And She Continued Pt 1

Bring Me To Life

That was weird.

I felt the fresh air rushing around me as I stumbled, eyes closed, into the hallway. Slowly my eyes opened, unfocused and bleary. Everything inside of my body felt heavy and soft; musty. Like after taking an early afternoon nap and waking up just before dinner. I tried to swallow; my mouth tasted like death. Hesitantly I stepped forward amazed that, though my limbs were tired and felt like white noise, my motor skills were just fine and nothing seemed... damaged. I was deeply cold though.

"Weird dream..." I whispered through my yawn.

I stretched, looking up and across from me as my arms reached far above. The sight before me made my body lock. I felt the world tilt for a moment, seesawing back and forth, before it righted itself. My chest heaving as I stumbled back against my cryolocker, sinking to the floor, unable to breathe.

"N-nate..." his name just a whisper on my tongue, my voice weak and pathetic from years of being unused. "Nate!"

The dread set in as I realized it wasn't a dream. It hadn't been a nightmare. The world had ended; my world had ended. I stood, rushing to him, banging on the door. Blood had frozen over his chest, the ice from the cryolocker encased him, preserving his body so that, had I not seen the blood and mangled flesh, he would have looked merely sleeping in suspended animation.

"NATE!" I screamed.

My gaze darted to the mechanism beside his containment unit.

Panicked, frenzied, I pushed buttons and pulled levers.

"Unit malfunction" echoed again and again in a cold, sterile female voice.

In a haze I rushed to the security terminal. He had to still be alive, he was frozen. He didn't die. I could still save him. Hurriedly I breezed through the logs.

Asphyxiation.

Asphyxiation.

Asphyxiation.

"My God..." My hands trembled, my body was numb. Vaguely I felt myself falling to the ground as my vision went black.

The screen glowed under Nate's log.

DEAD.

I wasn't sure how long I had been in the vault. Days for sure; weeks maybe. I had cried till I could no longer cry those first few days.

My husband, my baby.

My life. It was gone.

Everything was gone. The bombs had come and ended the woman I used to be, the life I had once known. Fire and brimstone rained down from the sky and burned everything in its path, including me. I, myself, was changed. I took my pain and wrapped it around my skin like armor in the time I was below, nothing to accompany me but the corpses of neighbors, my Nate, and friends. The echoing haunting of my son, my Shaun, my baby, being lost somewhere in the nuclear ravaged world above.

While I gathered food and clothes and learned how to use my new PipBoy I built a thick skin of grief and anger. Vengeance became my purpose as I had prepared to leave my husband's body. I was no longer the happily married wife, I wasn't the new mother basking in the joys and pains of the new life I had brought forth; no longer was I a lawyer.

I was a widow, the mother of a stolen child, the victim of murder and government betrayal. The government my husband served. The government I upheld in the courtroom for the majority of my adult life. I had once believed in the institution that had destroyed me so completely.

"I'll find Shaun." I promised Nate's dead, beautiful, perfectly preserved face as I pulled his wedding ring off his frozen, stiff hand.

The words were not comforting and kind, but rather cold and cruel. A vow of death on the people who had ripped away my one chance at happiness in the post-apocalyptic world. My steps echoed down the chamber, my hands shook as I opened the gate above with my PipBoy, my legs nearly gave out as the elevator slowly lurched me higher and higher.

For the horrors I had felt sleeping and living with my husband's dead body, nothing could have prepared me for the destruction that unfolded as the horizon came into view.

The first thing that hit me was the smell. Dry and acrid. Following was the sight of the world. Everything that had once been green and beautiful was brown and rotting, calcified in radioactive dust. Immediately my rage quelled as I took what was once my busy, peaceful neighborhood. An awful guttural caw from behind me made me shriek and flinch. The 10mm I had found below whipped into my hands as I aimed shakily in the general direction of the noise.

Three massive black birds, misshapen and grotesque, stared back at me boldly with their dark eyes. The largest cawed again, hopping towards me. Its neck was too long, its feathers were oily. They all were hunched over as though their heads were heavier than their neck could support.

"Get away." I whispered, taking a step back as the panic set in, "getawaygetawaygetaway!"

My finger on the trigger slipped and I shot the metal elevator at my feet. The bullet ricochet into the woods. I felt the embarrassment flood me. Nate would have been ashamed at my lapse in safety. He had spent long nights going over weapon safety; teaching me to aim, how to clean all the mechanized parts, and the correct way to hold a handgun.

After all, he had said, an army man's wife has got to be able to shoot.

A growl from somewhere behind me snapped me out of the memories, my small smile quickly fading as reality sank in again. The hollow ache, the fear, and the actuality of the world I was now in slapped me all at once as the birds screeched unholy and flew away in a hurry. Quickly I turned; goose bumps rising along my skin.

Four large dogs approached. I felt myself freeze inside. I had never been afraid of dogs until this exact moment. They were bony and vile; abominations of what a dog should have been. Radiation, I assumed, made them this way. Descendants of lap dogs and family pets. The alpha circled around back as three of the pack edged me closer and closer to their leader. Open sores oozed from their mottled skin, their mouths lacked jowls or chops, and their eyes were lidless. Fur sprouted in diseased patches along their leathery hides.

"Oh my God." I whispered, dread filling my body as my hands trembled. Sweat made my grip on the gun unsteady.

One of the mutts snarled, signaling to the others to begin the attack. One of the other dogs leapt forward, toothy maw open wide. I screamed as it bit into my leg. Quickly I swung my gun around, pegging it straight in the skull. Brain and blood and bits exploded around me, on me. The other dogs jumped back for a moment, startled.

My mind raced as I frantically thought about the things I had learned from before.

Alpha, go for the Alpha.

Hurriedly I swung my gun around, turning my back on the other two and squeezed off three shots as the Alpha came into view. It whimpered and whined, going down but still alive. I felt a ripping at my clothes. Taking aim I shot the third mutt who crashed into the dust with some of my Vault suit still in its mouth. Defeated I did nothing but watch as the fourth ran away. Heartlessly I leveled my weapon and put another bullet into the Alpha, and another and another and another until my clip was spent.

I panted, already exhausted and it was only 8:03 in the morning. I sat beside the corpses for a moment as I loaded the last of my bullets into my clip; my thumb sore and pulsating by the time I had finished. My leg burned with pain as I struggled to stand but I couldn't bring myself to look down at the wound. My mind settled and I took the scene around me in. The desecrated body of the alpha dog was like a stab of reality. Never had I been a violent person, I had never taken a life before this. My hands shook hard as I put the gun away in the holster on my suit belt, taking a couple tries before it holstered. This was my new reality, this is my new life... This is...

"This is shit." I groaned, tears in my eyes as Ihobbled down the path to my old home.