When you woke up, you begrudgingly got out of bed and got ready for the day. You didn't wear anything special, though. Instead, you had a (color) t-shirt and blue jeans. After brushing your hair and brushing your teeth, you left your room and walked down your stairs into the kitchen.
"Hello honey, how did you sleep?" your mother asked you while she started to fix breakfast.
"Alright," you responded. She flashed you a concerned look, but you didn't blame her. You actually spent a while awake thinking about the five men at school, because you couldn't shake the feeling that they wanted something from you. "Honestly, I'm alright Mom. I guess I'm just nervous for today." She looked a bit more relieved.
"What do you have to be worried about? It's only a gun safety seminar." She gave you a smile while she popped bread into the toaster.
"I'm just afraid that they'll ask me to do something and I mess it up," you shrugged, looking at the ground.
"Honey, for one, I'll doubt they'll really ask you to do something, and two, even if they did I'd doubt they'll care if you did it right or not. How could they be mad when it's a seminar to learn from?" She put the toast on a plate and poured milk while talking and handed them to you. Hearing your mother's words raised your mood a bit.
"So," you started, taking your breakfast to the kitchen table. "Which Bass Pro Shops are we going to? Is it the one connected to the mall or the one that owns its own land?"
"The one connected to the mall, the other one doesn't hold this seminar this time, besides," she added, "I wanted to look at the candy shop for your father. Now finish up, we need to leave soon."
Nodding, you quickly finished eating, put your dishes into the sink, and followed your mom out of the door and into the car.
-+-{Time-skip to the mall parking lot}-+-
As your mom pulled into the parking space she checked the time.
"Ah, it looks like we've arrived thirty minutes early, it's only 8:30. I guess we have time to kill, so we should go find the sweets shop. Is that fine with you?" She unbuckled her seat-belt. I never thought to ask why they had this seminar so darn early.
"That's fine," you told her, smiling, unbuckling your seat-belt, and getting out of the car. Your mother got out with you and locked the car behind her. Together you walked into the mall and soon found the candy shop.
It was called Jessie's Sweets and it was set up in a fairly large mall shop. It had chewy and chocolate candies in cylinder dispensers running down the left wall, including some cotton candy. Taffy and fudge were at the back of the room. Also, baked goods, including cookies, were displayed on shelves running down the right wall. Finally, the check-out and sweets-weighing counter was in the middle of it all with a 360 degrees view of the entire shop.
The people in the shop were all happy you noticed while they shopped for candy, but one shopper in particular caught your eye. He, or she, had a gas mask covering their face and a slightly baggy, red flame-resistant suit. He/she also had a holder for what looks like an oxygen tank on their back. You almost wondered if they were a fire-fighter, but immediately dismissed the thought. There was nearly no way they could be.
Either way, they were standing still, seemingly staring at the fluffy pink cotton candy in front of them in awe. They looked as if in a trance when suddenly, they turned to look at you and tilted their head. If you could have seen yourself, you would have looked like a deer in the headlights at how stupidly surprised you were from being caught staring. After an eternity staring at this person and they staring right back at you, your mother bopped you in the arm with her Jessie's Sweets bag full of your dad's favorite candy. The person quickly looked back at the cotton candy as you faced your mom.
"Yoo-hoo, (Y/n), are you ready to go?" she asked you, chuckling and shaking her head slightly.
"Oh, yeah, I am. Is it time for the thing- I mean seminar?" You continued to watch the person in the flame-resistant suit. Suddenly, they shook their head and jumped in shock to once again look at you, as if recognizing you. They started to walk through the store to get to you, who was still near the entrance.
Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.
"Yes, it is, now come on." Your mother pulled you to her while you both walked out, you feeling as if you had dodged a bullet somehow. The person had to stop seeing your mother, somehow looking disappointed.
From there, thankfully leaving the person behind, you both headed to Bass Pro Shops. When you got there, you took a chance to look around. It was huge, not as big as the two-story one with its own property, but it could fit a large fishing section filled with boats, fishing poles, and many baits and tackles to the left of the store. It could fit a camping section filled with display tents, grills, and hiking and regular camping supplies in the middle-back of the store. It could fit a hunting section along with a gun shop, practice targets, knives, camouflage clothes, and nearly all the supplies you would need. Along with these three huge sections, in the front you had a kid drawing table, a mini target practice with BB guns range blow-up, and a duck hunting carnival-looking attraction to get you to shoot at the ducks with arrows to knock them over. All of this was complete with a check-out section and an out-doorsy design with hunted and stuffed display animals.
You walked with your mother into the hunting section and you slowly calmed down from the person in Jessie's Sweets as you felt more at home here, even when strangely surrounded by guns despite not really being an out-doorsy kid. Passing the gun store, you both sat down in a group of chairs in front of a table holding an arrangement of guns, holsters, and bullet-proof protectors.
After a bit of a wait, maybe three more people joined you in the chairs, but no one else came. Two men then walked to supposedly their places on either side of the table. You didn't risk letting yourself show your confusion as to not offend the two, but they looked out of place. The one standing on your right of the table was insanely tall and you had to keep yourself from backing your chair up to get a better look at him. He was a big man, too, but you didn't honestly care that much. He was bald with a strong jaw and a stern, unimpressed gaze. He wore what was like a bullet-proof vest with a collar covering the base of his neck over a red t-shirt. His hands looked like they could crush your head without even trying. In short you tried not to let how intimidated you were show on your face. The second one, the one standing on your left side of the table, was shorter that the first one, but still extremely tall. He wore a cowboy-looking hat with yellow/brown-tinted sunglasses. He had long side burns leveling with his nose on his elongated face. He had a leather-looking vest that had pockets looking like they could hold hunting knives. His pants covered the boots he seemed to have on and he wore a red shirt underneath the vest. Despite his shades, which you wondered why he was wearing them indoors anyways, you could see the outline of his sharp eyes. He seemed like he had incredible eye-sight and hearing. After their eyes scanned the small audience and the room, their eyes landed on you. You felt uncomfortable under their judging, trained gaze. Soon you were second-guessing sitting in the front row, feeling insignificant.
Suddenly, the one on your left started speaking. "'Ello mates," he started, you noticed that he had the strong Australian accent to match his style. "Oi'm Mundy. Today, as you all know, we will be going through gun safety. Today Oi am joined by my partner. Would you like to introduce yourself?" He motioned to the man on the right.
The man took in a deep breath and stared to speak, moving slowly as if he was tired: "I am Mikhail." Then he said nothing else in his thick, Russian accent, but continued to stare at you.
"Roight, well then, so who knows what a gun is? Raise your hand." All five people in the audience raised their hands. "Good, good." He somehow looked slightly satisfied from you raising your hand. "Who knows how to use a gun?" You, your mother, and one other person kept their hand raised. Mundy satisfied look got more... satisfied. "Now we know where to start, so..."
-+-{Time-skip}-+-
Mundy sat down the gun gently on the table, concluding the seminar.
"Thank you all for comin'! You are now free to leave," he turned to Misha, who didn't exactly talk much, and you turned to your mom.
"So," she started, turning to you. "Did you want to do the target practice? You always liked it." Mundy peered at you over his shoulder, as did Misha, and you felt heat slowly rise to your cheeks when you caught them doing so.
"Of course! I hope my aim didn't go downhill since the last time though," you told her and played off your shaken feelings with a smile and stood up. Your mother then followed you over the BB gun practice range. You ever noticed the two men following, observing from a distance.
Shaking your head, you put your safety goggles on and went into the range. Taking the BB gun from the instructor, you quickly loaded it and waited for the instructor to set the target in place. He rolled it back thirty feet. You put the gun into position on your left shoulder, being left-eye dominant, and let out a breath.
"Now hold still," you whispered for almost no reason to the target and pulled the trigger. It was as if the gunshot echoed through the entire store. Then, you took your four more allowed shots slowly after. The instructor took the BB gun and your glasses while handing you your paper target. You smiled and went to show it to your mother. Little did you know, Mundy and Misha were having some sort of conversation with her and turned to you as you approached. Your confidence wavered a bit.
"How did you do?" your mother asked you, and you handed it to her. She smiled as Mundy let out a low whistle of approval and Mikhail nodded, satisfied. You had three go right through the very middle and two slightly away from the other three.
"That's some good aim there, Sheila," Mundy complimented, looking happy.
"Yes, leetle girl has done well," Misha added. Your mother looked proud of you.
"Do you moind if Oi keep this?" Mundy pointed to the paper in your mother's hands.
"Um, sure, but I'd bet my mom would want to have a picture of it. It's one of the best I've done so far," you assured him.
"You bet I do!" your mom shouted, pulling out her phone and snapping a few photos of it before giving it to Mundy.
"Alroight then, thanks Sheila. We have to go now, but I'll hang on to this," Mundy smirked, turning around and waving as he walked to the exit. Misha stood there for a second before giving you a nice smile that made more heat rise to your cheeks before turning off and following Mundy.
Soon after, you and your mother walked back to your car. She unlocked it and you both got in, buckling in your seat-belts.
"Well, that was fun wasn't it?" she asked you, turning to look at you while starting the car up to go home.
"Yep," you responded. You smiled and looked at the land zoom past you out of the window. Why did he want to keep that and just who are the men in red?