Despite her careful aim the shot failed to register. She ran through the steps, she’d presented her weapon to the target, finding a comfortable and relaxed position from which to shoot. She’d closed her eyes and breathed steadily, loosening her grip and waiting for her body to relax into the position. When she opened her eyes the centre of the target had been swimming gently around the centre of her cross hair.
Almost without thinking she had tightened her index finger, squeezing smoothly and gradually until the rifle fired bucking back into her shoulder. The target hadn’t chimed and her overlay offered no zoomed in analysis. The rough texture of the paper target suddenly clear and crisp in her vision, the neat little hole left in the surface where the round had rushed through.
Coming back to herself she saw the centre of the target was no longer looping slowly around the cross hair. Instead, she was low and left, her reticule circling lazily around the corner of the paper target. Relaxed. She had been too relaxed, aligned naturally with the target but insufficiently braced to manage the rifle as it fired, her grip and support had pulled away from the centre of the target as the weapon fired and she had missed.
Missing at this range wasn’t unusual. The paper target was 30mm across, designed to maximise the opportunities for complete misses. Gently she shifted her body around the rifle, cycling through a series of gentle movements, tightening her body, adjusting her pose and then relaxing, pausing with her eyes closed to check the alignment and then adjusting again as she brought her natural aim back to the centre of the target.
She hadn’t missed at all
Opening her eyes she saw the cross hair gently orbiting the centre dot. This time she very gently tightened her muscles, bracing into the recoil, pulling the rifle more firmly into her shoulder. Then she began to match her steady heartbeat to the oscillations of the cross hair. She was pulling up and to the right as her heart pulsed to pump blood around her body with the reticule swinging back left and down each after each beat.
She watched the loop and determined to fire just after the beat, as the cross hair wandered gently down and across the dot. Holding her breath she watched the tiny orbits contract slightly as the movement became smaller and then on the first beat she began squeezing her finger, drawing away all of the tension until the trigger sat on the edge of activation.
On the third beat she nudged dial on her finger and the shot went off. Instantly the chime sounded in her ear and over her vision the small box appeared, close in view of the target showing the small hole which had neatly replaced the centre dot of the target. She would aim for that next time.
Why had she missed? Why leave out such an important step, what had she seen which had led her to fire prematurely, it wasn’t like her at all, nor should her aim have changed so much. Sure, the rifle could pull her about a little, but to find herself aligned off target rather than slightly off. Just odd.
She pulled her aim down and left, opening her sight to the view around her target, details which had been left hazy and unclear suddenly pulling into focus. Her lip curled, interesting. She hadn’t missed at all.