Episode One
Enter; Headfirst, into the Fallout!
[An introductory episode setting the story for our sole survivor.]
There’s something to be said about the symphony of unbridled rage and fear that sprouts from within the soul as your stomach doubles over and knots itself, blood filling your ears with a cacophony of hissing static, throat clenching like a vice as your vision starts to become spotted. An onslaught of memories clamoring to be at the forefront of your mind as if they had missed their cue when the symphony started and were now trying to steal the limelight of the stage as you try in desperation to piece together each specific part of the events that had already unfolded, recording everything in detail to tell if you were blind to it all or if you could never have known, to begin with. Everything else seems to slow down to an insufferable pace, nearly taunting as the world snaps into sharper focus. Questions brandishing torches and burning down the curtains of the theater and setting your mind ablaze with shrieks of anguish and terror, demanding recompense by way of answers but fearing what they may hear as a result. Nails biting into the flesh of your palm, the body’s way of bringing the mind out of itself, the digging pain nearly a comfort; sending a rigid chill throughout your bloodstream and with it, an electricity that threatens to strike down any who stand before you. Copper on the tongue, a bitter taste that drags acknowledgment out of its preoccupied state, the rage has set into a growing crescendo through clenched teeth. I wish I could say I wasn’t familiar with this song, but truth be told, it was one I had sung many times in my life before. Even now, as my fists slammed against the glass of the cryo-chamber I had been encased in; staring towards the slumped over figure in the pod across from mine, I found the song tearing through me. A scream erupted from my throat but cracked half way through from lack of use, hot tears threatened to fall freely from my eyes but the anger welling inside pushed them back with reminders that there may be hope yet. The lid clicked and I scrambled against it, trying to speed up the process. Panic had me fumbling and as the lid lifted, I fell through and collapsed on the ground in a heap. The pain hardly registered with me, my body was too cold and my heart was beating wildly against my ribcage, urging me forward. My breaths came through in ragged intervals as my eyes flicked up towards Nate’s pod. Gods....please let him be okay. A violent cough sputtered its way out of my mouth and I hissed, clenching my eyes shut as I half crawled toward the pod. My shaking hands clambering for a button, a switch, something! There had to be something, some way to open up the damn pod...I bit my lip and slowly rose to my feet, slamming a fist against the controls. I gripped the edge of it, tears threatening once again as I dared to steal a glance at Nate. He hadn’t moved. Hope was dwindling like the dying remnants of a fire. Fire...memories flashed in my mind of a campfire, the smell of burning wood wafting upwards and with it, floating embers that illuminated the air within the trailing smoke. Nate’s wide grin and bright eyes as he laughed, the sound sparking a warmth in my chest that had nothing to do with the fire. “Oh come on, that can’t be your biggest fear. You, Miss headstrong soldier girl who isn’t even afraid to look death in the eye, are afraid of a gurgling, giggling, drooling, baby?” My cheeks flushed red and I cast my vision elsewhere, my hand resting on my swelling belly as a wry smirk tugged at the corner of my lips ever so slightly. “I’m not afraid of the kid, or even the idea of having a kid....it’s more like...I’m afraid I can’t be a good mother. You know? I’m afraid that I won’t be able to love him like I should or care for him like a mom should or....protect him.” Nate’s hand found my chin and lightly guided my face to meet his attention, his thumb rubbing my cheek gently as he stared at me with a soft smile. “You’re going to be a great mother. I know you are. You are going to love him because he is the embodiment of us, our love.” He shrugged playfully and dropped his hand, tilting his head up with a cocky grin. “I mean, you’ll probably freak out the first time he gets sick or falls over or something and we should probably get one of those Mr. Handy’s just so that you aren’t smothering the poor kid...but,” He paused and drew his full attention back to me, his smile faded and his eyes genuine. “He will be resilient because he has your blood too. And for those times when you freak out or worry that you’re doing something wrong, you’ll have me there. I can protect you from yourself, just like I always have and you’ll protect us from everything else....but no matter what, we will do it together, because we are a team. We are a family. Always.” A guttural sound escaped from inside me and I pounded my fist against the glass, hoping that maybe Nate would wake up and tell me that we were going to find who did this, that we were going to get Shaun back...together...that we were going to be a family again. He didn’t move. Tears started to fall but my mind refused to think about the what-ifs. I looked back at the controls, my eyes spotting a lever. I nearly tripped over myself as I pulled it, the sound of the Cryopod mechanics clicking their release drew out a breath I wasn’t aware I had been holding. “Come on....C'mon, c’mon, c’mon....don’t you be dead, damn it.” My words were barely even a whisper as the lid slowly rose. I rushed forward, a hand immediately going to Nate’s cheek as my vision blurred with more tears that I rapidly blinked away. “Nate? Nate, c’mon....don’t do this to me....don’t leave me here alone...Nate? Open your eyes, come on, open your eyes, I’m right here....I’m right here...please? Nate!” My voice shuddered and I shook him but he was limp with no signs of life. “No....no, no, no, no!” I was screaming, I didn’t care who heard me, I didn’t care if that man came back, in fact...I wished he would, I wished he would so that I could kill him myself for taking the only things I had left in the world. My hand slipped from Nate’s face and clenched on to the stiff fabric of the vault suit he wore. I couldn’t stop the grotesque shrieks that emanated from me as I sobbed into his neck, hoping beyond hope that he would rest a hand on the back of my head and smooth my hair comfortingly. But I knew better, I had seen people die before, I was in the war...I knew from the start that he was likely dead...but I didn’t want to believe it. I wanted so desperately to hear him laugh and call me silly because I was crying. But he wouldn’t, he wasn’t going to, he was never going to do that again...I knew that. And sobbing into his lifeless shell wasn’t going to change that. My hands loosened and I sluggishly stepped away from his body, tears still falling as I caught my breath. A gold glint caught my eye and drew my attention to his hand. His wedding ring... My throat clenched and nausea threatened to make a sudden appearance, my hand reached out to his without me realizing it and I slipped the ring from off his finger with some effort. I stared at it in the palm of my hand, remembering our wedding, the day I gave birth to Shaun, every date we went on before all that, the plans we made for Halloween, every breakdown I had that he consoled me through from PTSD and nightmares, the day that we came to the vault...the moment just as it was descending after passing all out neighbors who were shrieking and begging to be let into the vault....and then, the moment when the bomb fell. The wave that washed over us... Comforting Shaun before getting into the pod, smiling nervously at Nate, hoping that we’d somehow be able to make it through all this together... I clenched my hand into a fist around it held it close to my heart as I looked up at his lifeless corpse, “I'll find who did this. And I'll get Shaun back. I promise." Getting out of the vault proved to be a bit more of a task than getting into it, passing pods of long-dead neighbors and fighting off huge mutant cockroaches with a security baton and later, a 10mm pistol. There were moments where I was certain that I was going to start losing it, seeing skeletal remains of the workers and reading the logs on the terminals to try and gain some bearing...nothing quite made sense to me but it was clear that a lot of time had passed since we had first come here...that thought alone made me sick from unanswered questions and worry. Evidentally, we were never meant to live in the vault. We were meant to be part of some sick experiment. The reasoning was unclear but the thought alone made that song of anger start to hum in the back of my mind. I could find no trace of the man who killed Nate and took my son, I had no leads as I kept searching within the vault, somehow calm despite all that had happened. Having nowhere else to turn, I made my way out of the vault, securing a pip-boy off a lone skeleton near the entrance that I had come through, what felt like maybe a few minutes or even hours earlier. It seemed to come in handy as I used to open the entrance, given the unknown state of the world, I figured I should keep the pip-boy permanently, in order to at least record anything I found and keep track of things while I hunt down whoever did this. I found myself rubbing Nate’s ring in my pocket as the vault platform slowly rose and I braced myself for whatever waited on the surface above. My anger present but dwindling into a controlled fire inside me. It seemed like an eternity before I could finally see the surface again, the light was blinding and took me a few moments to adjust. Whatever I had been expecting, it could never have prepared me for what I saw. You never really think of the prospect of what the world will look like after a nuclear explosion. The trees, what were left of them, were charred or broken, their colorful leaves long since gone. The ground little more than a desert in comparison to what it used to be... and...Sanctuary. Houses lay in ruins or half collapsed into themselves, some proved to be still standing but as I looked out at it, a sick feeling twisted itself into my stomach. I couldn’t go back there, not yet...I couldn’t go back to my home and face all the reminders that I had somehow failed to keep my family safe. The odds of Shaun just being at the house were astronomical given that I saw him be carted off by some woman and that man...they had come into the vault on purpose sure, but if they were smart enough to kill Nate in order to take Shaun, surely they were smart enough to leave the area entirely. No, I needed answers...and I wasn’t sure where to look, but I wasn’t quite ready to go back there just yet. U didn’t need to put myself through more of that pain. I had to keep it together, keep going, I had to...do...something! Anything! Anything other than pour over my failures and lament in my sorrow, thereby getting nothing accomplished aside from the world’s most pathetic pity party. There was an odd static coming in from the pip-boy that now adorned my wrist. A signal.
For a moment, I half debated even trying to tune into the frequency, but curiosity got the better of me...I would need to know the state of the world I was left in and maybe, just maybe, if I looked around, helped some people, I’d get some answers....at the very least, it was better then sitting in the shell of a home that promised little more than more heartbreak. I would return to Sanctuary someday, but that day was not today.
To Be Continued [A note: the upcoming stories of our Sole Survivor; Kaeshara Crowe, will deviate from the main storyline for a series of episodes. It should be noted that I am basing this off of one of my playthroughs with one of my oc’s...In which I have the mods ‘Tales from the Commonwealth’ and ‘Wild Wastelands’ along with a few others but those two will alter the storyline for Miss Crowe quite a bit. Companions will also be featured in the episodes to come and as this one was more of an introductory, expect much more in-depth episodes that dive into emotions, thoughts, actions, etc. in the future]