"Damn it!" Sam felt like he could barely stand.
Aaron approached him, took the gun, and saw his pale face.
"Son... are you okay? You weren't this pale even when you were lifting weights." Aaron asked with concern in his tone.
"It's okay. I'm just a bit tired."
Aaron took his arm, made him sit, and gave him some water, saying, "This isn't your first time carrying a weapon, is it?"
Sam looked at him and nodded.
Aaron thought for a moment, stroking his beard slightly, and said, "Is this related to robbing that store?"
Sam's eyes narrowed slightly.
"Logical! The look on your face reminds me of some faces in the army. Soldiers are enthusiastic in the beginning about killing enemies and defending their homeland until they actually kill someone." Aaron paused for a moment and continued, "You killed someone for the first time, didn't you?"
Sam shuddered for a moment and remained silent, his eyes fixed on the floor.
Aaron looked at him with sympathy, then suddenly produced a bottle of whiskey in his hand.
He handed it to Sam and said, "The sergeant who was overseeing me gave me this after our first battle. Back then, I killed three Mexicans. I saw several of my comrades die there. But I didn't care at the time because of the heat of battle then. Only when I returned to my unit's location and found that more than half of them were missing, and most of the remaining were wounded, some even paralyzed, did I realize to what extent everything had happened, everything I had done was horrifying."
Sam didn't take the bottle but instead stared at Aaron.
Aaron smiled and said, "And do you know what I did? I vomited in the middle of the camp. I was shaking and in a terrible panic attack. That's when the sergeant came to me, slapped me, and then pulled out this bottle and shoved it in my mouth until I drank it all."
"He told me something I didn't fully understand until later. He said to me: 'To achieve your dream and your goal, you must either step on the dreams of others or step on their corpses. There's no middle ground, ever.'"
Aaron pushed the bottle towards Sam again and said, "Drink it and continue your journey, Sam, whatever it may be. Don't let emotion get the better of you and make you stray from your path. Keep going until the end, and trample on anything standing between you and your destination."
Sam hesitated but eventually took the bottle and downed it all in one go.
"Do you have more?" Sam asked, looking expectantly at Aaron.
"Of course! Drink as much as you like!" Beer formed in Aaron's hand, and Sam noticed that it took almost a second for it to appear. A ridiculous ability in every sense of the word.
Aaron handed him the beer, and Sam continued to drink it without hesitation.
"Alright, we're done for today. We have dinner on order. Finish it and get a good night's sleep. We'll continue what we did today tomorrow." Aaron said.
Sam kept drinking the beer, then said, "Yes, yes, whatever."
Aaron sighed and left the shooting range.
Sam drank the beer eagerly until he finished it, then gathered himself to leave and head to what seemed to be his room.
When he stepped out, he encountered Kayla.
Kayla was wearing a cute hat, dressed in the same attire as before.
"That was a nice session, huh?" Kayla smiled at Sam as she approached him.
"Very nice." Sam replied, leaning against the corridor wall.
"Finally, someone who appreciates my sarcasm!" Kayla beamed as she clasped her hands together, appearing almost as if she were praying.
"About Angela..." Sam said in a hushed tone.
"The walls have ears, Sam." Kayla's expression quickly changed, then she continued, "We'll talk about that later."
"I want to ask you, are you available tonight to work with me at the nightclub?" Kayla asked, looking casually around.
"Huh? Why should I work there? No, I won't come." Sam said grumpily, a clear disinterest on his face as he swayed slightly.
Kayla raised an eyebrow and said, "Why not? It's fun! Plus, it's a show to mock the drunken fools."
"Because of those drunken fools, I don't want to go anywhere near the place. I can barely stand the presence of you all; I certainly won't tolerate more than I already have. The dumbest jobs are the ones that make you deal with people directly! People are insects. You must step on them. Once you start talking to them, they'll seem like they're praising you but they will drag you into the shitty hole of their dreams and aspirations, putting you in a social prison full of pressure and expectations. And when you succeed, they'll kiss your ass and call you a ungrateful bastard when you don't serve them. And when you do serve them, they'll exploit you and make you as miserable as they are, and they'll curse you behind your back as an idiot who fall for their schemes. Oh, and if you fail? They'll trample on you, literally! They won't spare you, and they won't care about your existence. All this world cares about is how to benefit from each other! And you want me to get involved in all this nonsense?!" Sam ranted furiously as he barely hold his breath.
Kayla looked at him in shock.
"Oh, umm, okay, that's fine. I'll see you... I'll see you later." Kayla bid farewell to him as she hurriedly left the lobby and headed upstairs.
"Damn it..." Sam felt a headache pounding in his head as if a carpenter were hammering a nail there.
Sam collected himself and went to what he assumed was his room.
He lay down on his bed, and the headache gradually eased.
Sam simply stared at the ceiling, and that's when he heard his phone ringing.
It seems Sam remembered that he had a phone. Well, it wasn't that important in reality. There was no one there to contact him except Angela and Christina... Oh, Christina!
Sam suddenly realized that three whole days had passed while he was bedridden. He rushed to pick up his phone and found an overwhelming number of missed messages and calls.
"Kill me already," Sam held his forehead, looking at his phone.
The latest message read, "Where are you?! Are you receiving my messages now?? I've been so worried! Are you angry with me?"
"I'm alive, just few things made me not responding to anything." Sam replied and then threw his phone away and started to feel dizzy and everything around him seemed like dancing.
"It's just two .. why I'm sooooo diizzy? I feel realllly stupid."