Pain Balls

My day began with this quote. Here's how it went.

"Life on earth is expensive, but it does include a free trip around the sun. :) Appreciate the beauty of every breath breathed."

Interesting? I found it to be.

Anyways, I had another good day today. A day where I got to play soldier and came back with quite a bit of bruises.... I mean, battle scars.

After getting off from work today, I headed straight to TT Sports Park. Its located at the Lake View recreational area and if my memory serves me well enough, this sports park was set up by Ye Vonn's dad. But anyways, our supposed meeting time was at 1.30 and we were all scheduled to begin shooting the crap out of each other at 2.00 p.m. But however, the pest which is the Malaysian timing syndrome set into almost everybody else's bloodstreams and left me finding myself being greeted by an empty sports park. And by the time everybody had arrived, it was already 2.30. So much for punctuality.

But as soon as everybody had arrived, we picked up our gear and proceeded to be briefed on the rules regulations by one of their staff, Khairul. And throughout the briefing, Khairul kept emphasizing on the importance of keeping the mask on because being hit by a 200mile an hour paintball isn't exactly pretty. But the odd part was, in a usual paintball match, participants would be given a full body armor which protected every inch of the body. But at TT, we were only given a mask and a thinly padded vest which offered hardly any protection against the speeding bullet, as I was to find out a little later on. The worst part was, "IT" wasn't protected and having a speeding paintball hit "IT" would have left you walking funny for at least a week.

After the briefing, we were divided into teams, odd and even, the number was based on the numbers written on our guns. And as usual, I picked the gun with the number 1 mark. "Kiasu." My team had 8 people. They were Chris Ee, Justin Soh, Hui Yee, Jack, Aaron, Meng, myself and someone else whom I really can't remember at this moment. The other team had 7. Maryanne, Yi Man, Kee Shen, Yu Jun, Timothy, Richard and Cheng Kang. So it was 8 against 7. Advantage to us.

The first game was a huge bummer for team. We were all over the place and nobody knew what to do. We got a good beating and I managed to get painfully shot in the back while trying to hide. After the game, we regrouped and talked strategy. 3 of us would take the left flank, 3 would take the right and 2 would provide covering fire from positions in the middle. With that settled, we confidently walked into the arena. But like the last time around we lost. As I was covering the left flank, my teammates around me started getting shot at and eliminated one by one. Leaving just a couple of us to fend for ourselves. And with no choice but to seek and destroy the enemy, I tried to look for a better spot. Fortunately, I managed to find one. But as soon as I had taken cover behind the tire, I felt an excruciating sting coming from my right wrist. I looked at it, only to find a red paint all over it. And my wrist hurt like hell. With that I raised my arm and signalled that I was out. I walked out, took a bunch of tissues and started to wipe the red paint off and underneath the red paint, there was a nasty looking bruise. But then, as I was looking at it, a thought hit me. The paint on my wrist was red and my team were shooting red pellets. This only meant one thing. I was eliminated due to friendly fire and I didn't even fire single shot. We were down 2-0.

The next game was pretty much the same. Only this time, I chose to become rear gunner. The game started and I hurtled towards a tyre barrier and at exactly the same time, my other rear gunner, Hui Yee came to the same spot as I did and we found ourselves huddled behind the barrier with no one to shoot at because every time we tied to aim our guns, rounds would just explode beside us and I for one was not too keen to get shot for a third time. And before I knew it, I saw Kee coming from my right flank. I tried to shoot at him, but I kept missing. The guns were rather erratic. It wasn't easy to shoot with them and they didn't fire straight and neither did they fire in a predictable trajectory. Aiming down the sights didn't help either. But I kept shooting with the hope that at least he would get hit by a stray bullet. But instead, we ended up in a fierce fire fight and he got me real good in the lower part of my right wrist. And the moment the bullet hit me, I just fell to the the ground, screaming. The pain was intense. It was as if someone stabbed you in the wrist. I screamed "out" numerous times with my hands raised up but I was too afraid to get out of the battlefield. I didn't fancy getting hit again. But unfortunately, in the fog of battle, I got hit again. And this time, I got hit near the throat. But fortunately it didn't do me any harm. I quickly got up and ran out of the field and to be honest with you, I felt like giving up. And like the last time, we lost. 3-0.

I now had two very nasty bruises on my right wrist and I wasn't very keen on getting another one. We had to turn our fortunes around. The fourth game, was a different sort of game. The objective was to capture he flag and bring it back to the base. The team which did it first, wins the game. And like the last time around, we came up with a strategy. 2 would run for the flag while 6 of us covered their backs. Justin and Jack were the runners. But once again, we lost. This time, I didn't get shot at but we lost because we lost focus of our strategies and we were too damn scared to get out there and start shooting. And before we knew it Kee had already brought the flag back home.

Then the next game. This time, we were very determined to win. We had to. We restrategized and made sure that everybody followed it. And the moment the order was given, I dashed to a barrier by the right and started putting the rounds into the enemy positions. My teammates were doing just as well. This time I got a good line of sight to two opponents and I played my best into tricking them. I tired to get them to shoot at me instead of the runners. And it was pretty scary. Rounds were flying all around me and one came very close to smacking me in the face. But thankfully it worked because not long after, while I was still shooting at the enemy, the marshall called time and I was extremely glad to see Jack victoriously raising the flag at our base. Finally we had won and I didn't get shot. 4-1.

That boosted our morale. The next game was a zombie style game. In this game, we are to fight to the last bullet and there would be no eliminations. This was getting fun. When the order was given, we rushed to our positions and I managed to find a nice, clean spot on the right hand side. I camped there and started putting rounds into the enemy. And while doing that, I did something rather silly. I saw a shadow running towards me. Immediately, I thought t was the enemy. I took out my gun and started firing about four or five pellets. And then while firing, my opponent fell to the ground and upon closer inspection, I realized that I had just shot my retreating teammate five times at close range. Something we were told not to do for fear of serious injury. I could see that he was in a whole lot of pain but with bullets flying everywhere, there really wasn't anything that I could do. But thankfully, he got up and started firing again. And during the game, I managed to shoot Kee in the back. Revenge for shooting me in the wrist. I kept firing random shots and I must have taken out out at least one or two more people. Then, bit by bit, the enemy started leaving the field. They had run out of ammo. We capitalized on this, charged up in front and started laying more rounds. I managed to shoot Kee in the face during a head on fire fight. I kept on advancing. Aiming at Richard. But unfortunately, after some time, my bullets ran out and out and I had to leave. But when it was all over, our team survived and we won. 4-2. Hail the comeback kids!
But unfortunately, that was our last game and we had no more pellets left.

And of course, after the game I was approached by Justin. He showed me the result of our friendly fire. Two very nasty bruises. But thankfully, he was cool with it and we didn't end up in a fistfight. And at the end of the day, all of us had loads of fun and a couple of us had some good bruises to show off. Mine are pretty bad. There are two bulges on my wrist right now and in a perverse way, I'm actually relishing the pain. My mother, needless to say, was speechless.

So off we go for our next round. Justin's birthday party is tomorrow and we hope to have more fun there. I can only wonder what 80 guests "tempeking" the bruised birthday boy would feel like. But either ways, I hope to find out.

And now, off I go to make my bruises look more impressive. =)