[ WP ] Do n't blink , or you 'll miss it

We are the best. A streamlined and professional fighting force the likes of which the world had never seen, bred from the previous generation's best and trained from an early age in the art of war. 
 
 I remember my first mission clearly. Fresh out of graduation, we were sent to ambush a battalion-strength unit that was threatening the town of Radnevo. 900 of them, and only 150 of us, but what did we care? We are invincible. 
 
 We hit them hard, out of the darkness. Most of their artillery was wreckage before they even knew we were there. Their rearguard was neutralised in minutes: easy as a 300 on the simulations. Then we swept the village. That's when it happened. 
 
 She could n't have been older than 13. She was staring right at me, big eyes set in a pale face, with my crosshair in the centre. My finger tightened on the trigger. A heartbeat. A burst of fire. And pain. 
 
 It's funny, you know. We all studied the target zones, the effects of severing nerves. A lot of us must have tried to imagine it. But nothing I imagined came close to how that felt, lying paralyzed and useless on the ground. 
 
 I have a lot of time to think back to that moment now: The corps had no further use for a paralyzed and inexperienced infantryman. But I kept her little 9mm that they dug out of my spine. It reminds me that I was one of the best.
