Bullseye

Meanwhile, in a dark and dusty shed beneath the Empire State Building's underground parking, four people sit in a locked cell. One adult and three teens, all taken as hostages by the terrorists.

Mike, a Black adult man, seems oddly calm in this place. He's more relaxed now than he was when he first realized they were being held hostage.

"Huh, this doesn't feel that bad. I thought it would be worse," he says.

"At least we're just locked in a room with dust, some rats, and total darkness. Still better than being tortured," says Selena, a girl sitting beside him.

"Yeah, I wish they had a bed for me... I mean for us. That would make it feel exactly like a prison."

"You want to be in a prison that much?"

"No, I mean... an actual prison would still be better, right?"

"..."

As the two of them joke to pass the time and make the place feel less awful, Jenny, another girl sitting close to Selena, stays quiet. She doesn't respond. Her thoughts are somewhere else.

She still hasn't gotten over the shock and pain of watching her best friend die in front of her.

Selena notices. She wants to say something to help, to bring comfort, but she knows no words can fix this. Nothing she says will bring their friend back. Nothing will change where they are. But still, she can't just watch Jenny fall deeper into silence.

"Jenny, you should take a rest. It's been a long day for you."

Selena speaks softly, leaning in and gently placing a hand on Jenny's shoulder.

"Yeah, you should..."

Out of nowhere, Roy, the boy who has been here much longer than the others, finally speaks. His voice is tired, drained, almost emotionless.

"I haven't slept a full night in days. So if you're all done talking, can you please be quiet? I'll die if I don't sleep."

"Oh... okay…"

"Thank you."

After saying his piece, Roy lies down on the floor. He doesn't care about the dust or how dirty it is. He just wants to sleep.

"Yeah, I'm feeling tired too," Mike says. After staying up all night to keep watch over the girls, he's worn out. He grabs some old cardboard boxes, stacks them under his head, and lies down.

"These boxes are terrible pillows."

Despite the complaint, he still uses them. The box is stiff, oddly shaped, and uncomfortable, but it's better than nothing.

"Good night, or good morning," he says to Selena, then closes his eyes and drifts off into sleep.

"You should rest too, Jenny," Selena says quietly. "You stayed up all night."

Jenny, still shaken by what happened the day before, hasn't had a second of sleep. Like Roy, she's exhausted, but fear keeps her tense.

"Don't worry, I'll keep watch. I already slept back at the bar, so I'm fine."

"...K."

That's all Jenny says. Just one letter. A short "K" instead of "OK." It sounds cold, but to Selena, it's the first gentle word she's heard from her friend since yesterday.

Jenny slowly lies down, hugging her legs as she curls up on the floor. Her eyes close. From behind, Selena can see the faint calm on her face.

Seeing that gives Selena a small sense of peace too. The dim light, the still air, and the weight of exhaustion pull all three of them into sleep. Now, Selena is the only one still awake.

"…"

After confirming that everyone is asleep, Selena checks her smartwatch. She glances around, front and back, then quietly begins her secret plan.

...

...

...

"Shit. I think I messed up."

As bright sunlight hits his face, Nick wakes up. He groans and squints, the light burning into his eyes. Hours ago, Brent hit him in the head with a rock and knocked him out cold. Now, he's finally regaining consciousness.

The first thing he feels is the burning discomfort of lying under the sun for too long. Then comes the fogginess from sleep, followed by a spike of fear. He has no idea what might have happened while he was unconscious.

Then he pauses.

"Wait, why am I still here?"

He looks around. Brent is gone. But he's still here, lying in the same spot. If Brent really betrayed them and joined the terrorists, shouldn't Nick be captured or dead by now?

Somehow, by sheer luck or arrogance, Brent didn't follow through. Maybe he felt like he had already won and forgot about the one person he should have finished off.

Nick takes a deep breath. He's alive. And more than that, Brent forgot something else— the AR-15 rifle. Still armed.

He gets up, brushes the dirt off, and scans the area. Everything is quiet. Too quiet. No signs of gunfire. No signs of escape. The giant force field barrier still hangs in the sky.

The mission has failed.

Neil and the others must be trapped or captured. Now, Nick is the only one left out here.

Right now, as long as he stays unnoticed, Nick needs to find a better hiding spot and figure out how to get Neil and maybe the others out.

But who exactly?

He knows Neil is not a traitor. At first, he also trusted Brent, thinking he was just a rebellious teenager trying to grow up. But after what happened, Nick has learned not to underestimate how dangerous teenagers can be when they decide to betray you.

Now he's stuck. If he does manage to get inside, who else should he help? He has no intel, no way to contact anyone. Before doing anything risky, he needs a plan. He needs to decide who is worth the risk.

Who?

...

"Да ты что?" (What the hell?)

At the same time, on one of the middle floors of the Empire State Building, a man steps out into the hallway. He takes a deep breath, enjoying the fresh morning air and sunlight after a night in one of the most comfortable beds in the world.

Feeling smug, he walks to the window, looking down on the city. From here, he can admire the view and pity those stuck below who don't enjoy his high position.

But something strange catches his attention. Movement.

He squints and focuses. On the rooftop of a nearby building, an adult man is doing something unusual. He's moving cautiously, not like a terrorist on patrol. He's wearing a normal suit, not tactical gear.

And in his hands is a black rifle.

And as soon as he sees this, he immediately knows, that this man down there, is a snitch. Now what's important is how would he react. He could just tell others to go and kill the man, but instead, he decided to take the sniper rifle that he had in his bedroom and resolve this in quiet.

"Where the fuck are they anyway?"

As Nick wandered the roof, contemplating his next move, he was oblivious to the lurking danger above. The sniper had grabbed his rifle and was already moving into position.

"Come here."

Now, all he needs is the perfect opportunity when the target stands still, to pull the trigger and quietly eliminate the potential threat.

...

A sudden chill ran down Nick's spine as he realized he'd let his guard down. Standing up and walking around, he'd almost forgotten that he wasn't invisible.

As a battle-hardened veteran, his instinct tells him that he's being watched, and the longer he spends standing still, exposing himself in the open air, the more chills he feels.

Reacting quickly, Nick rushed and rolled behind a large car-sized rooftop air conditioner just as a rifle bullet pierced through his left side and hit it.

"SHIT!!"

Having heard about it from Neil, Nick couldn't believe it until now. The terrorists indeed used firearms that were eerily silent. No booms, no gunshots; just quiet hits on the target to get the job done.

"You wanna play? I'll play with you!"

Instead of being terrified, however, Nick was somewhat panicked but also excited, because he hadn't felt this life-threatening feeling for a long time, this brought him nostalgia during Afghanistan.

It was almost like the times he used to play hide-and-seek with the enemy snipers, attempting to figure out their location as they tried to blow his head off each time he tried to spot them.

Was it terrifying? Yes. Was it dangerous? Yes. But was it fun? Absolutely. Until now this is one of the mysteries in male psychology, enjoying the thrill of life being on the line, especially in war.

Return to Nick, he was making sure that his rifle had enough bullets to deal with this sniper hiding on some floor of the Empire State Building shooting down, he checked the magazine, and checked the rifle's condition, the thing was fine and let's say he had more than enough bullet to deal with this.

While Kosho, the sniper, was gripping his sniper rifle tightly, making sure it doesn't shake and move even a centimeter, all he needed now was a single moment where his target showed out just an inch of his forehead, and he could finish him.

...

Strangely enough, minutes passed and no new movement have been made from neither sides, Kosho started to wonder if the target is still there since everything is hidden by that big annoying rooftop air conditioner.

...

Suddenly, he saw what he'd been waiting for. Through his scope, Kosho witnessed the target revealing his head a few inches, visible to the naked eye on the left.

Without hesitation, Kosho shifted his rifle from its previous position, refocusing to the left, and pulled the trigger.

Swoosh!!

He missed.

The target quickly noticed him and bowed down just half a second before he took the shot, despite the silent bullet.

Growing frustrated with the second missed shot, Kosho decided to get serious. He zoomed out his scope, encompassing the entire rooftop in his line of sight.

Additionally, he expanded his focus to cover the entire area rather than just a single spot.

"You piece of shit."

He cursed as his patience was being tested, Kosho expected this to be a quick fun task to kickstart the morning with a few shots. Now, more than 10 minutes had passed, and he still hadn't taken down the target less than a mile away.

Something, that he remembered, would be a piece of cake for him in the past. But the fact that this target is a stubborn one is the only reason that pissed him, when he was just half a second away from pulling the trigger, he had seen through his scope the eye of the target was looking at him.

He could see those eyes looking directly at him as if he was just a bug unworthy of attention. The frustration set in because he felt underestimated by this amateur son of a bitch.

...

Wait. Something is off... Right now, Kosho suddenly realized something from his previous thought. To think of it, wasn't it strange that he and the target were looking directly at each other? How did the target look at him if he didn't know about his locatio-

...

Unless he didn't. The target looked directly at Kosho because he knew his location. One of the most forbidden things for a sniper is to stay in the same place when their location is revealed, and Kosho had remained in the same location for minutes.

"Блядь! (Shit!)"

Instantly, he snapped back to his scope after just a few seconds of distraction by his own thoughts. Zooming in, he scanned right, up, down—the rooftop air conditioner where the target was hiding. And...

He was too late.

Nick, the target, lay under the shadows of the rooftop AC, stealthily moving in the dark. He pointed his gun up, directly in Kosho's direction.

At that point, it is all over, and what he sees next is a white flash coming out of the black rifle's muzzle, and the glass window slightly above him is shattered into pieces.

"Bingo."

After Nick made sure the bullet hit its target and disabled the sniper, he rolled back and hurried downstairs before other terrorists starts coming here.

Since Nick wasn't a professional sniper, the shot didn't kill Kosho, but shattered the glass window into pieces, making a very loud noise and giving Kosho a long scar on his cheek.

"I heard the glass break, does anyone know what happened?"

A few seconds later, the walkie-talkie that Kosho had with him crackled, it seemed like others had heard the glass breaking sound and were confused about what was happening.

Kosho knew he had to respond as quickly as possible, he was still shocked by what had happened. He had believed, until now, that he was one of the world's best snipers and that no one could beat him in a one-on-one match, regardless of whether they had a larger rifle or a better scope.

Yet, today marks the first day since he was last hit five years ago. While not a direct hit, it will leave him with both physical and mental scars.

Losing to someone without a scope, and using an assault rifle - the things that made Kosho think he had the upper hand, shocked him to the core.

Today, his arrogance made him pay. But Nick's victory wasn't about skills, it was about experience.

While Kosho trains his sniping skills through sniping schools and contests. Nick gained experiences through real combat, through countless times of being in life-or-death situations, his mind was battle-hardened enough to know how to deal with this situation he had.

Living in a constantly at-war country like the United States gave Nick chances to learn and evolve that will Kosho never have. And it also looks like the Soviet Union has been too peaceful.

Remembering what he had to do, slowly, he crawled and grabbed the Walkie-Talkie.

"In... Intruder! We have an intruder from outside! He's coming in!"