Nora - The Sole Survivor

The Awakening

It was the coughing that she was aware of first, that woke her. followed almost immediately by the blaring alarm. Although later she knew it had been her own coughing, her body reacting to the intake of stale oxygen after not breathing for who knows how long. Her lungs protesting suddenly having to work again themselves.

As Nora's chest heaved with the wracking coughs she was vaguely aware of the pod door lifting open to release her.

At first, she wasn't aware of memory or where she was. She just clambered out still coughing and blinking to get her eyes to focus; falling to her hands and feet on the floor letting her lungs adjust to the air filling them.

Slowly she became aware of the blaring alarm notifying her to exit and looking up she saw the rows of metallic pods either side of her as her eyes widened with memory flooding her mind.

"No... nononono-" She gasped out as she crawled to the opposite pod.

With stiff unused fingers, she started frantically touching the pod where she knew Nate and Shaun to be. She pulled herself up with her faltering clutching hands till she could see through the frosted glass to the limp body inside. "Nate! Nonononono... How do I open this-"

Nora's voice was barely audible, more of a grunt than anything else. She knew it was like her muscles, just still to be practised after having been frozen. Nora slammed the pod in an effort to get it open, prying at the opening slot with still fumbling and shivering hands. Finally, as a sob left her she noticed the control panel to the right. Without wasting a second she activated it and felt relief as the pod door opened. Her heart was hammering in her chest and she was vaguely aware of tears running down her cheeks but she paid them no mind. Her focus intent on the form inside the pod as the door finally revealed him fully. With a small sob, she lurched towards her husband grab his wrist to pull him up. To wake him.

She knew really, deep inside her she knew he wouldn't wake.

She remembered the flashes of her brief woken period prior, of him being shot. But she wanted him to wake. She needed him to wake. Her heart wouldn't handle being without him. Her soul couldn't live without him.

As she felt his stiff frozen arm not giving she then prostrated herself over his body. For now, she knew it was just a body. It wasn't Nate anymore. Just a frozen, dead, body. She sobbed for she didn't know how long into his cold neck, clutching at his frozen shoulders. She felt paralysed with the realisation that her Nate was dead. Her husband was dead. Gone.

Her heartbreak was a physical pain inside of her. It tore her open and in two. How would she go on? Nate was her everything. He had saved her so many times over in the past. He was her rock, her soul. He was her very conscious, for without him darkness would overtake her.

Finally, as the ice started to permeate into her vault suit fabric she realised that she needed to leave. She was still cold and stiff and lying on top of a frozen mass wasn't helping her if she wanted to avoid hypothermia. She wondered briefly where the clarity of thought came from to calculate the needed information to survive but then shook her head in dismissal. With a final sniff, she stood up from the lap of her dead husband. She then saw the glistening of his wedding ring on his left hand beneath the frost, with a small sigh she pried the ring off from his finger and pocketed it. It was most likely the only thing of his that she would have. Besides Shaun. The instant flood of memory of her baby then staggered her. She needed to find her son!

With that decision, she leaned forward to plant a small last kiss on her husband's forehead to seal her promise and give farewell. "I'll find who did this, Nate... I will find Shaun. And they will pay."

Her voice was more steady this time, albeit still scratchy, but steady.

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Nora had to make her way through the vault with a lot of help from the walls. Her muscles were protesting this much activity after being frozen, but he didn't let it deter her. She had been even more shocked when she had realised she was the sole survivor. Everyone in the vault was dead. Frozen stiff in their failing pods. Why her pod had actually woken her up and opened she had no idea. And how long they had been down there was even more of a mystery. Looking at the rust and general feel of the desolation of the vault she guessed it to be quite a while.

She was glad when she had found the security baton. There was an air of eerie expectation in the vault that made her weary and peeking around corners as if something would jump her. A feeling that was confirmed when she saw what could only be described as a giant roach through the glass in one of the corridors she wondered through. After what was probably the fourth giant roach that she bludgeoned to death she came to a halt at the skeletal remains in front of her in the power room.

She had definitely been frozen for a very long time.

Nora closed her eyes firmly while trying to get her ragged breathing under control, fighting off the approaching panic attack. "Just a bit more, just a small bit farther Nora."

At last the encroaching darkness in her soul was pushed back and she opened her eyes once more. She couldn't let panic overtake her. Things had obviously gone very wrong after the bombs fell. The vault had also failed most definitely. She had no idea what, if anything, she would find outside. But if giant roaches were the order of the day down here, she could bet her arse that bigger things will then be out there. She would have to trample down her feelings. Her emotions. She would need to do what she must to find Shaun. To survive.

With that Nora squared her shoulders and with her still stiff muscles she opened the next door and stepped into the overseer's office.

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With her hands still trembling from the after effects of being frozen, Nora picked up the Vault-Tec issue Pip-Boy from the skeletal remains of the long dead vault worker. She swiped off the dust and then fastened it around her wrist with an impassive face. Forcing the images of the bodies and other remains from her mind. She had to stamp down all emotion she kept telling herself if she was to survive. With a firm step she then connected her Pipboy to the vault door operation panel, Nora gave a quick glance back at the vault to her left.

With a last lone tear that trekked down her cheek, she gave a silent tribute to all the lost souls that died in there.

Their bodies forever entombed in this place of cold steel. Lost. Alone. Forgotten.

Nora felt herself becoming paralysed of feeling as she let it all in. Letting herself become lost. Letting dark shadow creep closer to her soul. She let the grief go of losing Nate, let herself become cold, hard.

Then, numbed and cold she pressed the button and watched as the mechanisms slid into place to open the lift for her to ascend to the surface.

With stiff legs, she walked onto the lift, very aware with every step that she took that she would never come back here. Never come back to this tomb. Never come back to her husband. Never let herself feel the pain of losing her love again. Never be reminded that her soul was dead along with everyone else in this tomb.

The elevator activated and rose to the surface where sunlight blinded her, but she didn't duck or hide. She welcomed it with firm resolve as she let her eyes finally rest on what was the world now.

Bleak. Dead.

With her squared shoulders, and the 10mm firmly held up and ready, she gave her first step into the world, off from the platform. She needed to survive the world if only to find Shaun.

For she was Nora. The Sole Survivor of Vault 111.