"Shooters take you stance." The coach said and we all got into the prone position. "Shooters take your mark." He yelled again. We looked through our scopes in preperation to hit the target. I steadied my breathing and put my left eye to the scope. "Shooters make ready and begin to fire." I placed the magazine into my weapon and aimed. We are shooting from 1000 yards. It was part of our sniper training. I took a breath and shot my first round. "Hit, all black." My spotter said as he started scribbling in the book with the a black sharpie.

I prepared for my second shot. I cleared my thoughts and relaxed my body. When I felt the tightness in my body loosen up I began to reposition myself.  I waited until i was the end of my natural breath and shot. "Hit, all black." He repeated again. I shot the same for all 10 rounds. I got a perfect score. 

         "Jack, how do you manage to do that everytime?" My spotter asked. She was brought to camp before me. She was a good friend and my partner for training. Everyone had a partner.

        "I already told you stupid....wait till the end of your breath, when your body is relaxed." She contined to make funny faces and made fun of me. " Yah, Irish! Dont make fun of me!" She kept motioning her hands to say I was short. Irish was all Korean. She was about 57 inches. Irish has long blonde hair and dark brown eyes. Her real name is Jung Nana. She got the nickname Irish after she almost died. A recruit was practining archery and his arrow landed 2 cm away from Nana's heart. She was in the hospital and picked up the nickname from Dr. Lee. We all get codenames here to keep out identities safe when we are in the field.

        "Whatever. Lets go, training is over here." She said as we started to take apart the rifle. I placed all the parts in the case to turn into the armory. 

After we turned in our weapon we made our way to the chow hall. "IM SO HUNGRY!!!" Irish yelled as she ran into line. We grabbed our trays and silverware and waited our turn to get food. 

        "I'll have the steak and spaghetti please." I said as the lady put the food on a plate and handed it to me. She was a kind lady who always gave Irish and me a little extra food because we were her favorites. I grabbed a water bottle and made my way to our usual table. 

We had to go everywhere with our partners. We were together 24/7. We showered together, ate together, shared a room, trained together, and anything you could think of. There isnt a thing I didn't know about Irish. We hated each other at first. We got assigned together when we were 8 years old. Our teacher got mad at us and decided we should just fight it out. He took us to the Dojo and we fought for a good hour and till we had to stop because they thought we would kill each other. So after 4 days in the hospital recovering we just ended up sorting our differences and got along.

          "Jack, what are we going to do for the test?" She asked me. Every senior level student has to complete "the test" to graduate. No one knew what it was so everyone just drew conclusions on what we would be doing. 

           "I think we are going to do a overall test of skills. So we should just keep practicing." It was the only thing that would make sense to tell her. What else could they possible test on. 

          "Maybe your right. I heard rumors that they torture us and we have to escape." She said with a cringe. She was probably right.

I pondered on all the possibilites. What if they do torture us? Training for it was already difficult. They would do it to us to get us use to it. We all would be hospitalized for days after a torture training session. I hope I was right about the skills test. I'm just ready to graduate. When you graduate you and your partner get a house and they assign you a pet. The only time you have to come back is when you have to do your 6 month tests and routine check ups. I just want to feel normal. 

        "Yah, regardless you better graduate. I want that house and my future puppy." I told her with my most serious face.

        "I'll graduate, dont be so worried. On a serious note....Can I borrow you Ipod?" She asked putting her hands out and putting on her best puppy dog face. 

        "UNNI! What happened to yours?" I asked her with a stern face. She figgeted with her training jacket. 

       " Well you remember when you told me it wasn't a smart idea to bring it to cold weather training." She kept figgeting. "Well I broght it and it was in my pocket when they threw us in the ocean to find our way back..."

        "YAH YOU PABO! I WARNED YOU!" I said as I slapped her on the head and got up to walk back to our barracks room. 

       " Mian dongsaeng." She said with a pleading face for me not to be mad. I can't hold grudges long and she knew that.

When we got to the room I walked to my closed and got out my spare IPod and threw it on her bed. We loved music so I understand her wanting it to take it with her. I think she liked my music better anyway. We had to listen to music from all over the world. We had to be fluent in several languages and music helped adapt to the language. I personally loved to listen to Irish music, some american, and korean music the most. I had a lot of flogging molly, fleetwood mac, Tiger JK, and Mad Clown. I like it when music tells a story so I can try and relate to what normal people do. In this place we are almost completely cut off from the world and everything in it. We dont get to interact with anyone other than our teachers and partners. They make us live pretty isolated lives. It gets really lonely. 

         "Komawo." Irish said as she picked the Ipod up from her bed. I always keep everything I get instead of getting rid of it when they issues us new stuff. 

         " This is the last time Unni. I'm serious. This is the 5th one I have given you." I scolded her. Sometimes I feel like Im the older one and shes the dongsaeng.