Getting shot in the leg or arm is painful. Getting shot in the head is so much worse, though most people never feel the pain.
Gavin Mercer wasn’t so lucky. Someone shattered the left side of his skull without giving him any warning—and he survived long enough to feel the pain.
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Gavin was a second year mechanical engineering student who enjoyed pickup basketball, playing the cello, and dropping 50s on his exams (he was still top 15% of his class). He was eager to graduate, find a stable 9 to 5 job, start a family, and grow a beer belly on some fishing trips when he was older. That was his plan after his 2 remaining years of state-school sponsored alcoholism.
However, his home nation decided things were too peaceful and started a conflict with a neighboring country for money and territory. And so, they sent out a piece of paper to every young, of-age citizen, telling them to get out of the house and put their boots on the ground. Foreign ground.
Wait, you're telling me you're a healthy, physically fit young adult over the age of 18? And you're not flatfooted, visually impaired, or disabled in any other way? Welcome to the fucking army, baby!
Gavin had to put his education and related career plans on hold for a few years. Instead of listening to his professors, he had to listen to old men with stripes on their shoulders while they screeched at his entire platoon. The only thing scarier was an older man with more stripes.
He was fit, had strong mental fortitude, and followed orders properly, so he did just fine. He also had good eyesight and steady aim, so he caught the eye of some of his superiors. Thus, after finishing the training to become a standard infantryman, he eventually found himself enrolled in sniper school. He graduated and became a rookie sniper assigned to a small squad.
To normal people, he was insane. The graduates of sniper school are the cream of the crop, after going through months of brutal training in many fields - physical fitness, observation skills, calculation, and concentration. Maybe above all else, snipers are patient. They spend most of their time carefully watching and waiting. The entire time, they keep their eyes peeled for any useful information and relay it to their commander.
They don’t pull the trigger often, but to hit a shot, they need to account for bullet speed, distance to target, wind, air resistance, and more. They must make sure that they're not being tracked, otherwise they’ll be greeted by an aircraft and several gravity bombs. To aid with this, they wear ghillie suits - camouflage clothing designed to make you look like a bush. Or a patch of dirt. Or sand. After smearing mud and local plants on, they look even more like vegetation and even less like people about to put 6mm rounds into your chest.
Gavin told his peers he'd pay top dollar to see someone walk the carpet for the next Met Gala in one of these things.
At age 23, Gavin had already successfully completed several missions and was recognized as a promising operative in his unit. He'd been through his share of firefights and was ice cold under severe pressure. Despite being a sniper that excelled at picking off targets from hundreds of yards away, he'd also killed several enemies in closer range with a submachine gun. After all, he'd done the same training all infantrymen had done, and more.
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Gavin sat in the back of the armored vehicle, eyes closed for some much needed rest right before he jumped into the thick of things again. But some of his squad mates were cracking jokes. Despite trying to catch some shuteye, he couldn't help but grin at some ridiculous things they said.
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The vehicle came to a relatively sudden stop, and everyone stopped chatting immediately. As the soldiers climbed out of the vehicle systematically, they all had the same neutral but slightly tense expression. The only things said were the calm, orderly communications that had been drilled into them repeatedly.
Gavin told himself he'd beat Francis in foosball when he got back. Then, he shouldered his equipment and began the stealthy trek to the engagement location. It was do or die.
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“There's a depression about 20 feet to the right of that. Nothing there, though.”
Gavin and his spotter were in the back of a sniper nest, camouflaged to blend in with the small hole they were hiding in. Eastward, they could hear shouting and the sounds of gunfire and explosives. The faint smell of smoke was in the air. However, they paid the commotion no attention; they had a job to get done and were dead focused on it. At the entrance of the nest, they'd primed claymores to ensure that nobody could sneak up on them. The afternoon sun beat down on the humid mountain range, making clothes stick to skin and bugs dance around in a frenzy.
There was an enemy sniper somewhere on the wooded mountain in front of them, firing at their allies. They needed to find their position, and if they found an opportunity to take a shot, kill them. If they couldn't locate the enemy quickly, they'd likely escape to a new position. After all, they'd already fired a few shots from the same position, so they were at risk of being discovered. Any trained sniper knew the risks of this.
Crack.
A relatively powerful rifle shot overpowered the other sounds of warfare for a moment. Maybe someone just died, or maybe the enemy sniper missed. It didn't matter. With this new information, Gavin's spotter slightly adjusted the area he was searching with his scope. He'd been looking a little too far to the left. He combed over the terrain carefully until he spotted a sharp right angle. That didn't belong in a mountainside forest.
Upon closer inspection, the right angle was the base of the left leg of the bipod of the enemy's rifle. The hostile was tucked away in a nest of his own, having taken the standard precautions to avoid being discovered. To anyone but elite reconnaissance, he was practically invisible.
“Found him. Target is next to the tree with the big burled roots. About 3 feet to the left.”
“I see him,” said Gavin. In his crosshair, he could just barely see his target across the massive distance. Even through the magnifying scope, the tree in question looked a little bigger than a toothpick.
“About...675 yards out. Wind... slight right to left.” His spotter continued to direct him.
“Roger that.”
“Lets aim for...6 mils above target.” A bead of sweat dripped down the spotter's brow.
Gavin took a deep breath and exhaled slowly, doing the required calculations in his head. He'd also arrived at roughly the same results as his spotter. He stared down the scope of his rifle with both eyes open - not blinking, not breathing, not moving. The bug that just landed on his nose didn't even faze him.
“Send it.”
Gavin's trigger finger moved back in a deliberate, smooth motion. A deep, incredibly loud sound, more similar to the boom of artillery than the popping of a pistol, discharged from the rifle. Despite that, the gun barely moved, held firmly in place by Gavin's shoulder and the burlap sack he was resting the rifle on.
The bullet traced a deadly yet graceful arc through the air and hit the ground just in front of the enemy's nest, spreading shrapnel and dust at its landing point.
The enemy sniper, who had just heard a bullet hit the ground right in front of him, was confused for a second before he realized that someone had discovered his position. He then tried to move away. But that moment's hesitation had already doomed him.
“11 o'clock, 3 inches. Send it.” Gavin's spotter observed the bullet's landing and told him the adjustment he needed to make.
Gavin calmly readjusted his aim and fired a second bullet from his semi-automatic rifle.
“Center mass. Good shot.”
That meant the bullet had landed in the center of the torso. The enemy was dead. Even if he survived the shot, he’d bleed out.
“Good. We should report and move back to the second hideout.”
Gavin had just begun moving from his shooting position when suddenly, his head snapped backwards unnaturally. For a split second, he felt the worst pain he had ever experienced on the left side of his face, then lost consciousness almost immediately after.