Uniform.

I flick the safety off on the pistol, click, as it bounces between my fingers and I run, trying just to keep a grip on it at the same time. Multitasking isn't my strongest aspect... neither is single-tasking. Anything that, generally speaking, involves movement.

I glimpse back over my shoulder, and all I catch sight of is the dark pit of her gun.

I've been running, tripping, falling, slipping and wheezing for about twelve hours with very frequent stops. It was only a small amount of time before one of the higher letters found me.

This bloody gun... I don't know how to work this thing! Not like I've been learning for the last fifteen years how to - oh, wait.

It's just I've never been in a real situation like this, with a gun, and someone's life in my hands. Well, actually this is more of a defence... I can't even call it a defence, as it won't be able to do shit whilst in my hands. Besides her life definitely isn't in my hands, mine is in hers.

She owns this situation. From the moment she saw me, I was dead.

When we were first released, I ran for the city, just like everyone else. And when people started dispersing, I explored the place a little bit. Went to my first arcade... didn't have any coins - or money at all, for that matter - but I still went.

As it started to get dark, I found some leftover food on a table outside a restaurant. It was just left there, and I was hungry, so I said hey why not, right? It was whilst my stomach was filling, it started to twist and churn.

We have to kill each other. It was setting. It was finally beginning to poke and prod, as I pecked at the cold chips, at my brain. We have to kill each other.

I'm not a killer. The only time I'd ever kill if it's myself and it's by accident. You know, like I'd get my foot stuck in a toilet and somehow die by asphyxiation or inhaling too much smoke.

I run past the fields, the cows watching me smugly and the last few cockerels giving me a morning earache. This isn't Chicken Run, despite me running and there being chickens.

I push my shoulders around, pinging the bullets like I'm playing with a water gun. The thing that I've found about trying to shoot Echo, is she seems to already be dodging before I've taken the shot. Alpha, Bravo, Charlie and Delta all wait for the trigger to be trampled before actually making a leisurely escape, whereas Echo is on the move before I've even made a definite decision to fire. But by the time I've realised she's moved, it's too late not to take the shot. My brain doesn't reach my fingers that quickly. I don't think my brain makes much contact with the rest of me often, actually.

There's nothing quite like being chased, knowing you're gonna die, am I right?

Echo, only playing fair, unveils her gun, holding her arm as still as possible whilst running at the pace of a car. As the sound of her dragging the slide back reaches me, I make a ninety-degree turn, to face the field beside me , and feel the spit tear into the flesh on my shoulder. The force of the bullet mixing in with the shock and instantaneous torture sends me flying across the tarmac road, grating away at the skin on my face and arms like I'm a fucking block of cheese.

When I'm first able to open my eyes, all I can process is the blood, and my eyes sticking to it like they've been covered in a layer of superglue. I can't even blink as the shock consumes my body completely.

It's strange, because it takes me a minute to finally feel the bitter bite of the barrel against the back of my skull. I'm sinking further into a paralysed state, as I lose the ability to speak and end up dribbling words in an attempt to convince Echo to spare my life.

"You always were funny, Uniform, I'm sorry." I can hardly make out her words against the high frequency conquering my eardrums. She sounds... sad.

This is what dying feels like?

It sucks.

Even the swishing noises sound fairly distant... wait, guns don't sound like that?

Through the agony that wants to slice my brain down the middle with a kitchen knife, I turn over, in time to note the halt of the swishing coming from the field I tried to escape into, and Foxtrot leap off the fence roundhouse Echo across the face, almost too quick for me to witness. Maybe it's because I'm losing enough blood for Moses to split in half, or maybe it's because her eyes are glowing bright enough to compete with the rising sun.

She's killed someone.

All that I pick up about the two of them at the time, whilst they fight, is that neither of them use guns. They don't even make an attempt. Echo chucks hers aside onto the floor sometime during the fight, and Foxtrot never even shows hers.

Foxtrot is instantly on offence, and Echo keeps up a strong guard, just being able to react in time to Foxtrot's attacks. Echo is one grade above Foxtrot, but by the looks of it, Foxtrot is at her maximum strength. If Foxtrot had ran through that field one step slower, Echo would've shot me, possibly taken some of my Valens and would most likely be winning.

They move so quickly my blurring vision just seeing them as a bunch of colours being scrambled into mud.

As I concede to the blindness, my hands scower across the floor until my fingers shrivel up at the touch of raw metal. I yank it in closer, fiddling with the pistol in my hands, feeling my way around the gun and turning it towards source of the heavy breathing, grunting and abrupt sequeals.

Shooting either of them is a win for me, since both will want my Valens. Although, I have to say if I have to choose, I'd rather hit Foxtrot since I always had a theory Echo had a crush on me when we were younger.

But, I'll be lucky if I hit either of them.

I tense my grip, every drop of blood in my body becoming acidic and every muscle turning to burning iron as I attempt to focus my sight. I can just make out the two shapes, twisting around each other and precisely attacking and blocking.

"Uniform, fire now!" Foxtrot screams, as the figures finally are held temporarily still. I think - huge emphasis on 'think', there - that Foxtrot has Echo locked with her arms behind her back, facing this gun and me.

Echo suddenly ducks onto her knees, screaming, "shoot now!"

I bite my tongue and pull the trigger as Echo's knees hit the floor. Foxtrot leans to one side slightly, since my shot would've only just skimmed her anyway, dodging the bullet and taking hold of Echo's jaw and back of her skull all in one motion. Without warning, as I lose my grip on all five of the sense, I can just make out the photograph of Foxtrot cracking Echo's head round, and the sound similar to that of someone chopping up a log of wood just one single time.

"You kind of make me wanna go back on my promise, already, Uriah," she scolds.