My whole life I have been considered lucky.
People I've meet in my travels have constantly told me I'm the luckiest son of a gun they've every met, or else that I must have been blessed with some unnatural luck.
And sure, I've escaped death numerous times, usually by just a hair's breath. And yes, maybe once or twice I've gotten out of impossible situations with everything still in tacked and maybe nabbed a little extra.
I've survived when people thought I was a goner. I've succeeded at the impossible. I am considered a legend.
But that's what I don't understand.
I'm not lucky.
Is being thrown face first into danger, lucky?
Is being on the brink of death more times than I wish to count, lucky?
Is losing the most important person in your life, lucky?
Is losing your only friend, lucky?
Is being kicked out of the only home you have ever known into a world you have never even begun to imagine, lucky?
Is losing everything you've ever cared for, lucky?
My life is not lucky. I am not lucky.
What's lucky about dying for a world you don't even know?
............
July 13, 2258
I was born.
"Let's see... Are you a boy or a girl?"
I don't remember it, but then again, who does?
"It's a girl?..."
It was apparently bloody, and painful.
"A girl! We've got a daughter, Catherine! A beautiful, healthy baby girl!"
It's probably the single most important event in our lives; the moment we first enter this world, the moment we take our first breath of air, the moment that sets our whole unavoidable destiny in motion.
"Oh... Oh, James... We did it... A daughter... Our beautiful daughter..."
And yet we cannot remember it for the life of us.
"You've got a bright future ahead of you, sweetie. I'm sure of it..."
Is that strange? That we can't remember it?
It's kind of funny if you think about it; we don't remember the beginning of our life, but we sure as hell feel the end of it.
"Look at you, look at you... Hi, there. I'm your daddy, sweetheart. Daddy."
My father held me apparently, my mother never got a chance. He was so proud of me when I was born, or so he'd told me.
That a bit strange though, isn't? To be proud of someone you've known for all of 10 seconds? For something as stupid as being forced out into this hellish world?
It wasn't even my choice. If I had been given the option, knowing everything I do now, I don't know if I would have taken it. I would have been much happier if I'd never been born, I'm sure.
"You're going to need a name, aren't you?"
A name... Yes, a name. So simple and yet so complicated.
To think, a simple string of letters could cause such reactions in others. A simple drop of one of these 'names' could mean the difference between life and death.
It wasn't something I had ever even considered before... Well, before all this.
"Your mother and I have been talking. What do you think about...."
I didn't choose my name, just like I've never chosen anything in my life.
Like everything, it was forced upon me. No asking what I wanted, no seeing if this was okay with me first.
No. Just like everything in my life, I was expected to just accept it.
"...Andromeda. That's a good name. Don't you think? Fits you perfectly."
Yes... fits me perfectly.
"Looks like they've finished the gene projection. Let's see what you'll look like when you're all grown up."
Ahh, and there it is, the marvels of technology. The very thing that killed us is the very thing we are so depended on. Does no one else find irony in this?
Female. Half African-American, half Caucasian American. Long brown hair. Green eyes.
"You're going to look a lot like your dad."
I wouldn't consider myself pretty, plain more like, but my father says I remind him of my mother and he's always called her beautiful, so I've never had the heart to argue with him.
Though who knows, maybe he wasn't talking about my looks being like my mothers, seeing as everyone else says I look like my dad.
"See that, Catherine?"
"Ohhh... Beautiful... just like her daddy... Ha ha ha..."
I'm dark skinned, like my mother, unlike my father and unlike the other members of Vault 101. I get teased constantly for it.
"It's a big world out there, honey, full of all sorts of people."
Yes, many I would never have even considered could exist.
"What about you?"
Some foul. Some cruel.
Some kind. Some honest.
Some hideously deformed.
Others just barely surviving.
Some I will befriend. Some who will try and kill me. Some who will become my comrades, and still others that will die by my own hand.
"What kind of person are you going to be?"
Beep.
What sort of person indeed.
Beep.
Did I make you proud father?
Beep.
What about you mother? Did I make you proud?
Beep. Beep.
"You're just a-"
Beep. Beep. Beep.
"James?"
Beep. Beep. Beep!
"Catherine?"
Beep! Beep! Beep! Beep!
"James..."
Beep! Beep! Beep! Beep!
"Catherine!"
"Somethings... Somethings..."
Beepbeepbeepbeepbeepbeep!
"She's in Cardiac Arrest! Start compressions! Get the baby out of here! Move. Move!"
Beepbeepbeepbeepbeepbeepbeepbeepbeepbeepbeepbeep-
"One, one thousand. Two, one thousand... Come on!"
Beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee......
What sort of person indeed...
"Hang on, Catherine! Hang on!"
YOU ARE READING
Fallout 3: Radiation
FanfictionAndromeda never asked for this. She never asked for her father to leave, she never asked for everyone to hate her, she never asked to leave her small little world and be forced out into something new and frightening. She didn't ask to be born into t...
