"Two hands on the weapon," my vest said at me again.

Cursing internally, I brought my right hand back up to the forestock of my laser pistol. There was some big guy waiting around the next corner of the maze; I'd seen him zap in there before. He'd almost certainly heard my talkative vest.

The only option left to me was to shoot first. I got to my feet, squeezing the trigger of the laser pistol to check everything was working. Then I shot forward.

He'd evidently had the same idea. Something hit me hard in the face and I fell back, my lips aching from whatever had clocked me right in the mouth. As I saw the big guy lean over me, I realised his pistol barrel had cracked me in the teeth.

"Are you okay?" he said as I stooped over.

As I recovered from the shock, I realised nothing hurt much apart from the dull throb of my lips where they'd been crushed against my teeth. But I was angry. The loud noises and flashing lights of the arena had been upsetting me already and this was just the final straw as far as becoming tetchy went.

"Of course I'm fine," I spat. I gathered myself into some kind of stoop and shuffled away, cursing and blaspheming as I did. "Jesus Christ," I added for good measure.

"I'm sorry," he called sadly as I limped off.

Due to the lack of pain, I assumed then that I was pretty much fine, if a little upset. Sure, he was allowed to go around as many corners as he liked. But he wasn't supposed to do it into me.

I spotted something on my hand, and as I stopped to breath, I saw a few more somethings as well.

The neon lights made it hard to tell exactly what was going on, but I could easily guess what it was.

"F***, f***," I said, stumbling towards the exit. As I spoke, more drops of blood appeared on my hands, and I forced my mouth shut.

I tugged off my vest when I made it out of the arena.

"Hey, help," I said to the employees, who were staring at me in horror. Probably because enunciating my p's made me spit more blood.

"Go to the bathroom," one of them said, pointing towards a corner. I nodded and headed swiftly in that direction.

Once in there, I spat blood into the sink and searched out toilet paper to wipe my mouth clean.

It was funny, because I'd wanted to go this year without having to lose blood into random sinks. The previous year, I'd split my head open with an errant buckle and left a blood trail and sink puddle before I got to the hospital and been superglued up. The constant nosebleeds and lung problems of my earlier years had also resulted in a decent loss of blood into the sinks of the nation at one time or another.

And I should not forget the time I'd bled all over my bedroom floor.

And that other time at Britney's.

It occurred to me that I was either very stupid or very unlucky.

With strategic application of wet toilet paper, I'd tidied my face, and I had also washed the blood off my hands. I could see that I'd ripped a chunk of skin off my top lip, leaving a nice meaty wound. As I watched, it welled with blood and began running again.

The door opened behind me and my friend came in.

She clearly saw my face in the mirror and said "Woah, are you alright? What happened?"

I pressed more paper to my lip and said "Gun barrel to the mouth."

She winced in sympathy. "Anything I can do?"

I gestured at the paper towel dispenser and she handed me a few more.

Supplied, I left the bathroom, to find my brother wild-eyed. "There you are! I couldn't find you anywhere!"

"'M here," I said, pulling away the paper to show him.

He made a face. "We checked in the maze and the arcade, but we couldn't see you anywhere," he said anxiously.

I had a sudden vision of him finding me dead in one lonely corner of the maze. "'M fine, really. Just a bit of blood."

He turned away, still agitated. "Who did that to you? Was it that American bastard? He was being really rude before."

"That big dude," I said, gesturing towards the man in question.

"Oh." The man looked so gentle that my brother clearly understood it had been an accident.

"It's really fine," I said, and we got back to our evening.

It took quite a while for my lip to stop bleeding and congeal properly, and even then, when I smiled at something it split again and bled profusely.

The next game of laser tag I played, I was genuinely nervous, not running anywhere, afraid of another painful blow. The guns were padded with soft rubber, but it was clearly not enough. I nearly tripped over in my efforts to get away when a kid ran around the corner.

Stressed, I left laser tag for a while and went to play the arcade games.

The big guy was in one wing of the arcade, so I went to the other.

I knew he hadn't hurt me on purpose. More than anything, I just felt bad for not reassuring him after my injury. I knew I was the one injured. I knew that he'd hit me in the face. But it had barely hurt me at all and I'd thrown off his help rudely, practically scuttling away like an angry cat.

Appeasing myself, I reasoned that he'd probably forgotten about it already. It was a minor incident and he hadn't known I'd been injured anyway, not in the darkness of that maze.

I kept my eye on him for a while, but eventually I lost track of him.  I played more games, and even joined in a couple more rounds of laser tag before we finally left, my fear apparently gone.

My brother and my friend were laughing and joking about my frequent injury rate as we left the building, and I was relaxed and having fun too despite the throb of my face, at least until my brother said "Oh, and that dude who hit you? I never saw him go in again. He didn't play another round all night."