My Long-Faced Friend

Journal Log 1

March 22, 2213

My name is Aly Coldstone, age 13, and I am writing a journal at the request of my best friend in the whole wide world, Mister Smit. Well, technically, he is my only friend. All the other girls back in Vault 116 never really wanted to hang out with me. They would often make fun of my two different colored eyes (ones blue and the other is hazel) and my jet black hair since I was the only one in the vault with hair that dark.

Anyway, what should I dare write about first? I have so many questions I want to write down for when I grow older and can ask Mister Smit. Oh, of course! Ill start with how I met Mister Smit!

It all goes back to when I was in Vault 116. My dad apparently never made it to the vault, so my mother raised me alone after I was born. She told me that I get my jet black hair from him along with his joyful personality and ADHD Whatever that means Im sure its positive. Maybe it stands for Always Determined to be Happily Delightful. I should put that question on the list to ask Mister Smit.

Well, one morning I felt a little bit more tired than normal and decided to sleep in. I guess mom didnt like it and set off some big alarm clock for the entire vault. I sat up in bed, drooling like a cute baby with a birds nest for hair, as red lights leapt across the room and back into the shadows they had cast. My mom rushed in and helped me get dressed and then proceeded to take me through the hallways to a large room of the vault I had never seen before. I was so happy when I realized it was the entrance. My mom and the other moms were all taking their children to finally see the outside. She kissed me on the forehead and told me she would ride on the next bus that came.

I was so happy. I would get to ride on a school bus mom had talked about. When I got on with the other children, I realized how funny it looked. There were no windows and some of the seats had adult-sized BB guns over them. I waved bye to mom from the door as she waved bye back to me. She and the other moms must have been so happy we were going to the same school they used to go to. Some of the men looked like they even wanted to go back to school too by the way they were fighting the police to board the bus with us.

As the bus doors closed and the inner lights turned on, I went to take a seat at the very back but there was none. So I just sat on the floor up against the back wall. I must have fallen back to sleep because I woke up and found myself lying in the middle of nowhere. There was no trace of the bus or anyone else.

I got up and looked around. I didnt see the green grass as far as the eye could see like mom said there was, but I did see all around me what appeared to be the skyscrapers and other buildings my mom had described. Suddenly I was overwhelmed with joy. I wandered through what I presumed what was once a great city as moms stories came visually to life. I couldnt understand why people left these cities to live in those cramped vaults.

When night fell I started to cry for there was no one to talk to. Thats when Mister Smit popped his head out from behind the rubble of a nearby damaged building. He asked me brusquely what a girl like myself was doing outside a vault. I explained the events that had unraveled that morning and then his composure suddenly changed. He walked around the rubble and over to me.

I examined him. He is a story tall, with unnaturally long arms and legs. His black suit looks tattered with tears and holes all over it. His police boots are a dark gray, and his tie is a dim red. Upon his head rests a worn top hat covered with dust. But his odd but human face was what got my attention. Metal bolts run from his chin to his cheeks and then hide under the top hats rim. The center parts of his upper and bottom lips are each pieced by a small bolt while the corners of his mouth droop down in a frown. His eyes are like the black camera lenses at the vault.

I asked him, Why do you have a long face?

He replied, I had an option to either always be smiling or to always be frowning. I chose to always frown.