Oops!
I accidentally shot someone.
Again¹.
Which was awkward.
That’s not inherently problematic … I don’t feel bad about it or anything — all else being equal, I was going to shoot him sooner or later (either that or creep up behind him and cut his throat).
It’s that I hadn’t planned on doing so — not right then.
Now, it’s not that I’m averse to opportunistic killing — when the need arises, I will kill people as I go. But I prefer, when possible, to scope the area out a bit first — make a note of who’s about, what their movements are, where the exits are in case things get a bit hot to handle, plan ahead.
But, my finger twitched.
And then I had to shoot someone else before they raised the alarm.
Which meant there were two bodies potentially in full, lit up, view of an indeterminate number of people out of my line of sight either side of them.
So, then I had to go in blind, moving from room to room and kill a load of other people, before someone coming from the other direction noticed the trail of bodies behind me … before anyone coming from the direction I was moving in did so if I went the other way.
Before I knew it there were rooms full of bodies everywhere and I’d had no time to even take out the lights, let alone dispose of what had become an alarming number of corpses spread over quite a wide area, with lots of entrances to the various parts of it … most of them out of my line of sight at any given moment.
At any instant, someone else could come along, before I’d had a chance to clean up after me, and raise the alarm.
Which, sure enough, they did.
Which is when things got awkward.
There were a lot more of them about than I’d anticipated, despite having an idea of the lie of the land in the large — I’d had to creep past a lot of them beforehand and was going through the new area with a view to circling around to the other side and taking them out from there, where I might have a better line of sight.
I have very little ammo, so, every round used has to count, because I don’t know how long it will be before I find any more; which means up-close-and-personal throat-slitting from behind where possible … one-shot-one-kill head-shots otherwise … ammo really is that scarce — if I’ve got thirty rounds on me (about a second’s or three’s worth of fire on full-auto), I feel I’m flush.
Moreover, I’m travelling light, with only two weapons … one of which has to be a (thankfully silenced) not-very-good, double-barrelled shotgun for dealing with close encounters and/or large beasts and the other a (silenced) semi-automatic medium-range weapon — a sniper rifle would be nice but it’s no good when you’re caught unawares at close range and don’t have time to change weapons.
Which means that, until I find something better, I’m having to use a gun ‘affectionately’ known as a ‘bastard’, because …
- it has poor range and accuracy — it’s barely accurate enough for spray-’n’-pray tactics, let alone sniping;
- it’s unreliable — it overheats and/or jams every thirty to sixty shots … or, if I’m really lucky, when reloading (which, with its janky mechanism, isn’t exactly a fast process at the best of times);
- it does so little damage that the reduction due to a suppressor is effectively zero — that’s how bad it is.
I’ve managed to get my hands on one with a silencer and a nightsight though² … which latter does compensate a bit for its other shortcomings, if I take out lights before shooting people — corpses aren’t noticed quite so readily in the dark, so being a bit closer to the action isn’t quite the disadvantage it would otherwise be, meaning I can take out three to five people in rapid succession, if I plan my kills in advance.
So, I’ve already used more ammo than I would like due to the time constraints meaning I couldn’t waste any creeping up on people but had to take my chances when I got them. And now, I’m hiding in a darkened corner with no idea what my exit strategy is … no idea where the exit even is, let alone how I’m gonna reach it … whilst a lot more people than I would like, with a very negative opinion of me, run around like blue-arsed flies, looking for me … hoping against hope that I’ll get an opportunity to slip past them before my luck runs out (they’ve got much better guns, because they don’t need to worry about being heard when they pull the trigger).
Dammit … I think they might have a suspicion where I am!
And they’ve just received radio confirmation reinforcements are on their way!
I am not in a good place!
I’m just gonna have to accept that this time, if I actually make it out alive, I won’t be getting a 100% kill rate, let alone a one-to-one shots-fired-to-kills-made ratio.
<sigh> Gutted </sigh>
—
¹ https://medium.com/@WhereAngelsFearToTread/quote-of-the-day-c48599fbedb3
² The guy I got it from wasn’t going to be needing it any more.
