Zenocide ~ Teaser

Chapter 4 - The Shack

So he headed back inside, hearing a high-pitched squeal in the kitchen, he raced down the hall only to come to a halt in the doorway. Ducking quickly as a yellow bolt of foam flew past his head, Orion scowled, frowning with confusion at the war zone now laid out before him. Luke was bunkered down behind the kitchen bench, holding a nerf gun in one quivering hand as he fired aimlessly at the lounge room behind him. Orion still standing well in the line of fire, moved awkwardly through the small dining area and stood there for a moment surveying the damage, there were yellow foam bullets scattered everywhere. Not understanding this game of hide-and-seek, Orion scanned the room for Phay but he couldn't see where she was hiding on first glance and had to duck again to avoid being shot at by Luke's trigger happy reaction to being discovered.

"Psst, Orion... get over here!" Phay called, suddenly springing up from behind the upturned sofa to drag him down by the wrist to sit beside her. Shoving a nerf gun in his hands she gestured rather crudely in Luke's direction, looking down at the gun now in his hands and then back up at Phay as though she were completely nuts to give him such a weapon, he waited for a lull in Luke's firing his back leaning up against the sofa with surprising clarity. It was almost as if he belonged in the middle of all this, and in some ways he was probably most at home on the battlefield but right now his eyes sparkled with such a malevolent intensity, that it was hard to tell exactly what he was thinking. Leaping up from his position, Orion fired off a shot then sank back down next to Phay with military precision, his bolt of yellow foam went hurtling through the room with amazing accuracy until it collided with Fiddletwitch's mass of thick fur and bounced off to lie uselessly on the floor.

"I think mine's broken..." Orion pouted, looking a little like a disappointed child as he examined the gun carefully. It didn't even have real bullets.

"No its not, silly... You just have to distract them for me, until I can get over there..." Phay replied, one hand resting reassuringly on his shoulder.

"You want me to cover you?..." He asked, looking even more puzzled than before.

"Yes. Cover me... I'm going in" Phay added with a determined growl, looking somewhat like a Rambo reincarnation with her hair all mussed up, and her red cloak billowing out behind her as she ducked and then rolled towards the kitchen. Orion was a little surprised she trusted him so much, he was quite sure he didn't deserve her trust or her sympathy but he was more than willing to earn it. Especially if it meant having fun at the same time, it had been so long since he'd had fun, or a friend of any kind that he didn't seem to care how silly he looked firing off several rounds in Luke's direction whilst following Phay around the corner of the sofa.

With practiced expertise, he made sure Phay reached the kitchen unharmed, taking the game a little more seriously than either of them had intended. He even borrowed Phay's gun, firing off rounds in every direction as they made a break for the kitchen bench, storming through with just enough enthusiasm to finish Luke off. Orion glanced down at the male triumphantly, shifting both nerf guns into one hand so that he could help Luke up off the floor whilst Phay helped Fiddletwitch out of a nearby basket that had fallen over.

"I thought you didn't know how to play this game?..." Luke murmured, freeing a dart that had become stuck to his forehead.

"Guess I did..." Orion answered quietly, looking considerably paler than he had all afternoon. His heart was beating rapidly, something he thought was merely a by-product of so much adrenaline and excitement, in conjunction with his shallow gasps for air though something was definitely wrong.

"Hey, you don't look so good..." Phay said, both of them looked more concerned than they had a right to but Orion wasn't about to shove them away, he couldn't even tell which direction that might have been. The nausea and dizziness had suddenly come back worse than ever, and he hit the floor with a resounding thud, not realizing exactly what was wrong until it was too late. Darkness shrouded his vision, and pressed against his mind like a thick fog, forcing him to retreat further inside his own mind to escape the pain now circulating his body.