green hell | prj v. sunscorched snakeroot ; day two

Another cannon rips me from a broken sleep. My heart pounds, legs kicking at the dirt and hands scrambling for my knife. A wash of panic turns to dread, and then sudden anger as I remember that Bowie took it.

I stare out into the darkness, vision adjusting, I try to identify landmarks to ground myself and slow the beating in my chest - beyond the pale, anaemic tree trunks is a wasteland of metal, decay, and death. The distant shanty huts of the junktown sit in the distance, and beyond them the shipping containers stacked one on top of another, each a different shade of oxidizing orange from the last.

I shift, pulling myself to my feet and stretching my arms out over my head. Treading carefully so not to wake Izzy or Bowie, I make my way to the edge of our camp to take a leak. It's there I see the hulking mass of Isaac keeping watch, his amber eyes flicking as he watches the landscape before him burn. Sand and rust and fire all shimmer on the edge of a blood-orange sun that pierces the horizon, creeping over the ridge and flooding the badlands with golden light.

The career is stoic, sitting with only his own thoughts as he guards our makeshift camp. He's fresh off his first kill, snapping a young girls neck mere minutes into the games, and he's not shown a shred of remorse for it either. I shouldn't be surprised - these kids are trained to have no mercy. They're shown that killing is their right and that death is glory.

Plus, he's a Le Roux. That name carries a price - a dynasty painted in blood, both theirs and ours.

This is a group built on mistrust. It's a fragile peace between each of us, I don't think it would take much for it to break apart and for this to be knives out, cannons firing. If it's not Bowie's blade pointing at us, it's his sharp eyes and cutting remarks. Izzy's thousand-yard stare paints a girl lost in the blurred line between dreams and reality.

And then there's Isaac. The only other person here who knows what it's like to take a life. Sure, he's likely still processing it, replaying it over in his head, thinking of the consequences, all the people his actions will affect. Or, then again, maybe he isn't. Maybe he doesn't give a fuck.

How much of his soul has this ripped away? What's left of him? What's he become?

I announce myself with heavy footsteps and perch in his peripheral vision, leaning against my offline mechsuit.

"How does it feel?" I ask, staring out to the sunrise.

Killing someone changes you. I want to know who Isaac Le Roux has changed into, and if that person is someone I want on my side.

"Like a monster, but in human skin." He says without much hesitation.

I nod to myself, a familiar feeling.

"But I've been trained my whole life up until this point. I'm just putting everything I've learned to the test." He continues, unnecessarily.

Bargaining, then. Not trying to justify it to me, no, but to himself. I suspect that he's not handling this all too well, else he'd not be making excuses and giving me reasons, trying to paint it all as all he's ever known. That girl's death is just the result of his years of preparation? No. It's not that rudimentary.

He killed her because he had to. Because that's what all of this is. Killing is how you win. It's how you get to go home. The only thing he was putting to the test was if he had the stomach to play the game.

I'd wager that the second kill is harder than the first. Without the same adrenaline, and now knowing how it feels - would Isaac kill again?

Would I?

"There are worse people out there than us who haven't even lifted a finger to anyone else, Isaac." I try to offer some reassurance, "Do yourself a favour and not lose any sleep over it."

He laughs, "Oh I know. Eurydice Le Roux lives and breathes."

I nod, not really knowing the details but I get the idea.

"I did what i have to do... just like you will have to do eventually too. I'll sleep peacefully when I get the chance." He continues, almost sadly.

The way he says sleep peacefully has me on edge.

"I've killed once, I can kill again if I have to," Of that I am certain, "Once tainted always tainted, right?"

It's not like they can brand me as anything they aren't already. A killer is a killer, be that one, two, ten people dead. If you're a murderer, you're a murderer. You can't undo that. What's another red mark against your name?

"It's not something either of us can come back from." I laugh desperately. Sadly.

After a brief silence, Isaac speaks up again.

"Murder is murder, what matters is who we become." He agrees.

I have to believe that we are more than that tag, more than our sins - that there's a reason for it all, that it doesn't define us. I may not ever be able to fully reach that point, but it's good at least to have someone else who feels the same alongside me at the end.

I smile.

"I like you, Isaac."

I don't like many people. But I like Isaac Le Roux.

"It's my watch next. Get some rest." I offer.

I lean against my mech as Isaac retires, watching the sun continue to rise as the second day begins.

The air around me suddenly cracks in two, and something sharp strikes me in the back, blistering my skin harshly. I yelp, spinning around, my hand reaching for a knife that isn't there.

"Shit."

My eyes widen as a mass of huge snakes pool into our camp, dozens of deadly vipers hissing and snapping sharp fangs.

"Wake up! Get in your suits!" I backtrack, calling out to the others.

The vipers swarm across the sand, racing to cover ground between the trees they were nesting in and the place we've made camp. My fist slams against the hatch of my mechsuit, and it pops open. Leaping inside I slam the mechanism shut behind me and power it on.

"Bowie, my knife!" I call out, "Throw me my knife!"

I look to the boy from Ten, who refuses to call me ally, who won't put his trust in me, and I plead with him to trust me now - to give me the knife so that I can fight.

He shakes his head.

Dread fills me. It's cold in my veins, it's a swelling in the pit of my stomach, turning my mouth downward into a scowl. This stubborn, judgemental little prick.

"BOWIE!" I scream again, extending my hand for the knife as the snakes close in.

He turns away, climbing into his mech suit and leaving me without my blade. He's rather watch me die than put his faith in me. Too much of a threat to him, even now, when we're under attack. Just like everyone else, he just wants me to die - because I'm a dirty murderer. Because I'm scum. Because I took a life, I deserve to lose mine.

Well, newsflash, Bowie.

I punch a button on my dashboard and two massive gattling guns drop down from the forearms of my mechsuit. I thrust my arms forwards and the bullets click in, loading the twin-barrel fully automatic weapons. I pull back on the levers and another two shoulder cannons prop up, readied with heavy duty ammunition rounds. Locked. Loaded.

I'm worth more than that.

I pull the trigger.

[Kareem Hasim attacks Nest of Sunscorched Snakeroot, Cannon 1/6]

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[10143 -- Deep Gash on Calf -- 8 damage]

Eyes searching to the left, Izzy is there darting between the tree trunks, avoiding the snakes and slashing her knife at the snakes leaping towards her. I hesitate when I aim my weapon, she is moving too fast for me to get a clear shot. Hate to say it, but Bowie's right here. I reload my weapons and move.

The heavy footsteps of my rhino mech indent in the peat as I spin, dodging around the corner of derelict rubble draped in moss and ivy. This whole place used to be residential, before some calamity reduced these buildings to hollow shells.

Lines of bamboo sticks twix together with rope and moulding rotten picket fences surround the shattered structures. The gardens of this decaying cul-de-sac have sprouted out of control, roots and vines crawling up the stonework, trees breaking through roof canopies.

Nature doesn't care about humanity's struggles. It has no ill feelings towards boys who kill their fathers. It outlives all of that, and overgrows, until you, and all your insignificant troubles are forgotten. Only it remains.

The great pacifier.

Between two taller structures that remain upright in solid condition I find myself backstepping, turning around to look at my allies in the garden fending off the serpents - the bulk of which still going after Izzy.

I look up again at the two buildings. I am in an alleyway of sorts, the space between two houses, a corridor.

Idea.

"Try and draw 'em away from Izzy." Bowie's muffled voice cracks the dry air.

No. Izzy can draw them to me.

If she runs past me, the snakes will funnel down into the alleyway and there will be more of a concentrated mass to fire at.

"Izzy, here, line them up for me!" I shout out, readying my weapons to lay waste to the reptiles.

[Kareem Hasim attacks Nest of Sunscorched Snakeroot, Cannon 3/6]

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[Axe in Eye -- 10.0 damage (Thrown Axe)]