Fallout 1. Escape!

The tunnel lowly grumbles as she makes her way up towards what seems like rays of light. Her feet struggled in the rocky path ahead of her. Her hands trembled, almost out of nature. The mouth of the gun she holds sweeping the stagnant air, about to fall off, her fingers tightened around the holder in circles. Her eyes dilated hard in the dim trying not to trip. She doesn't know where this will lead her but she needs to escape while she can. Dad has gone off and people in the Vault don't seem to like her being there anymore. Dad would disappear from the labs for a while just to not let her down. But he wouldn't share his works, always had trouble in continuing, as if he's deciding in his mind whether or not to tell her all and in the end it was very little that she'd hear from him. She knew that he left out things from her, very important things. The kind that would have spurs her curiosity. She couldn't fathom why Dad would leave. It was her fault unable to realize everything before it happened.

…

The first blow of wind that reaches her was prickly with dust. Violet touches her face with her hands, still trembling. She looked behind her. Just a few steps more to let the boulders of rocks hid the Vault entrance from her sight. It was favorable to not to see that again. The slow steps she took finally brought her to a slope where brown parched of land stray beneath her. The buildings left only lengths of stilts on the ground, brackets of what once were houses and homes. Streets of a township ravaged by cracks and rapturous winds. She could hear the beating of her heart like an ambient to the still surroundings. Her figure taut, stood there like an unmoving shadow on top of the slope, letting the sight to sink in. Until the glaring sun burns through her head that she resume ahead. It was foreign to receive the light such as the sun. It had never happened to her, an energy she never felt. She found her way down and to the buildings she saw from before. With wayward glances all around her she was sure she wasn't alone. Something was buzzing in motion feet away from the other end of the shack. She took light breaths and pasted herself towards the peeled walls of a shack and tries to listen. It was fainting to a muted environment again as seconds goes by. Violet peeked at the side and saw a rounded robot with its antennae sticking out, faltering back and forth above the ground. They made a lot of robots that lives with them in the Vault…it wasn't a peculiar thing. She closes in and heard it spins around. It was a patrol robot. She used a still working vending machine with the few bottle caps she had and got herself some junks. She eyes the robot leaving the place with dismay. It was the only thing living besides her. She thought of Dad and Amata, conversations between them, the settings where it happened, her mind just won't stop unraveling. She remembered about the birthday present Dad gave her, a Pip-Boy 3000, and wear it like a wrist watch. It was 4.50 in the evening. The setting sun took away the heat and clarity of the world around her. They could never tell a time from the sky in the Vault, because there was no sky. She looked up, it was moldy green turning darker.

She clutches the cold stock of the BB gun Dad gave on her 10th birthday. It has only been fired once to a crusty, smelly Radroach down in the reactor room. She pulls the trigger before Dad told her to. He was pleasantly surprised as Violet had guessed. When she was little she always wondered what Dad is doing half the time in the lab with Jonas. He never told. But it seemed like everyone else knew, she remembered how Overseers wanted her dead after Dad's gone. "Something is very wrong…"

It was something I needed to do. You're an adult now. You're ready to be on your own. Maybe someday things will change and we can see each other again.

"But how, Dad? Maybe you're right that the Vault is safer…but I don't want to be safe. I want you to be safe and we could find a place to live up here. I hope it isn't as bad as they say but I don't think I have any other choice!"

Violet fights a tear and force herself to sleep.


	2. Reflections

"What are you doing lurking in the corner? Come here and taste this cookie I made."

Amata yelled out to her. She wasn't lurking. She was observing. And not joining the crowd of 10 people seemed to be the only way. The red haired Overseer's daughter, Amata is her best friend. Amata hated to be known by that but it's how people mentioned her around. Violet could see that painted on her face everytime someone calls her that. "I don't want to be remembered as an Overseer's daughter. I want to be remembered as my father's." Amata had said.

Butch DeLoria was there too. He donned a frumpy jacket and a big frown on his stuffed face. Butch had took the seat beside her and placed a glass of Vodka on the bar. Violet made a disapproving face and put her hands back in her pocket.

"Aww Violet, come on. We're over 16 for Overseer's sake!" Butch threw out a sarcastic laugh and gulp the Vodka in one go. "Your father isn't here to preach on you." He made a gesture to count her in and ordered another two glasses of Vodka.

Violet shook her head to Andy, the bar robot.

"Geez she needs it! That'll loosen her mind."

"Whatever you say Butch DeLoria." she turned to her back to find another face that she knew from the small crowd of people coming at the hatch. She didn't know many people. Dad had told her to be in this and that crowd and not those crowd…the kind that he doesn't want her to mess around with. He hadn't particularly liked Butch but he never prohibited her from being friends with him. Amata joined them, with her red hair tied with a bow high on her head. People were looking at her, the Overseer's daughter.

"Hey where are the others?" Amata really meant Wally Mack.

"Don't know. I'm about to head up actually. Just thinking of stopping by to see you here for a while."

"That's funny. I think you've been avoiding me these past few days." Amata said sulkily and gave a glance to Butch, feeling her mood becomes even worse.

"I didn't! I just...don't want to talk about it."

The G.O.A.T.S examination results were released this past week. She and Amata weren't going to tell each other's specialization. In the Vault, G.O.A.T.S is the indicator for what kind of niche, an occupation, sort of what kind of life you'll be leading, and dying. Overseers had taught and talk through them in small classes of 7 about what we will be doing when we're past 16 years old of age in the vault. How can we 'give back' to civilization in the Vault and support the prosperity of the 'last remnants of humankind'. Violet never disregards the topic of life beyond the Vault. Dad showed her all kinds of equipments and machineries in his laboratory, told pre-war stories of the great land of free people and the continents around us, answered all her questions on the post war world. Those times had come back to her as the reason why she had considered the reality of existence of another settlement, and life above this place they called home. Vault 101 isn't bad, it's actually the best that she could ever think of. But that could be because she has never seen how life is like for other people outside of the vault. She didn't know how so the curiosity kills her every time the subject of the future is brought up. She needed more than examinations and talks to decide on her future whether in or out of the Vault.

Violet had avoided telling Amata about her G.O.A.T.S result. It would mean having the madness over its irrelevancy to resurface. She'd kept quiet for days. Until they met at the bar today. "Are you still thinking about it? It had been a week. Please Violet. I really wanna know. We could plan to have it together if we got the same specialization!"

The fact that Amata is such an optimist, in a way, annoys her so much. Violet tried to dismiss her by listening to the music playing. It was a pre-war song. So much for the mood, she thought. She mouthed the song, ignoring a couple of other Vault graduates was entering the bar. Conversations whirled around 'What did you get for G.O.A.T.S.?' It was like the ultimate end of childhood. To a limited and mapped out adulthood. It's painful for Violet to accept.

...

She hadn't told anyone her G.O.A.T.S results and don't need to now that she left everything behind. Oh Amata I wish you well! Violet cried in her heart.

It's 5am at dawn but the sky hasn't cleared its way for the sun to shine. But it's a clearer day than yesterday. She got up from the ground she slept on and scan the area. Looking at the Pip-Boy gives her an impression of how vast this land is. She needed to find someone, anyone. Somebody must have seen Dad in the same path she went from the Vault. She also in need of something to eat, her stomach grumbles. Her screen blinked a moving green. Alive, Non-hostile. That shook her a bit, phew! and continues to its direction. Where is this thing person going to?

It's about 20 ft away when red blinks appeared behind it from nowhere. Violet disappears into a hill of boulders.

There are 4, 5 guys dressed in chains and tattered clothes, crazy headgears armed with various toolshed weapons. They seem jovial, talking with each other like it's a trivial situation while one of them in the front, probably the leader of the pack launches his axe towards the guy running frantically ahead. The axe sticks into the back of his head unmoved all the while he stumbled down to the ground.

"Whoa that was awesome!" and the group roared with laughter. They left him bleeding to death and take a tour around his house. The live Brahmins tied to a pole at the side of the house were nervously gnawing at each other. "I knew he's rich! He have all these for his own plate-what an asshole." The hockey-mask guy said. He looks terrifying, tall and built. Violet clutches her shivering hands together. It was awful but she couldn't just ran out and exposed herself. She waited for hours until they had finished ransacking the house and took the Brahmins with them, her shirt damp with sweat from the hot afternoon sun. Poor guy is dead by now…his body covered with dust when the wind took him. Violet gathers her strength and walked to him, trying to remove the bloody axe until it comes out, cleaned it and held on to it. "I'm so sorry, but I need to protect myself. I may swing it as hard as I can if I crossed paths with those thugs."

As harrowing as it was, she has to carry on to find others like her, lost and alone in the Wastelands. People must survive and conceded all odds to survive. Dad must be one like them, but with his knowledge might be a point of richness in the Wastes. One might follow him or hunt him down. Where should she start? Violet scans farther to the east when the screen locks to a gridpoint. An area with a name…Megaton. Dad must have been there! Otherwise how would he keyed in this particular point in the vast map? Violet feels a gushing relief, grabbing a Dandy Boy and starts munching hungrily.


	3. A Direction

Feeling like she's full enough, Violet follow through the map to Megaton. She tip toed against the dry soil up and down hilly areas trying to avoid thugs or some other creatures that crazed the Wasteland. Until a pack of angry dogs charging her from behind. Before she could react, it bit her arms, quick and bloody. She cried out in pain and covered her face with her hands. Then, bullets come flying through its head that it bursts like a piǹata. The whole pack receives similar fate. Violet looks up and see a guy with a big hunting rifle closing in on her from a vantage point up a hill. The guy took off his hat and introduces himself as Lucas Simms, Megaton's Sheriff.

"It's not a good idea walking around in the Wastes like that. Those dogs saw you as dinner."

"Thank you, I guess…" Violet struggling in pain.

"Hmm you're just a kid and I don't know what you're doing out here alone, in those Vault suits! I'm gonna get you to Doc Church and then you're gonna tell me why you're here. Understood?" He demands.

He helps her get up and leads a short travel towards Megaton. A robot welcomes them at the big door that opens up to an even larger area gated by high walls of planks and salvaged body parts of a plane. She feels dizzy after losing some blood and pass out before the steps of Doc Church's clinic.

….

Violet wakes up to the sound of people talking.

"Another Vault dwellers up here? Man I don't know what happened down there nowadays. We've seen an increase of them these recent years." Doc Church shakes his head.

Lucas Simms looks out and nods in agreement.

"Something must've happened. No one would choose to survive the Wastes being out from a silly controlled environment. I doubt they could even make a day out here alive."

"How long I've been here?" Violet voice croaks. She gets down the stretcher and looks for her stuff.

"You startled me! Ok kiddo now if you're feeling better let's talk a walk." Lucas says.

The townsfolk give a strange look to her, she heard murmurs and people talk about her. _Vault escapee. Again._

"You don't like strangers do you?" Violet points out. "I'm not looking for a roof over my head if that's what you think. I'm looking for my Dad. And then I'm outta here."

"Whoa whoa easy on the judgment kid. We do take refugees from all over Wasteland. People came, some of them stayed, some of them left on some kind of mission and never be seen again. I'm a sheriff cum Mayor in the-Lord knows-last civilization on this goddamn Earth. We're thriving in here. It's my job to make sure everyone passing through is not a psycho or pose any danger."

"Do I look dangerous to you?" she replied, much to Lucas' amusement. "Look, I just need the truth. Have you seen my Dad? Middle aged man, with trimmed beards. He might be wearing something from the Vault….like a PipBoy on his wrists or…a labcoat?"

Lucas laughs out loud. She becomes more anxious. If anybody have seen him, it might be Lucas Simms.

"You're a good sport kid. Funny. But determined. Alright I'm gonna pass the message to Moriarty up there at the saloon. If anyone, be it nutjobs or crazy scientist out on the loose, Moriarty would be the one you're looking for. I don't like that guy and you shouldn't too, but he has information on _everyone. _He only gathers _useful_ information if you know what I mean." He reply and give her an iguana stick. "That'll be your lunch. You gotta earn your next food!" Lucas grins under the shadow of his big hat and left.

Violet hears her stomach grumbles. _What a stingy guy_, she thought heatedly. When she looks up to the saloon, there is a guy looking back at her, smoking a cigarette and blows it into the night air. Then a girl with skimpy clothes joins him and rests herself at the metal railing, tired from her day job.

"You've gotta be kidding me. The Doctor is not a nutjob at all!" she chuckles at her own recollection of Dr. James coming out here to Megaton.

Neat looking guys are rare in the Wastes, more so with brains. If he wasn't so serious and brief in the meeting with Moriarty she would've offered him a full night of services, free of charge. But she wasn't allowed to be near them the whole time. Whatever it was she knew somebody gonna come later to look for him.

Moriarty throws a lighted cigarette to her, annoyed. "Shut the fuck up Nova! Don't fuck this Doctor's business is safe with me and I'm not gonna tell the kid. Not without some dough…" he snorts.


End file.

Fallout, Adventure, Drama