"Come on, you've made that shot every try yesterday", said my training instructor. We were practicing reflex training, blindfolded. He throws the target up, I have to hit it.
"You forget I'm better with a bow!" I replied, throwing another knife as I heard the next target go up. "You have to predict how far it has to travel to know if it ends in a half spin or a full spin!" Miraculously, I heard that one stick. He's trying to get me better at predicting distance purely by hearing a sound. And I'm getting better.
"Amazing." He throws another, and i at least hit this one but it was off.
"see?" With knife throwing, the blade spins as it travels, a full spin is around two meters, in order to make it stick you'd throw by the handle, if you're at a meter its a half spin. meaning you'd hold it by the blade to stick it in. The same pattern continues as you get further away and it depends on the amount of pressure you use in every little movement you make while you throw. Trust me, it does, even your foot being 6inches out of place could mess it up, so you gotta know exactly what you're doing each time you throw.
He threw the next target, and I made it. "Alright, that was my last knife," I take off my blindfold to start cleaning up for the next round. The compound is a modified barn that we've used as a base where we store our equipment, vehicles, etc. It's also where we live, train, and prepare for missions. The barn is literally armored, but we hid it with cheap sheet metal, the exact same metal that was on it before, we just took it off the wood, put the armor plating on and put the metal back. We had a beautiful lake, and a forest surrounding the yard. right now we're in the range area of the training yard. On the backside of the barn we have a huge garden with plenty of food for us, and we go hunting for our own meat right here, or we sell it to go buy gorceries whenever we want. we collect enough fresh rainwater, have a clean dam and solar panels for power. Literally off the grid, and just over one of our treelines is the coast with our dock and boat.
"Andrew, are you ok?" Asked Trevor. He was about a half foot shorter than me, wore casual clothing with boots, had a few knives on his belt, pretty long hair that almost touches his shoulders and kinda always needed a touch on his beard. I wore cargo shorts and a T-shirt with steel toe hiking shoes, and my knife belt clipped over my waist for training. "We don't have all day to dream, we have to keep moving if you don't want another 7 years". He knew what I was thinking about, and it sent a chill down my spine as I felt a tear. It was harsh to remind me but he's right. It's been 7 years since my parents have been gone, and whoever took them leaves a message on the day every year. this year we're ready to catch the signal. This year I'll find them. But he's right, all I can do is train until we get it, the more we train, the better we'll be in getting them back. I'm 15, and my buddy is about 25 or 26, but we don't see each other at different ages anymore, only as equals. He was a family friend, my dad's best friend, and the cops never figured anything out, but the kidnapper kept reaching out.
We have 4 more hours of this then lunch, then a good nature-inspired, extremely difficult parkour course, which I run in my free time. Then we got hand to hand combat training, wrestling, then meditation. Meditation to calm the spirit and body, to prepare for my favorite event of the night. Sword training. I've been in love with swords since I can remember, it's my favorite weapon to use and what I'm best with. Besides Trevor, I haven't met anyone who can give me a hard time with a sword.
As the day went by, my fear and doubts rose as my excitement was teased at, awaiting a signal. The moment we get a location I was ready to walk if I had to. I had my bags packed, blades sharpened and ready. I'd even gotten my special arrowheads, and my latest special arrows ready to be used. We ate dinner and smoked a joint like usual. He regularly smokes with me, says in his experience in the military and around the world, even his medical experience, he's never truly seen anything wrong with just marijuana. I was about to go to the meditation room when he pulled out the bong. I was afraid he'd know how anxious I am. Confrontation always made me nervous.
"You need to relax, we always get it late at night. i need your mind to chill if we're going to meditate, so come take a hit man," he packs and passes it.
Tonight i let my energy out with sword training. We'd replaced the training swords yesterday but I could see sawdust almost coming off of them. I felt heavy. My sword felt heavy. It always worries me when I feel slower or weaker than usual, makes me think I'm slowing down. Makes me think I'll fail again, until finally I realized he managed a hit. It's rare when I manage a strike on him but he hadn't managed to find an opening on me like that in weeks.
"Breathe. If your energy is draining, gather it from the sources around you," he reminded me.
I stood with my bamboo in front of me, and closed my eyes for a second.