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Paint Ball

It has been ages since I touched my blog. I do not think I am a blog writer. However, I feel like notating down the fun and thrill, apart from the bruises I had today. 10 of us went for a paint ball full-day game today. It was my first paint ball experience, and it was far more fun than I expected, and also far scarier than I thought.

We arrived at Royston at 8 plus in the morning and headed to the paint ball site. Jit Ern missed the train by seconds. He caught up later. We were given briefings as to how to use the gun and also about the rules. The paint balls were far smaller than I expected and the gun was far more powerful than I expected. It REALLY hurts when the paint ball hits u. All 10 of us have bruises everywhere on our bodies.

We were kinda immuned to the pain at first, probably due to the adrenaline. But the pain later sinked in. And we were slightly more cautious so that we do not get hit that much. In the morning, the 10 of us were in the same team. There were about 20 odd ppl in each team. It was really like a battle with bullets flying pass left right and top out of no where. I could actually see and hear the bullets flying at great speed. When it hits u, u go 'ouch' silently. Anyone who gets hit will have to raise their hands and walk to the dead zone.

I have finally experienced crawling and courching among the bushes and the woods, like a real gun battle. There were trenches and articial barricades for hiding and sniping. I have to admit that I am rather timid and most of the time I am hiding somewhere and shooting randomly. Or I will try to cover someone. I do not think I am physically fit enough and mentally prepared enough to run around and risk suffering from painful shots. Due to my lack of fitness, I usually need to dive down behind a tree and pant, before continuing. The first few rounds were rather confusing as I was just seeing bullets flying past and hearing gun shots everywhere without knowing where the enemies were.

Towards the middle of the day people started spamming bullets and that was scary. The most horrifying battles were when I was trapped in two ocassions. The first one was to retrieve the bomb from the centre of the battlefield and plant it in the enemy's base. I crawled near to the bomb and when I was about to jump into the hole to get it, someone threw a smoke grenade and I thought it was an exploding grenade, so I jumped to a slanting wooden barricade on my left. The wind blew the smoke over to me and I was breathing in the awful sulfur smoke. At the same time, Daniel, the national rifleman was spaying bullets at me. My position didn't allow me to move at all and in the end I was shot. But I could not get up because if I do I would be sprayed by more bullets as I might not be seen as 'dead' due to the thick smoke. So, I was stuck there breathing the smoke. Hong Sheng was laughing at me.

The second occassion was when I was hiding in a small hut with a wooden wall in front of me. Daniel was opposite me and he sprayed bullets on the wall. I could feel the wall shaking thunderously and I could not get out from the exit on my right too because he was aiming at the exit as well. So, the whole game I was just shivering behind the wall. Yijin tried to come to the left and fortunately I turned around and stuck my gun out of the small slit and fired at close range on his thigh, which resulted in 3 bruises.

I was quite good at moving around the artificial village and was able to come to the back and killed some enemies. I felt sorry that I caused a big bruise on chien fen's hand due to that. Towards the end I was really tired and it stresses me up whenever a new game starts as I was starting to resent the stress to have to fight in a battle again. It was quite frustrating at times when you were pressured from multiple sides and was immobilised. Trying to survive was also a kind of stress. I guess real war is not all that fun although it is always a fantasy for guys to be able to shoot. There were times I felt like not playing as I was scared.

The last game was a free for all game. Nobody dies if you get hit, you only surrender if you cannot stand the pain or you run out of ammo. Only Siew Kit, Jin Yang, Hong Sheng, Jit Ern and I were playing. We were put at the same starting point and when the Marshall count down from 5, we were told to start firing and 1. But as he said, Marshall cant count, so it went from 5 to 1 straight. We ran towards all directions and smart Siew Kit stayed put and fired us. I saw Jin Yang on my right and he was busy shooting someone. So I sprayed bullets on his back. He turned to me and fired at me on my right while Siew Kit fired from the left from the fort. It was so painful that I literally just ran for my life. I came back and fired someone at the back before running out of ammo. At the end, Siew Kit still has some ammo left and the Marshall ordered him to fire at will although we though the game ended. I crawled up and ran together in zig zag with Jin Yang and charged towards the exit of the shooting site while Hong Sheng and Jit Ern were shot.

There were some kids who are very good at playing. They have their own gears and guns. Their guns could fire a lot quicker than ours. They were actually very agile and very familiar with the grounds. Besides, there were two guys who came to earn bruises for charity. They both have automatic machine guns which sounded scary and loud.

It was a great experience I guess. Thanks to Siew Kit who organised this outing. I have about 16-17 bruises on my body with one severe one on my right hand. Some others having it worse I guess. When I am typing this, my muscles are still tensed up due to the effects of the war and the trauma.

posted by Wei Shen @ 1:52 PM