Honest Hearts

Black Heart beats again

...
It's....s-so...c-cold
...
Why...w-why is it so cold?
It...h-hurts...it all h-hurts
...
Why...p-please, let me out
Let me out please
Please...please....PLEASE
i-...why am I being hurt? Did I do something wrong? Did I hurt somebody? Please...make it stop...

"Aight...what is there to grab"
A middle-aged shaved head man said, to himself no doubt as he explored the run down Vault.
Full of rusted and broken down tech, humming as he looked for things to loot, picking up a crate before something hissed, thinking it was a rat he shot up back to his feet, now looking towards the source of the noise with alarmed eyes before calming down, seeing a cryo storage pod "... what's one of these doing here? Aren't those for storing food?"
He walked on over, the tubes were loose and hissing out freezing gasses and coolant.

He hummed before pulling down his dark grey sleeves and using them to wipe off the frost to see what was inside...he froze himself but more metaphorically as he peered inside...and the cargo peered right back, with big wide alarmed eyes, golden yellow, practically almost like they were glowing...for a moment he thought the person inside was long dead...
Until the eyes blinked.

He shoved the crowbar into the hatch port of the impromptu cryo tube and forced the hatch open, making it swing open and spewing out frozen gas out into the open air like a fog.
The occupant falling to the ground and taking in pained gulps of air and coughing dryly, sounding like they were going to throw up but nothing coming out.

They were shivering uncontrollably, they had no shirt but luckily they still had rigid shorts on...several surgical scars were on them but one thing stood prominent was what looked to be...a company logo? Or something? Whatever it was it was a snake head with wings on it, gold and pure white was tattooed onto this boys back who had to be no older than nine or ten.
And several lines of numbers were at the bottom of it.

The man was shaken out of his stupor as he took off his coat and wrapped it around the boy, now feeling a sense of duty as he carried the frail and weakened child out of the room...

"Alright boys, what did you get now?" The tall and fat old man asked, he had a belly that wouldn't go away, a thin white beard and a bald freckled head.
He wore overalls like the rest of this crew of scavengers, wearing yellow or brown overalls and had shaved heads, carrying out sacks of collected loot, most was just salvageable tech as per usual "I got a scroll"
"I got a TV"
"I only got some tablets"
"I got a whole ass child!"
"What!?"

The man ran in with his coat wrapped around the shivering mass in his arms, the crew taken aback while the old man, without a doubt the leader hummed "...nice find...good to sell off to slavery-"
"Nah, look at the kid, probably gonna die from frostbite any moment from the way he's shivering"
"Look look" said the Savior as he kept the kid close "let's- just drop the kid off at a Menagerie or somethin-"
"What aye say 'bout souvenirs lad?"
"'if it don't make money don't snatch it' I heard ya but we'll be stopping for fuel while heading back to bases and the nearest place has a Menagerie, won't even notice!"
"...fine, but keep the runt from making any trouble, and we ain't buying them snacks"
"R-right sir!" They said obediently as the ringleader grunted "whelp, we got what we could, let's go" they said before walking back out the entrance to which sunlight was pouring through.
The other cronies looked at the man with the kid with odd looks, not knowing what he was doing but said nothing all the same, simply walking out as be jogged to the large truck they had.

The poor lads teeth were chattering like no tomorrow, like he was some wind up toy or something...but luckily before long he slowly stopped and passed out, now looking peaceful but still troubled, having aching muscles no doubt after being frozen for so long...