It took a while to recover from the shock of surviving such a huge fall from beyond the clouds.
[How did I even survive that fall? is this like one of those super lucky events of how pilots in WWII survived semingly impossible odds after their plane crashed?]
[while that might be unlikely, it's not impossible. And I am alive afterall. I wonder how many body parts I broke though]
After a bit of a struggle to get his bearings and moving his body a bit and sitting up, he checks his limbs and torso for any obvious injuries.
Only to be surprised to find just minor scratches and bruises.
[It's seems I got off lucky. But Damn! does my body hurt. I guess I was better protected than a typical WWII pilot with this exoskeleton. Now, Let's see where I am]
He slowly turns around but can't see too much sky let alone any landmarks.Then tries to get up, only able to do so with some effort.
[Damn seems like some of the power circuits are damaged and shut down. No super powers for now I guess]
After a moment of concentration,
[What the hell?! The emergency comms are down too? That sucks!]
......
[No! not even GPS device is responding? wait let's run a quick diagnosis...]
#Quick Diagnosis...
#Alert! Power down to the emergency reserves
#Sensory failure; Data error
#Warning: Minor damage to the internal power circuitry and/or damage to the power cells
#Sensory failure; Data error
#Warning: Internal timer/Automic Clock value invalid!
#Sensory failure; Data error
#Sensory failure; Data error
#Warning: All non-local communications unresponsive.
#Emergency rescue Beacon deployed
#Priority System Handshake with motherbase failure
#Minor structural and actuator damage reported
#Warning: Critical power reserves
....
....
....
"Well, Fuck!"
[What the hell is wrong with the damn suit?! Some of these don't make anysense together. How the hell am I able to deploy an emergency beacon but am not able to receive any incoming comms? Not even the simple anologue stuff works?!]
[Well, I'll figure that out later. Need to disable the emergency Beacon too. Something is preventing incoming comms anyway and no way to get rescued under all this canopy even if someone stumbles upon the signal]
#Emergency Beacons disabled
#Major systems disabled/services set to sleep
[Alright now again, where the hell am I? I see no obvious high ground around. Climbing these damn trees is not happening right now. How freaking tall are these even? They don't look like redwoods but I guess there are probably other tall forest trees that I don't know about. I'm no tree expert after all. Well, I guess I'll try to look around for any Fauna that I can identify.]
'Grrrrrrrr.........'
[But I guess I need something to eat first. I'm damn hungry for some reason. I must have been out for a good while. Didn't have any emergency rations when I fell. So, gotta find some food]
'whirring and coded beep sounds from the suit'
[Well, that's much better! I can move a bit better now. I'm not gonna take this off just yet incase I run into a bear or something]
He removes the helmet and puts it in a designated place behind his right shoulder where something clicks between it and the suit to hold it in place.
He's a man with dark brown eyes and longish deep black hair with hooded eye lids and slightly plump cheeks. Has decent looks but not a very striking face except for the eyes.
There is a tiny amount of stubble and darkness surrounding semi-tired eyes, evident of his past few busy days.
After a bit of streaching and couple more stomach growls, he starts moving about.
----------------------------------------
[Hmm I see a bird. It looks a bit like a pigeon of all things but has longer claws than you'd expect. And I have no clue where these bird's are natural habitat is either. I guess I expected more info from the Fauna but can't be helped. I'm no expert of Birds either. Need to look for other creatures.]
He begins to retreat away in a different direction where he hears some animal like sounds but stops just as he's about to turn away completely.
This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.
[Well, that pigeon birdy sure looks big and tasty though. Would be a shame if it flys away afterwards. Hmm...I can't be bothered to do this fully manually. I guess it's okay to use just a bit of the remaining energy. If filling my stomach isn't good enough of a use, not much else would be.]
After a brief moment of his concentration, parts of the Exo-skeleton powers up with soft whirring noises and a quite beep.
Lifting the right hand and using a protrusion on the suit's surface as iron cross hairs, he carefully aims at the pigeon like bird , his slightly shifting and shaking arm goes completely rigid for a moment before a short sword sized blade is shot at high speed through the bird and getting embedded halfway into the tree. Clearly, over kill for the situation.
[Well, I guess I never had enough practise in Full-Manual mode. But this is still better than accidentally burning some electronics without confirming the damage with a full Diagnostic.]
After retriving the blade with some effort and collecting the mauled bird corpse, he starts moving in the directing of the animal sounds from earlier. The whole ordeal was surprisingly quite and most creatures of the forest seem to not notice much.
Reaching the rough area, he gets behing a tree to assess the surroundings before proceeding a bit more cautiously. A blood trail instantly catches his eye and as he carefully follows it, he comes across a half eaten dead carcass of what might have been a deer like animal, completely mauled beyond recognition.
[Well, that doesn't bode well for me. What ever did this, seemed to have been extremely violent and I'm not sure it's a good idea to eat the remains of a wild beat's dinner. This pigeon birdy should be enought for a dinner and a breakfast. This is a pretty big bird for a pigeon now that I think about it]
He retreats as quitely as possible after briefly examining the attacker's foot prints and tracks left behind. Thankfully, they seem to take it in the opposite direction of his crash site.
Once back, he starts setting up a fire pit to cook the Bird. After using a lighter to light a fire under some dried twigs and sticks, he quickly roasts the pieces of meat and promptly puts out the fire to avoid that beasts attention just incase. Now, that he's done with the meal, he feels a bit more energized but the sun is already setting and he still has no clue where in the world he even is.
After some brief consideration, he moves away from the place where he had his dinner and finds a relatively isolated tree due to it's wider canopy to offer some protection from creatures that move among the trees. Since he doesn't have any real shelter and neither does he need too much protection from the elements with his body fully covered, he decides to find a place slightly off the ground, on the tree and sleep with his full suit on for the night.
By the time he's made his preperations to make sure he doesn't just roll off in sleep, it's already quite dark. Unfortunately he can't use the night vision option without turning on the main computer so, it's just gonna be super dark for the night.
[At least I won't have to be worried about the insects and especially the mosquitoes! I swear! those bastards are out to get me!]
'Yawn'
[I guess no food far a majority of the day, a lot of moving around carrying this extra bult and finally a full stomach with a delicious bird does makes one super tired]
'Yawn'
[Well, it's bed time for me]
....
----------------------------------------
In the darkness of his dreams, there are distant howls that keep getting closer, the sounds of nearby bushes moving and shaking, Like something straightout of a horror movie, trying to scare you without actually showing yourself.
[He he he...I'm here you stupid ghost I want to see what kind of weird thing my brain pulls out this time. He he he he he It's been so long since I've had a silly horrow show in my sleep. Guess I'm gonna really enoy it]
'A snarl'
[Com'n little ghost. I don't bite. come here come here]
And then...
'Thud'
...
'Thud'
...
His eye lids fly open promptly!
[Wait it's not one of my horror comedy dreams?! Damit!]
As he wakes the rest of himself up from sleep, he hears something moving about, circling and snarling at the tree trunk from below.
He realizes what it is.
[Fuck! it's that beast! I guess it did seem like wolf prints and in retrospect, I'm very glad I didn't just sleep near my dining area. Let's see what it actually looks like]
He finds his lighter that he used for lighting the fire earlier and lights it to catch sight of the attacker. Only to find it very difficult to even catch a good glimpse of it. It moves around avoiding the light and trying to stick to the shodows.
Eventually he catches a brief view of it. Which puts him on the endge. It's an enormous Black Wolf! Pitch black fur with a vicious maw, bearing it's very sharp, massive teeth. That was definitely a scary form to find snarling at and stalking you in the middle of the night. He now understands how lucky he was to not run into it back during the day.
While it definitely sparked some fear in him, h`e's been through a lot of scary situations and faced a lot worse abominations during the invasion. He quickly sobers up and takes up a more actionable posture. Hopefully, he may not need to since it appears the beast is unable to climb the tree and his position is out of it's jumping reach. It's still doesn't stay at one place or in the light long enough to get a better view. He takes aim with a partial activation of the suit and once again, tries to aim his right hand at the beast. He can't aford to miss it since that would mean more waste of his already critically low power reserve. After a moment of predicting it's movements, his arm once again briefly goes stiff and fires the blade from earlier.
[Ha!...got ya! uh...?]
He narrowly misses claiming the beast's life but it does wound part of it's shoulder and embeds itself in the ground behind it.
'Awoooooo...'
That bought out a loud, painful howl but now he doesn't have the blade to shoot again. He could try and shoot the one on his left arm but if he misses it, that would leave him vulnerable. So, after a moment of hesitation, he wisely chooses not to gamble in the situation. He's not in an immediate threat and it's completely dark in the night. So, he decided to wait and see if it would run away from that wound alone.
Much to his disappointment, the thing is even more enraged and reluctant to leave now. It's clearly wounded but not enough to affect it's strength too much. It's jumping ability and movement clearly seem to be a lot slower than before. Which is reassuring. After a few minutes of the beast trying everything, it stops moving about and takes a low posture behind the nearest bush, glaring at it's prey. Sure that the beast would not be able to make any more moves on him, he decides to save his lighter fluid and takes up a more comfortable position to keep an eye on it. Where he eventually falls asleep.
After a few hours, it's already dawn and the canopy is active with life. both insect and bird, hopefully nothing else.
Thankfully, the beast appears to have been gone, making him sigh in relief. Last night reminded him that even if the war is done with, he's not safe till he finds some civilization and contacts his fellows. After some observing of the surroundings, he warily makes his way down to the ground and streaches a bit. After investigating the tracks of the beast's approah and retreat directions, he's ready to set out but suddenly comes to a halt.
[I can't put my finger on what it is but something seems to be wrong in the current situation. Like something seems to be missing.........What might it be?]
He looks around a bit and finds nothing in the surroundings.
[Wait, nothing in the surroundings? nothing?!]
His face, appalled.
[My Blade!]
"My Blade!! You damned DOG!!"
-To be continued