have two questions. How does she have her hand back, and is she left handed?”

He paused at the question… He turned to look at me. “Show them your teeth.” I smiled at them, they didn’t react. “She has regenerative capabilities. As for the left-handed bit, I’ll let her tell you that…”

I looked at the who asked. “Uh, yes. I usually do things with my left hand.” They stepped back into the group.

The man turned around, he handed me a pistol… I wasn’t familiar with this one, I was used to shooting ones that looked kind of blocky, this was more rounded.

He turned back towards them. “She still hasn’t recovered from her injuries. This is to test how our current training stacks up against theirs. If she outshoots most of you, then we need to work harder. If you outshoot her, by only a slight margin, we still need to work harder. Only by significantly out shooting her will it show us how well the current training regimen is doing.” So, they want me to shoot at targets? “Grab your weapons.” They all went and grabbed shotguns… Why did they give me a pistol and them shotguns?

One of them stepped up and addressed us, it was girl. “Sir, this seems imbalanced? Is it fair that we are using shotguns to shoot clay birds and she’s using a pistol?”

He looked at her. “Not as imbalanced as you may think.” He’s putting a lot of stock into me shooting those targets… “Now, she will be the last one to shoot today.”

After that they all lined up to shoot what they called clay birds. It was red discs that shattered when they got hit. There was about twenty people shooting, around forty birds were fired for each person. The highest score was thirty-two. Now I was going. I pulled the clip out of the pistol, the side of it was see through… I counted twelve shots. There were eight clips in front of me if I needed to reload. For some reason my heart was racing, there was a score to beat… When I would yell pull a clay disc would fly, I waited a second before doing that though… There was a target in the distance I fired two shots at it to see how the gun worked. A buzzer went off.

Someone grumbled in the group of them. “Show off…” I guess I hit it…

When I’d yell pull it would feel like everything slowed down, I got to ten discs hit and had to reload. I hit twelve more, then another twelve. Thirty-four discs down, six left. When I yelled pull six flew out at once… They were flying in different directions but I managed to hit them all.

There was a brief pause, then that man yelled to the recruits… “You see that! That is what we're up against! You all had a massive advantage with a shotgun and she destroyed all of you with a pistol, on top the fact that she is still injured! I expect you all to put in more effort into training starting tomorrow, otherwise were going to make things harder! Dismissed!” My hands were sore, but I felt excited about what just happened. I was breathing heavily though and had to sit down.

That guy walked over to me. “Are you okay?”

I looked up at him. “Yes, I’m fine, I just feel tired now.”

He seemed calmer now. “How are your hands?”

Sore to say the least. “Sore, I should be fine though.” I took the gloves off and the bandages were red, I guess I wasn’t as fine as I thought.

He was still calm. “Let’s get you back to the infirmary, that needs to be looked at.”

I followed him back, it was peaceful on the way there. I was watching the birds, at least until we went in doors. Emilia wasn’t happy, she took the bandages off, some of the scabs were tore… she pulled them off and then put alcohol on it and rewrapped my hands.

The man stayed in the room during it all. “She’s a very good shot, might even have taught the recruits some humility.”

Emilia sighed. “Sure, let’s avoid shooting anymore guns until the scabs have healed. Ok, Chuck.”

He turned to walk out. “Will do Emilia.”