You are not sure about how to react, but you realize he’s not joking the moment his car drives off, with everyone in the group is following the car’s trail like a school of fish. Ten minutes into running you can already feel your heart pumping hard and your muscles aching all over, as you seriously regret not spending more time outdoors. To ease your burden, you dropped your belongings halfway through the run.

An hour of seemingly endless running later, you finally spot two poles at a distance, resembling a makeshift goal line. With a last burst of energy you run past the two poles, and immediately fell to the ground, desperately trying to catch your breath from the long run earlier.

You can feel your heart almost bursting out of your chest, and a dull, nausea inducing pain from your abdomen. Unable to hold it any longer, you vomit a mouthful of stomach acid, and then roll over to the side to get some air. You can feel the mud on the back of your head, but at this point you’re too tired to even give a damn.

“Ugh, this sucks… Man, you alright?”

While you stare at the sky, you notice Dian coming by your side, looking at you worriedly.
In contrast to you, Dian is not on the floor trying to not die from hyperventilation. Instead, not only is he still on his feet, he seem quite capable of recovering from the sudden trial. As a matter of fact, he hasn’t even ditched his luggage as you had, still wearing his bag on his back.
You were going to question how he managed, but then you remember you can’t think of a single day in your life where Dian isn’t seen running around town for one reason or another.

Despite the overwhelming fatigue of your body, you manage to raise your hand as a gesture in response.

At the same time, you notice Anneke peeking around, looking somewhat disappointed at the fact that no one has died from the run earlier. Seeing you on the ground seems to have lightened her up a bit, but as soon as she sees you breathing properly she immediately lost interest, and instead shifted her focus to Dian.

“You’re… Dian Bekker, correct?”
She said, reading from a paper in the clipboard she is carrying.

“Yes?”
“Not bad. Keep it up.”
“Umm, thanks…?”

With a smile, Anneke gives Dian a short wave then returns to her duties, leaving a dumbfounded Dian at the spot.

“Hey Mattys, you think I got a shot?”
You want to retort by telling him to knock it off, but then you are too tired and out of breath to even muster out a single word.

A few minutes later, you heard the sharp noise of a whistle, followed by Louis’ voice.

“Alright boys, gather around!”
With Dian’s help you got off the ground and rejoin the group, with Louis standing on a crate in the center and four guns lying on the ground before him. Napoleon complex is the first word that pops into your mind.

“These are some standard weapons from our armory, and you’re going to test fire them.”
Louis said, pointing at a few makeshift steel targets behind him with his thumb.
“You get to fire 3 rounds with each weapon, until you found one can handle decently enough.
Alright, who wants to be first?”

One very enthusiastic young man volunteers shortly after, and soon a queue is formed before the firing range.
As Dian and you waited in line, you can tell Dian can’t contain his excitement.

“The machine gun looks cool, but the sniper is much more deadly… Hey Mattys, what gun are you gonna pick?”

>Bolt-action rifle
>Scoped rifle
>Submachine gun
>Pistol