And get to fifty Sui did. It took her a few more minutes, though time was starting to get hard to keep track of now. All she really had was the scores. Fifty-one for her, forty-two for Trina and still sixty-one for Aife.

All in all, Sui was getting somewhat used to the tricks that she would routinely encounter and Trina looked to be doing the same. Aife… well Aife was probably just messing around instead of trying to score too highly. The tricks mostly included; hiding most of a target behind a wall, hiding behind other targets, trying to spawn underneath her feet to cause her to trip, and recently the same, but with targets of other colours she wasn’t allowed to shoot.

Sui had also confirmed a guess, from way back at the start. If she hit a wall, she lost points instead of gaining them, so she didn’t have the ability to simply hope for the best. Every shot needed at least an eighty-percent chance of landing by her basic estimations.

Still, I’m getting a little antsy. The tricks are slowing down and the pathways just keep going on and on with less and less to do in them. Sui thought, as she neared what seemed to be an actual corner for once. After a series of endless intersections and hallways of various lengths, she was surprised at just how pleased she was to see something different.

Even if the walls were differing heights, things were getting awfully samey, and the light reflecting off the white walls was starting to irritate Sui’s eyes, especially as she was working them to their limits trying to spot the subtlest hint of targets.

When Sui approached the corner, it was with great care. Something so different just meant she needed to be aware of a new challenge that hadn’t yet been thrown her way. Shooting two more targets that she heard trying to whiz past her, Sui dashed around the corner, pointing her gun at whatever she was about to find.

Despite her preparation. She wasn’t ready. As soon as she rounded the corner, she saw a large enclosed area with a number of smaller obstructions and several walkways positioned higher up along the walls. The shocking part, was that it was all bright red, the same colour as the targets.

Oh, you have to be kidding- Sui’s thoughts were cut off by a target slamming directly into her face and stuck there, covering her entire field of vision. She was struck by just how little was changed, before raising her gun and shooting herself ‘in the face’.

The target vanished, but, vision restored, Sui dived out of the way. Shit! I was lucky I had no hesitation shooting myself. Flying into the space she was occupying was perhaps twenty red targets, all coming from either the front or the back, and would likely have trapped all her limbs in place, and or even knocked her out of the competition.

When they started to slam together, Sui held the trigger down, not sure it would continue to fire, but was pleased to see that it did. Accuracy was a secondary concern as she tried her best to grab as many points as she could while they were available to her.

Sui let out a breath she didn’t know she was holding and scrambled to her feet and then moved back behind the corner, making sure she couldn’t directly see the red dome. Looking up at the score, she found that she was now in the lead, and that Trina either hadn’t dealt with her swarm, or hadn’t encountered it.

Dammit. I didn’t actually want that many points. I’ll maybe go up to seventy-five maximum, and hopefully Aife and Trina will catch up to me. Sui took in a few more deep breaths to ensure her breathing was steady, but it wasn’t helping that much. She wasn’t sure how much time had passed at this point, and her limbs were shaking. She wasn’t unfit, mostly because of Aife, but she had been at full alertness for the whole time and it was taking its toll.

As the adrenaline started to leave her system, despite her attempts to the contrary, Sui felt her legs giving out on her and she carefully let herself drop to the floor in a heap. Dammit. I don’t know what to do now. I’m almost out of the contest if I can’t move. It might be worth crawling over to that red room. It seems to have a bunch more targets then normal… but I don’t know that I WANT more targets.

Shit. I wish I could see what the others were doing. I suspect that keeping our scores together is actually a good thing but we’re now further apart then ever. Dammit. Why didn’t I stop to consider that? I saw just how many targets were heading for me, and simply decided to get as many as I could. Seventy, four, points…

Sui let out a long breath again as she once more tried to figure out what she was going to do. With no prior experience, and only a basic plan in place with the others, it was rather hard to figure out what SHE wanted to do.

This is just so confusing. Too many levels of playing around to figure out. The people in charge, what they actually want from this little test. What they want from the whole thing, what Trina and Aife want me to do.

Sui glanced at the score. Aife had managed to get to seventy-five already. Sui thought probably wasn’t even hard for her. Trina had clawed up to sixty, which was actually quite a lot for the short amount of time since she’d looked, but it wasn’t enough to catch up.

Taking stock of her physical condition though, there was only one option really. It was to wait it out. Sui closed her eyes and let herself drift, careful not to fall asleep, but letting herself utterly relax. It was a slight risk, as she knew that the targets might start firing themselves at her while she did so, but it was one she was willing to take.

She felt, she really needed to rest. If not her body, then her mind at least, as it had been constantly working away in the background. As time passed, Trina’s score grew, at a decent pace. Sui wasn’t even looking at the scores, simply trusting her friends to keep them even.

After ten minutes of rest though, she felt something shifting, she managed to crack an eye open just in time to feel herself falling backwards… onto soft grass.