At The Precipice Of Something New

Something Pricking

Diamond City
April the 25th, 2288
1:23

Six months.

It had been about six months since she had been released from cryostasis, since she had left Vault 111.

Things still didn't feel right.

Sleep had not come easy since the day she left the Vault. Even reuniting with Codsworth, even meeting Preston, even finding purpose as part of the Minutemen had not made it any easier for her to sleep. Even now, knowing who most likely took her husband and son, and having a plan to find him, things did not ease. Some nights, her mind was merciful, and, though she slept lightly, she did not dream. Every so often, at least since being in Diamond City for a few weeks, she wouldn't be woken up in the middle of the night and would get the closest to the kind of sleep she had before the War. Those nights were few and far between. More often than not, the night was a cycle of a few hours of dreamless sleep and a few hours of dreams, dreams of life before the War or nightmares about the day everything changed. The day they entered the Vault. Losing Shaun and Nate. The worst of them were the nightmares of what could be happening to the two of them, now, with Kellogg's cruel sneer taunting her just as it had when he took them.

For as much as she tried, there were nights when Nora knew sleep would not help, no matter how much her body screamed at her she needed it. Too scared to fall asleep and into the mercy of what dreams could make themselves shown and too tired to do much else, she went through the pages and pages of documents they had recovered from Kellogg's home. Each time, she hoped she would find something, a way to understand what happened, why, and who the man was. It seemed impossible. How could he possibly be as old as these documents suggest? The thought was painfully confusing. Flipping through page after page, file after file, Nora tried to keep going but found herself struggling to keep her eyes open. Text, words, numbers began to blur. Frustrated, she shoved the files back into their boxes. After a minute, she all but fell back onto the floor, her head being the first to the floor, on one of the pillows strewn about her room in the Dugout Inn. Staring up at the ceiling, she watched the lights flickering from the ceiling fan, hoping following its steady motion would lull her to sleep.

It didn't.

Running her hands through her hair, Nora reached up to tug the blanket down from the bed, the room a little bit cold. Cold. The cold had never bothered her, not before the War. Swimming during the early hours of the morning before the pool was heated in her hometown's aquatic sports centre had always helped her feel better, even when she felt anxiety clawing at her. Anxiety about school. Anxiety about competitions. Anxiety about family. Somehow, diving into the cool water while the sun began to rise was a reminder of why she loved life. And it was how I met Nate. I swam, surfed...no one could keep me out of the water. Him being at the beach on the same day as my competition in 2074 was...I couldn't have been more lucky to meet him. That was then, the life before. Life after...was disorienting. Some days, despite it being nearly half a year since Vault-Tec's systems malfunctioned and she found herself alone, it was hard to reconcile the world she knew the first twenty four years of her life with the one she faced now. Of all the things she knew she had developed an aversion to, however, the cold was the worst of them, making itself known when she was alone.

Being scared of the cold, the loneliness, the disorientation...it's all because of Vault-Tec's lies and what they did to us. To my family. To almost everyone we knew. What was the point of it all?

Knowing the only people who could provide answers to how Vault-Tec justified their experiments were all dead only made the questions feel worse, taunting. There would be no answers. Her body a bit shaky, Nora pulled the blanket tighter around herself, almost cocooning in it. Her body kept reaching for sleep, but her mind kept wandering. Memories. The worst were from life before the War. It's not just Shaun and Nate...I'll be able to find them, I have to. But everyone else... Closing her eyes, she tried to not recall the faces and voices from the first twenty four years of her life. Family. Colleagues. Friends. I'm breathing, even if it hurts, sometimes, after running...hunting...or... She shook a little at the thought. It was too much. Even worse, a few faces and voices had been coming back, the most painful of them being that of her best friend. Dr. Kate Leavitt. We were just two girls from Plainville when we left for college...and I came out a lawyer, and you came out an organic chemist with a doctorate. I wish I had made the drive out before...you never even got to meet Shaun... Rolling over onto her other side, she tried not to let her mind meander too far down that path. It seemed impossible.