StarGaze

Golden

“I can’t lock on anyone. There’s just too many shots incoming and they are changing positions more frequently.” Olivia said and threw her bow in frustration.

“Don’t worry; they will be all out of arrows in a few minutes. Then we will rain down upon them.” Tony said, pointing his bow high and shooting an arrow in the dark.

They were crouched behind the railing, and the continuous charge of bows was falling right in front of them. After a while of waiting, they grew impatient. You see, Tony expected that the archers would slow down after they were out of arrows. But he overlooked the fact that this was a war.

 Bow and arrows are very cheap and easy to manufacture, and hence every archer had a more than enough supply of arrows. The offensive archers might not be able to carry much ammunition with them, but Tony and Olivia were dealing with the campers. Campers are set up in their positions for long periods of time, and their only mission is to stop the enemy from taking over their position. And hence they have a LOT of resources packed in one place.

And so Tony finally realized that it was useless to wait for their stock to run out, and this was the time to act because if they just sat there and waited, the enemy would surely send troops inside their building to take them out. And then they would surely be f****d.

Tony took a deep breath and took out three arrows from his quiver. He placed one between the gaps in his fingers. And then he took a quick peek, spotting five archers in the five windows of the building in front of them. He stretched the bow wire and adjusted his aim. When he was sure that it was as precise as he expected, he let the string loose.

The arrows left the bow with a swooshing sound, each going further apart from the other one. Tony had a scream which was followed by three distinct explosions. He made sure that he didn’t waste time.

When he got up, he saw that two of the five balconies were up in flames. Debris blocked the sight of the other three. He didn’t miss the chance and fired five more concurrent arrows to finish the job. And this time, he didn’t miss his targets. The blasts were deafening, and screams of agony filled the surroundings.

The floor below was also camped by archers, but the railing in front of him blocked their sight and protected him. The roof was almost collapsed, and so Tony knew that no one in their right minds would take the risk of going up there and stepping out in the open.

Olivia was doing her part too, shooting electrocuting arrows at whoever she could find. The probability of hitting a target was low, as the time to aim was really short. But that was compensated by the quality of the arrows. You see, when an electric arrow strikes a rough surface, it shoots an electric current in its surrounding place. And so if the archer was in the five-foot range, he would be paralyzed. And if he was unlucky enough to be in the two-foot range, his body would be too burnt to be saved.

Things were starting to look up after ten minutes as the sector looked clear. Tony finally had a sense of real victory of his own, and a smile appeared on his face. He looked at Olivia and nodded in appreciation of her efforts. Olivia wasn’t quite happy and was looking at the child she just got killed. The look on the kid’s face was peaceful, and it served as somewhat of a consolation for Olivia.

Tony’s sense of victory was short-lived. While he was busy smiling proudly at Olivia, an arrow passed right in front of his eyes, barely missing his skull. He was traumatized for a second, but his training quickly came to his rescue and he fell to dodge any other parcels of death flying his way. Olivia had already looked at this and spotted the reinforcements taking over the original positions in the building.

“s**t, they sent more people. We have to think of something new!” tony yelled.

“I know, what do you want us to do? We could get out of here while they think we are on the roof. After all, they will never stop coming and we can’t hold this roof forever.” Olivia said and stuck to the wall.

“No, we fight for now,” Tony said and slowly raised his head.

Olivia didn’t know why Tony would want to hold this position, but I know why. This happens to newbies who have zero battle experience. They think that if they can defend a place, that is where they should stay. And this type of thinking gets most of them killed. They give the enemy enough time to think around their defenses and eventually defeat them.

The art of winning requires you to constantly change positions and be unpredictable at all times, especially when you don’t have the numbers. And numbers were the thing that the agents didn’t have. But despite Olivia's continuous warnings, Tony decided to stand his ground.

He knew that he needed some kind of cover, and so he looked around. And his search stopped at the child’s dead body. Olivia knew what he was going to do, but however hard she struggled with the idea, she couldn’t stop Tony.

Tony dragged the body towards him and took him up. He then tied the kid in front of his chest. The kid’s head was dangling in front of his body, and his limbs had gone stiff. Tony’s eyes were filled with a strange kind of rage, and he didn’t care if he got hit in the head. He just spawned two crossbows and stood up. The small but extremely precise crossbows had a load of five arrows each.

Tony didn’t waste time. A rally of arrows flew around him, but he was like a rock in an ocean. He aimed and shot anyone he could find, one arrow at a time. The enemies were blasted off and shocked and Tony took them down one by one. Arrows found their way to him and stuck inside the little kid’s chest and stomach, but Tony just wouldn’t budge.

At last, the enemy had to retreat again, and Tony roared in rage. He had yet secured another small victory, defying all odds. He looked around to see anyone else. But the building was clear. But he wasn’t a fool, so he didn’t celebrate until he checked any possible hideouts for archers.

Every position insight was clear, and no one would be stupid enough to place themselves on the…..what the f**k?! Tony was shocked to see a person crouched on the almost demolished roof.  The only place that he didn’t expect someone to be.

The man was wearing a bloody rag on his face, and his attire was also hidden by some kind of camouflage. Before Tony could react, the man shot an arrow towards him. The thing about arrows is that they are slow, and so Tony had the time to dodge them. He dropped to his knees behind the railing and cursed the man.

The blade pierced through the concrete and stuck right into Tony’s head. Tony didn’t move, and the life inside him was coming out in form of bubbly blood. The bows dropped from his hands, and the child’s body was too heavy for him to carry. Finally, he fell to his right, and the blood dripping from the arrow concluded the tale of his overconfidence.

Olivia was devastated, but she couldn’t speak. Her eyes rained, but it was like she had lost her sense of sound. She had got two innocent people killed today (or so she thought), and both of their bodies were lying doubled up on the ground.

Olivia was shocked, and the arrows flying around her seemed to not affect her. She just stood there, and everything slowed down for her. She couldn’t take her eyes off Tony. His face was covered by the blood dripping from his head. His eyes were wide open and it looked like his death was as much of a shock to him as it was for Olivia.

The only difference between their pains was that Tony’s pain was over within a second, but Olivia had to carry it for the rest of her life. She liked Tony since the first day of their training. And she couldn't fathom that she would never hear his voice again, never feel the touch of his palms during the nights, and never get to say what she felt.

She was too busy playing hard to get and showing off attitude that she never realized the importance of showing your true feelings. And now it was too late, and all she could do was cry, and that’s exactly what she was doing.

If you haven’t got it already, there is a message for you here. My dear reader, if you love someone from all your heart, don’t be shy to tell them. Sure, you might get rejected. But if the person rejects you without even flinching or saying that they need time, that means that they probably have zero feelings for you. And true love isn’t something you GROW by talking and stuff.

It just f*****g happens, and you know that it has happened. And so even by getting rejected, you are doing both you and the other person a favor. Think about it, they don’t have to deal with your awkward bullshit and pretend to care. On the other hand, you know that running behind them is just futile, and you should divert your attention to someone that actually wants you.

My point is that don’t repeat the same mistake that Olivia did. At this age, being reserved and not showing feelings is considered cool and impactful. But it is all just a bunch of bullshit, and we all know that. Being mysterious (double quote) against your will to impress someone will definitely get you a partner, but it won’t matter. Because you will hate the way you feel- reserved all the time, unable to share your feeling, and lonely in a crowd. Believe me, I have been there.

And Olivia was just realizing all the golden s**t I have spilled for you in the previous lines. Life is fragile, and all it takes is a random arrow to shatter the ambitions that she had for both of them.

“What the f**k are you doing? Are you trying to get yourself killed?!” Gabriel said and he pounced on her from behind.

They both crashed on the ground, and Gabriel had no idea that Olivia was down in tears. So when he turned her around, he couldn’t find words to interpret the situation.

“Wh…What is happening? Where is Tony? He was supposed to look after you.” Gabriel said and lifted his head to look around.

And then he saw it too. The pool of blood and his boss lying in the middle of it left him speechless. But he didn’t have an emotional connection with Tony like Olivia. In fact, a part of him was happy that Tony was gone for good.

He was tired of taking orders from a p***y who couldn’t even keep his s**t together in a firefight and whined like a pig in the middle of an escape route. Sure, he had to agree with everyone when they said that being emotionally weak was okay, but he knew deep in his heart that it wasn’t. The leader is supposed to protect the team from anxiety, and not the other way around.

And so Gabriel did something horrifying. While Olivia was busy shedding waterfalls on his chest, he looked at Tony’s dried-up dead eyes and smiled. And it was then that the believer in god turned out to be the follower of the devil.

“Pull yourself together, Olivia. We have a lot of work to do, and very little time to do it. Remember that we still have to get out in one piece, or Tony’s death would be in vain.” Gabriel said, shaking Olivia's shoulders to help her shake the pain off and channel it into anger.

Olivia didn’t even listen to most of his words, and just collapsed down every time he tried to lift her. But as soon as he mentioned Tony and his death, and that it would be in vain if they didn’t make it out alive, Olivia found the strength that she had buried deep inside her.

She looked at Gabriel, and he nodded. After that, she came into action so quickly that it seemed like nothing had happened at all. Even Gabriel was surprised when she sprung behind cover and took a hold of her bow. Gabriel didn’t know why she did it as the balconies were already clear. But he had yet to see the figure that would haunt him for the rest of his journey.

Olivia was sure to not repeat Tony’s mistake and so she kept her distance from the railing. Gabriel was still confused and thought it was just a way of coping with a loss. But then he looked at the arrow stuck in the concrete railing, and when he traced it back to its place of origin by using a very sophisticated technique called ‘common sense’, he spotted the figure.

It was most probably a man and wore a golden scarf that covered his entire face and head. It was impossible to see his eyes from this far away, but they were terrifying. And even more terrifying was the fact that he was just standing in the open with just a loose bow in his hand. I bet that if you took off the scarf, you would see a smiling face. And it really pissed Gabriel off.

He snatched the bow from Olivia’s hand and took an explosive bow out of the quiver lying on the ground beside the dead man. He aimed and expected the man wearing golden rags to turn his back and run. But the man didn’t take a step back. The stone wouldn’t just budge. So Gabriel decided to all the way through.

He stretched the string all the way to get as much acceleration as he could for the arrow, and timing the perfect shot, he let it loose. The arrow went off so quickly that it seemed like there wasn’t an arrow, to begin within the first place. The man still didn’t move.

Another thing about arrows is that they are way faster than bullets (duh). So if you have the training and you are quick enough, you can dodge it. But it is very difficult. And by very difficult, I mean it is VERY difficult. And you know what is even more difficult? Catching an arrow when it is about to hit you. Replace the regular bow with an explosive blow, which would blow off on touching your skin. No one would be stupid enough to pull that stunt.

Yeah, you are right. That is EXACTLY what the golden stranger did. Just when Olivia thought that Gabriel had gotten revenge for Tony’s death and Gabriel thought that he had proved himself more worthy than the late Tony, the man moved. He moved and caught the swooshing arrow with his right hand, right before it could hit his chest and blow him up in a million pieces.

Gabriel wasn’t going to give up. So he looked for more arrows. He kneeled to lift one from Tony’s quiver, and when he got up, he saw that the man had placed the explosive arrow in his bow. And his string was already stretched, pointing straight at the roof Olivia and Gabriel were holding.

Gabriel had already seen what the villain was capable of and decided not to take a rash and stupid decision like the late boss. So he grabbed Olivia’s hand and ran as far away from the railing as he could.

While they were on the ground with their hands on their heads, they heard a loud bang and the ground shook. It was like an earthquake, but scarier. They opened their eyes after a few seconds and realized they were all right. The roof wasn’t the intended target, or their enemy had just missed the easiest shot possible. But it seems rather impossible that a man who killed Tony through a concrete railing could miss a big ass roof. But if they wanted the answers, they had to find them out for themselves.

But when they tried to get up, another arrow flew right above their heads and found its place in the roof entrance. They were too chilled in the bones to face their fear, and so they did the same mistake that got Tony killed. They waited for him to cool down or to put it more precisely, they waited for the right moment.

When Gabriel was busy trying to calm his nerves down, he took a brief look at the arrow that had just missed their heads. And he found something odd. The back of the arrow had something tied to it. It was a note of some kind.

“Look!” he said, pointing at the arrow stuck above their heads.

Olivia looked at it and was equally curious.

“What do we do?” Olivia asked.

“We don’t have much time. If we don’t act now, we are sitting ducks just waiting to be butchered. I am going to snatch that note really quickly.” Gabriel said and stretched his hand.

“No! I have already lost Tony, and I will NOT lose another person from my team on the same day.” She said ad pulled his hand down. Gabriel saw the determination in her eyes, but he didn’t have time to explain s**t to her.

So he just got up anyway, taking a peek at the rooftop in front of him. The man in golden was gone, and Gabriel could finally breathe without his heart sinking in his chest. He checked all the balconies just to be sure and when he was absolutely positive that they were not being hunted anymore, he took the piece of paper off the back of the arrow.

“What does it say?!” Olivia asked with a sweaty forehead when she saw Gabriel open the note. His face was pale, and that’s what made Olivia no nervous.

“It…It says- I’ll be watching you!” Gabriel said and the paper fell from his hand.

You might not know what ‘I’ll be watching you’ means, so let me enlighten you. When someone who isn’t fond of you says that he will be watching you, it means he will be waiting in the shadow and strike when you least expect him to.

Olivia took the paper in her hands and went through it just to see for herself. After a brief gasp, she got up and looked around, but the man was long gone, or was he? There were a million questions but not a single answer.

Olivia and Gabriel’s train of thought was suddenly stopped when they heard loud simultaneous gunshots and explosions below them.

“So much for no guns, huh,” Gabriel said nervously. If they were really using guns, Gabriel knew he had no chance of making out alive.

But when they slowly stepped up to the railing and looked down, they found out that all the gunshots were coming from their trailer. Someone had set it on fire, and as a result, all the bullets were now flying around in random directions. The fire was mostly on the left side, so they just looked along.

“Oh f**k!” Gabriel suddenly cried.

“What is it?!” Olivia asked and dodged down, suspecting that the hunter had returned.

“There are high explosives and RPGs on the right side of that trailer. If the f*****g fury of the fire reaches it, there will be an explosion big enough for this building to kiss the earth. And we will be in the harm’s way!” Gabriel said and lifted the still unconscious kid from the ground. But he was creeped out when he saw the blood coming out of the child’s back. He looked at Olivia, who was too frustrated to explain.

So he lifted the other one and ran towards the gate. Olivia was out of her senses, so Gabriel had to grab her by her hand and literally drag her inside. He considered leaving the other women behind, but he couldn’t summon the courage to do such a heinous deed.

He handed the child to Olivia and placed both the women on his shoulders. The explosions were getting louder and louder as they took the flight of stairs down the building. Gabriel was like a machine, skipping at least three or four stairs at a time and not stopping to regain his balance. The women on his shoulders broke their ribs from the crashing impacts of his jumps, and blood gushed out of their mouths. But stopping wasn’t an option. It was better to bleed than to be dead.

As soon as they reached the ground floor, a rocket flew right in front of Gabriel and burst into a wall about ten feet away from him. The shockwave and debris pushed Gabriel and Olivia in the direction opposite to the one they were running in.

Gabriel got up with a terrible headache and very low visibility. There was dust and smoke in the air around him, and he reached out his hand to find Olivia and the others. Thankfully, Olivia was all right. She had the kid glued to her chest to protect him from any kind of damage. Her eyes had a wild and extra focused look in them, like that of a mother who is trying to protect her child.

Gabriel lifted the women again and continued his journey. Noor had burst her head and was bleeding out. Gabriel knew that she wouldn’t survive if he let the bleeding continue. So while he stepped out of the hole in the wall that the RPG had caused, he tore off a rag and tied it around Noor’s head.

As soon as they got out in the open air, another arrow flew right past them and stuck in the wall. Gabriel tried not to look, but curiosity got the best of his judgment. It was another arrow with a note in it!

He was successful in battling with his mind and ignored it, but Olivia wasn’t the strong one. she stopped and took the note out.

“What does it say?!” Gabriel said, continuing his run while looking back.

“It says- runs!” Olivia said and broke into a run.

The opponent had successfully planted himself in Olivia and Gabriel’s head with his dangerous little mind games. And the effect was so deep that despite being under the high risk of being stabbed at any random moment on their way through these streets, all Olivia and Gabriel could think about was the man in golden rags and the scarf.

And they had to be afraid. More than half of their team was dead, including their leader and an agent who was a legend around the agency. Now all that was left was a gunner and a spy, which to be fair, is a pretty deadly combination. But they had yet to realize it.

For the time being, they were running pointlessly, hoping to find….well something. They had no idea what to search for, and the more painful fact was that there was no one to guide them to safety either. So they decided to go with the stupidest plan there is- find a car and try to escape.

And why am I calling this plan stupid? Well, for starters, there is no f*****g way that they can dodge bows and arrows in a f*****g four-wheel tin can whose glass will break on the slightest impact and which can go off-road pretty quickly if there was a bow stuck in the wheel. But you don’t think about all these things when you are in the middle of a shitstorm and running for your life.

A loud bang went off a few alleys behind them, and they knew it came from the trailer. They were farther than the safe distance, and they still felt a push and a gush of wind from behind them. The loud crashing sound followed, indicating that the building which stood so proudly a little while ago was now turning into dust and metal.

"And you died in the explosion, right?" Raghav asked.

Thomas didn't tell him but there was suspense in his eyes.

"Right?!" Raghav asked again.

"Nope, I was the man with the golden mask. And I planned that explosion so that my death was confirmed, at least to them." Thomas said, and concluded his lesson on covert operations.