so-called life [orville vs frilled spiny lions] day 2

At dusk, long after Rafael Salazar had taken his leave, Orville Reed King had surveyed his kingdom. With the help of the manual and toolbox he'd pieced together the Mantis Mech Suit. It was not comfortable or easy to manuever but it seemed to accept him. He spent the last bit of daylight awkwardly chasing down parachutes of gifts.

There are sounds. Terrible ones. The metal suit is cold and the chill seeps into his bones.

The boom, boom, boom wakes him from a nap. He couldn't remember fall asleep but somehow he'd slumped over in the suit and dozed off.

In the dark Orville attempts to steer himself - his body and the body he's wearing - but finds that the going is slow and noisy. There are still inhuman cries lifting up the moon and he does not want to be the focus of their attention. So he fiddles. First with the cannon rounds and then with the rocket booster.

It is pure luck that he is not beneath a junk pile when the booster engages and propels him skyward. Orville King, comet, astronaut, reaches for the stars. He fills his lungs with the moonlit air and releases a joyous cry at the zenith. And then he falls, as he always knew he would, and comes crashing down in an alley.

Even in the dark he knows that which marks the walls is blood. The Sheriff sign creaks back and forth above him as he discards the emptied booster. "That was fun," he chuckles and then slips the gas mask over top of the mech suit as a reminder that he really ought to keep his damn mouth shut.

He doesn't sleep again, even though he tries in a suitably small, cold prison cell. He imagines himself a prisoner, someone condemned for theft. But then he realizes he is already a prisoner, though he has not yet committed the crime of murder.

He will soon. He's never been in denial about that.

The morning dawns. It is hot and sticky. The prison cell feels like an oven. Too soon he's chased out by the heat, compelled into the dreary, grey glow that blankets the cells. He flicks his pocketknife out, flicks it back in. The rancid smell coats the inside of the mech suit turning his stomach over.

Orville lifts his double mask to vomit when he sees the glow of eyes sizing him up.

When the lion strikes, it of course draws first blood from his neck. He slashes back with his knife. "There are other tributes!" He yells, voice reedy with panic. "Bigger ones than me! Bet they taste better too, like uh... chocolate!"

The words tumble out of his mouth and into the rancid air. He can see immediately they haven't had the desired effect on the lion. Well, lions, as it turns out. Orville's exposed adam's apple bobbles as he tries to think of something else that might entice the muttation. If only he'd ever met a lion before.

As the beast's hiss fades Orville hears something else. A scuffle, and not just the inhuman mewling of the mutts. He's not alone. He isn't the only tribute imprisoned and somehow that gives him a little bit of energy.

Just in time to be walloped by spines.

He spins away, the quills burrowing deep in his back. "Ow, ow, ow," he says, mouth working and brain zeroing out. He keeps twist, coming around full circle, pocketknife arching broadly. "Down, kitty!"

The lions almost looked like they were dancing. They moved as one, entangled and intertwined. It would have been beautiful, had they not been trying to kill him. The mech suit felt heavier, stiffer. His right arm dragged under the weight of the rounds he'd loaded. But he didn't know if he could trust those. It was too strange, too different. He'd held a knife or an axe most of his life and felt he knew the weapon.

But still, it was a little tiny knife against a pack of mutts.

"I could use a little help!" He hollered. It was satisfying to hear his voice echo through the dilapidated prison.

Orville lunged forward, not willing to be put down quite so easily.

He saw it.

The way the lion hunched up.

The way it put its entire body into the launch.

The way the quill sailed through the bleak, foggy mist. How it yellowed as it sped towards him.

Orville did not flinch. He did not try to dodge it. He knew the quill would find his heart either way. And when it did - when it sunk through the suit, between his ribs, through his lung and into the meat of himself - he held perfectly still.

A little hiccup.

A bubble in his breath.

The knife started to slip from his grip.

Orville held fast to the quill sticking directly out of his chest. Leveraging it, he slashed forward with his knife...

... into empty, smoggy air.

A sob escaped him. "Help! Help!" He cried into the void. All he could hear now was the blood rushing between his ears, his body trying desperately to stem the bleeding. He stumbled forward, towards the enemy.

Desperation.

That's all it was.

Not skill or luck or divine intervention. Just a lot of sweat and blood and hormones. The pocketknife clattered to the floor, too bloody soaked to be held. He grasped the quill stuck through his heart with one hand and flailed with the other.

The motion must have triggered the cannon rounds because very suddenly they went

BOOM!