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Iris was frozen. She couldn’t move and her brain was finding it difficult to catch up all of a sudden.

The only thing she was subtly aware of was how loud the shot was. Her ears were ringing and her body flinched in reaction but it didn’t jerk in response to the shot.

It happened in a flash. One minute she was trying to comprehend what was happening and the next she felt her body shoved to the side mercilessly and her body was flying.

No, not flying. She was falling and she hit the floor with a painful huff as her skin scraped the floor.

Her side flared up in pain and she knew her ribs must have suffered some sort of damage with the impact of the hit she had taken.

Her thoughts were disoriented as she struggled to get a grasp of what happened. Her head was fuzzy and the ringing in her ears won’t go away.

As she struggled to get up into a sitting position, she noticed her hand was touching something warm… and wet.

Her eyes snapped down and she gasped in horror, scrambling back to se