Wasteland Ferns

The Day It Went Wrong

**Fern's POV**

The voices came to me again last night. All at once. Another memory. Weirdly enough, I was one of those few kids who actually remembered being born. At first, it was a happy moment; my parents marveling over me, my dad already thinking about what kind of person I'm going to be, but in the midst of the moment, the heart monitor beeped rapidly, and my mom was silent.

"Catherine? Catherine!"

I shot up from my bed, tears in my eyes. All around me were the sterile, yet colorful walls of vault 101. My home.

Great. As if I didn't feel bad enough for dad, raising me on his own. Now I'm having fucking nightmares about it.

On my bedside table lay my pip-boy and a small orange holotape. I reached out for both of them, opened the player on the small wrist handy computer, and placed the holotape inside. My mom's voice seeped through the tiny speaker.

"My dear, sweet child.
I can't put into words how excited I am to meet you, to hold you in my arms.
I know you'll do crazy things for this crazy world we call home, and I'll be with you every step of the way. Love, your forever caring mother."

That click, that tiny click was what always ended her voice. It annoyed me at some points. As the holotape spewed out of the pip-boy, I grabbed the small, orange object and held it to my chest, and whispered, "Mom."

In the midst of my somber moment, a voice rang out through my room.

"Hey, Fern?"

Shit. Amata.

"Are you okay in there? We're gonna be late."

I practically flew out of my bed putting my jumpsuit on." Oh, shit! SHIT! Coming, Amata!".

As soon as I got the blue fabric onto my skin, I rushed out and joined Amata in the corridor on our way to work. We gradually reached a similar pace as Amata finally noticed something off with me.

"You okay, Fern? You're not usually this bummed out."

I felt a hand on my shoulder, Amata's hand, but avoided her gaze as I chuckled,"Yeah, I'm fine. Just had a bad night. You know how it is."

Even a blind and deaf man could tell that she wasn't convinced.
"You had that nightmare again, didn't you? About your mom?"

I paused, looking at Amata, my best friend, my partner in crime, before looking away again, and sighed, "Yeah. You know me too well." I knew what was coming.

"Do you want to talk about it?"

I shrugged." Not really. "

She leaned closer to me, her voice softening as she reminded me, "You know I'm her for you, right?" Great. Now I feel worse about the subject. Whenever people think that I have my mom on my mind, they flood me with I'm sorry's and all that shit. But I know that Amata's just worried about me. Unlike some people in the vault, she actually cares.

I could only manage a small smile as I looked at her again.

"Yeah, I know. You're my best friend."

With a smirk, she playfully nudged my arm and we continued to our work for the day.

Helping Stanley with the reactors is one of the few things that I actually enjoy doing. He's like an uncle to me. Of course, he never let me hear the end of my goof ups. The day passed by in what felt like minutes. By now, I've already eaten dinner, and all I wanted to do was go to bed.

As I headed down to my section of the vault, I was met by my dad sitting at the table, drinking coffee out of his World's best Dad mug. I smirked at the sight of it, and postponed crashing in my room, taking a seat beside him.