[IC] Journey Across the Wasteland

[LissaLu]

It was cold, dark, and dusty in the air vent Silvie was hiding in, and her legs were starting to cramp up. It had been an hour since she had heard anything, so the invaders were surely gone by now right? Not being able to take laying still anymore, Silvie decided to take a chance and move the grate that was obscuring her so she could move around the room. As quickly and quietly as possible, Silvie crawled out and slid the grid back in place before standing up and attempting to dust herself off. It was still dead silent, to Silvie's relief, so she determined it would be safe enough to look for survivors.

As Silvie opened her door, her face contorted in horror. There were bodies everywhere. Corpses of her friends and neighbors strewn across the floor of every room she checked. Her parents bodies were the worst; they died embracing each other right outside her room. Silvie choked back as sob as she came to a realization: she had to leave, there was nothing here for her now.

Silvie returned to her room to grab a backpack so she could pack for her journey to get help, she didn't know much about the outside world, so being prepared couldn't hurt. The only things in her room of use to her was a half-full bottle of water and some snacks, so she haphazardly shoved the food in her bag and kept the water bottle in hand so she could fill it back up in the kitchen.

Readying herself, Silvie opened her door back open and carefully stepped over and around the bodies on the way to the kitchen, not looking at their faces or her bloodstained shoes to avoid crying again. As she made it to the kitchen, she saw the body of one of the intruders laying face down in front of the fridge with a pistol in his hand. His clothes were tattered and dirty, and his head was shaved, looking so different from the people of this vault. Silvie tried to avoid touching the dead man's feet as she stood over him, turning the faucet to let cold water into her bottle. Almost immediately after turning it off Silvie heard the noise of something moving around outside the kichen and she immediately eyed the gun. Was it another survivor? Or one of those murderers? Fearing the latter, she grabbed the pistol.

What stepped into the kitchen wasn't a human, but a cockroach the size of a large cat. At the sight of it Silvie stood frozen in fear before she let out an ear piercing scream. The bug then charged her and she tripped over the raider's legs as she tried to get away, landing on her ass as the roach got closer. In a panic, Silvie let out three shots from the gun, splitting the roach open with the one bullet that managed to hit. Not taking any chances of encountering another one, Silvie scrambled out of the kitchen and sprinted to the vault's entrance.

Rather than feeling relief when seeing the daylight stream in from the vault's blown-open entrance, she only felt a larger surge of Adrenalin to get out and get help. Who could she ask for help from now that everyone she knew was dead? What was kind of world was awaiting her if the monstrous bug from before was a byproduct of it? Once she was outside and could see past the glare of the harsh sun, Silvie saw that the world was far from the green and beautiful place she had been told about, but instead a barren wasteland that was scorched to a crisp.

The shock of the scenery was enough to get Silvie to stop dead in her tracks. How long has the world been like this? Was it like this when her family let little Adam be taken to live outside? Could he have even survived? The thought brought Silvie to her knees as she started to weep. Had the Great War really happened? She couldn't think of anything else that could make the land look this way other than nuclear fallout. As her world came crumbling down around her Silvie curled in on herself and continued to sob. She had been lied to, violated, everyone she cared about was dead, and she had been scarred for life by the sights she saw today.

After about 15 minutes of crying Silvie heard loud sniffing right against her ear. Startled, Silvie fell back onto her elbows and saw a friendly looking dog panting and waving it's tail as it looked at her.

"A...dog?" Silvie questioned aloud. An ordinary dog was the last thing she expected to see.

Clearly happy to be spoken to, the dog began to lick away at her tears until she stopped crying and instead cracked a smile and let out a weak laugh.

"H-hey, cut it out..." Softly scolded, attempting to hold the large back from smothering her before the glint of a name tag on his collar caught her eye. "Bruce." she read aloud. The dog suddenly stopped assaulting her with kisses and looked at her expectantly instead.

"You're all alone too, huh?" she asked Bruce while scratching behind his ear, "if a normal dog like you can make it out here then do you think it's possible that my brother could have too?"

While the dog didn't answer, Silvie thought on her question. She had just seen some humans from the outside a little over an hour ago, so that meant that not everyone was dead...and it wasn't like they had sent the 5 year old to live out on his own, there were people who came to get him...so there was actually a good chance that Adam was out there somewhere.

"Hey, Bruce, would you like to help me try and find someone?"

The dog wagged his tail in response, and that was a good enough answer for Silvie. She now had purpose to keep her going.

[Boodles]

Isaac walked steadily along a rocky cliffside. From what he had heard in the settlement he had just came from, the group of raiders he was tracking were last seen heading towards vault 200. The vast resources and often inexperienced occupants of vaults made them tempting targets for raiders, though they were rarely able to get past the vaults door. He figured that the group would likely be stuck in that exact way, and would be easing pickings from this ridge overlooking the vault. Rounding a cliffside corner, he saw the circular frame of the vault come into view, but to his surprise the gear shaped door itself was open.

"Shit, was I too late?," he muttered to himself. He took his hunting rifle off of his back and laid prone on the stone, pointing his gun towards the ajar door.

Gazing through his scope he studied the vault entrance. There was no movement, but looking into the vault he spotted a few limp corpses lying within the entrance. They had definitely been here. Now the question was, were they still inside? Closer inspection would be needed to find that out.

Just as Isaac was getting up to climb down the stony hill, a burst of movement came from within the vault. Quickly steadying himself again, Isaac tracked the figure in his lens. It was a young woman, and she frantically charged forward into the the light before collapsing to her knees. Her blue vault suit gave her away as a survivor. She sat there in the dirt, apparently sobbing. As he watched her, Isaac felt a cocktail of emotions begin to boil in his chest. Anger at the raiders for destroying the lives of the vault dwellers, frustration towards himself for not arriving sooner, but mostly guilt. He didn't have to be close to the girl to tell that she was unprepared for the devastation of the outside world, many vault dwellers are, but even from this distance he could feel that she was especially innocent. Her tears were not just for the devastation of her vault, but for the undoing of the world as she knew it.

While he contemplated these feelings, he saw something approaching her in the wastes. Were the raiders back for more? No, this thing was moving on all fours, and coming straight at her. He adjusted his scope, and took aim at the charging creature. As it closed in, he wrapped his finger around the trigger, but hesitated. It wasn't a wasteland beast that came towards her, but a dog. Dogs can still be dangerous of course, but this one appeared to comforting her instead of attacking. After a minute, she stood up and set off into the dust, dog in tow. Isaac's guilt and frustration were quickly replaced with panic. Charging into the wasteland unprepared rarely ended well for anybody. Getting down from the hill he was on would slow him down, but if he hurried he could hopefully catch up with her before she got into too much trouble.

[LissaLu]

Not really knowing where she was or what she was doing, Silvie had decided to follow after Bruce who seemed to be quite competent. Animals knew what to do in times of crises better than humans, right? Rather than heading straight down the road that led down the hill, the large dog instead began to sniff around into the the small trailer which had the control panel to the vault door. Tentatively she followed the dog up the rusty ramp inside and took a look around. The place looked trashed, not only by the bombs, but by human activity as well: things looked haphazardly thrown around, there were bullet holes in the terminal, and spray painted profanity decorated the walls...the whole thing made Silvie quite uncomfortable. She was about to turn around and leave before she heard Bruce scratching on something hard and plastic. Crouching down, Silvie looked under the counter to see Bruce trying to get into a plastic cooler...with his wide mouth, Bruce could have easily cracked the plastic box open, so Silvie assumed he didn't because he was smart enough to not risk harming the contents inside.

Sliding the cooler away from Bruce, Silvie undid the latch and opened it up to see some contents that were foreign to her. The first thing to catch her eye was a gun different to the one she had in her hand, this one looked far more primitive and patched together from excess parts. This interested Silvie, if she took it apart and saw how all the mechanisms connected, then maybe she could learn how to make a gun herself? It seemed a lot easier than trying to take the far better made pistol she already had. She decided to pocket the gun; while it caused a hard lump in her throat to form, she realized that killing was an integral part of this new world and she would need multiple guns for protection...plus if those Vault invaders came back, she wouldn't want them to have even more guns than they already had. In the cooler was also a couple boxes of ammo, both 10mm and .38 (she hoped at least one of those would go with her guns, because she had no idea), some medical pouches full of purple liquid labeled "Rad Away", and a jar labeled "Mentats".

After shoving all the contents into her backpack, Silvie also noticed a tin box taped shut and labeled "caps". She stood up with to box in hand, and while she didn't quite know what the purpose of the box was, she decided to keep it, as the box looked important. Also in the trailer was an emergency medical kit on the wall, which had some bandages, anti-septic, and three stimpacks inside. There was also a toolbox which contained a wrench, some screws, a screw driver, some bobbypins, and a roll of duck tape.

Bruce patiently waited of Silvie to finish looting before he led her back to the road so they could continue down the hill. While staring at his back as she followed, Silvie realized she had no idea what kind of dog Bruce could be. He didn't really look like any of the dogs that were in the Dog Breed book that was in the library back in her vault...could he be a mutt? A new breed? She was only distracted for a moment before an ominous loud buzzing sound and Bruce's growls snapped her out of her thoughts.

Hovering over a dead body was what appeared to be a giant mosquito. Silvie's legs buckled as Bruce lunged at the enormous bug, nearly missing one of it's spindly legs. The momentum kept the dog running, and Silvie shakily reached for one of the guns as the mosquito zeroed in on her and began to approach. She fired the gun in a panic and a spray of bullets erupted from the gun in a single click, shredding the mosquito to pieces, and showering blood everywhere. She didn't have time to process how different the new gun was from the one she used earlier, she was too focused on how much blood there was everywhere. One mosquito had drained an entire man dry. It had popped like a balloon and now it's lunch was all over her, the ground and her dog.

The sound of humming in the distance meant there were more of them, and her heart nearly stopped. She was going to die, wasn't she?