Strike - A short story

‘Get up, it’s already late’, screamed Saravana. 

‘What time is it?’ ,murmured Vijay. 

‘It’s 8.. Get up Vijay we have to start now’, said Saravana

‘But we slept only at 4 yesterday..’, Vijay murmured to himself and wearily got up from his bed. He peeped outside his room to notice that most of the students in the hostel had already left for the college. He quickly brushed his teeth and switched on his PC. Nearby, in his bed, Saravana sat with his laptop and egged on Vijay to join in quickly. As Vijay’s computer booted, he clicked on an icon in his desktop, Counter Strike.

For those who don’t know about Counter Strike. It’s a multiplayer game where you can team up as either counter-terrorists or terrorists. You will be given a set of goals to complete in each mission and you get a new mission with higher difficulty after you complete one. You also have buying, upgradation of weapons and things like that you normally find in a shooting game.  Counter Strike is a rage among students in wifi enabled hostels.

‘I joined’, exclaimed Vijay.

‘Good, Now upgrade your weapons. It would be difficult otherwise. This is one of the toughest levels, you know. I bet no one from our college has crossed this level’

‘Will you two ever stop?’, said Manoj entering the room fully dressed and ready to leave for college.

‘Did you know that we have Microprocessor Lab today? It’s one of the important sessions in the Semester. Surely you wouldn’t want to miss it’ Manoj claimed.

‘Who cares? I’m already placed in an IT company. I don’t need to attend such boring labs anymore. Just a pass in the final exams would suffice’, beamed Vijay smiling sarcastically at Manoj.

‘What about you Saravana, you are not yet placed, right?’

‘Ahh Who cares? As though attending this lab would fetch me a placement’ remarked Saravana with contempt.

Manoj shook his head and started walking towards college while the counter strike duo started their mission. 

‘I will go and find the bomb while you kill the terrorists’, Saravana commanded Vijay

‘Roger that’, said Vijay

Vijay reloaded his gun and slowly moved towards the enemy’s lair. On seeing a terrorist from a long distance he fired a shot without aiming properly. Suddenly there was gun firing all over the place. Bullets came in from all directions. Vijay frantically shot in all directions, clicking his mouse like a maniac. But the mission ended for Vijay.

‘Are you dead?’, Saravana shouted still looking at his laptop and moving his mouse like an expert.

‘yeaah , let me know when you die. We can start the mission again’, Vijay said awrily and picked up the newspaper nearby to find the headlines as ‘Two Army jawans dead and several injured in a shootout with the Pakistani Army…’

‘How can you die so soon? Do you have any sense of responsibility??’, Saravana barked at Vijay.