Backstory

The year is 2281, and the world has been more or less destroyed by a nuclear war that occurred in 2077. Entire countries were burned, and not a single one was spared. In the United States, traces of civilization have sprung up, a few notable ones being in the Washington DC area, the San Francisco area and Las Vegas, and the surrounding Mojave desert. The Strip, the main hub of the Mojave wasteland, built in the casinos of the old Las Vegas, is controlled by the mysterious Mr. House. He controlled the Strip using robots armed to the teeth with guns, and had a few deals with the larger factions of the Mojave, the NCR and the Legion. He was overthrown by one person, a Mojave Express courier who managed to reprogram his robot army and use them against him, killing him and eventually storming the Hoover Dam, which was the main flashpoint of fighting between the larger factions due to the power it could dispense. After the battle for the Dam, the Courier had killed Caesar and more or less destroyed his Legion, and killed General Oliver of the NCR, the man in command of the NCR in the Mojave. The Courier then assumed Mr. House's place as the ruler of New Vegas, enforcing his will with the help of his robot army. 20 years later, in 2301, the Mojave has almost completely been purged of any life. A strange cloud of poisonous gas dubbed "The Cloud" descended upon the New Vegas Strip, killing anybody who came into contact with it. With the gas came strange mutants called Tunnelers, hunched over black creatures whose skin was almost bulletproof. They quickly overwhelmed the NCR's forces, who tried to evacuate the Mojave, leaving the rest of the unharmed, and sane, survivors alone to fend for themselves against the Tunnelers and the people who had turned insane from the Cloud. The NCR's presence in the Mojave remained, albeit taking more of an introverted role than previously. They adopted a 'shoot on sight' doctrine to normal survivors, since some had a tendency to kill, pillage and burn anything they got their hands on. This story focuses on one particular survivor, and his journey through the desolate wastelands as he tries to keep a grip on his sanity and hopefully escape the Mojave.

The stench of death is overpowering. The Mojave wastes have always had a certain aroma of death, blood baked into the sand, but there in the supposed "safehouse", the smell was amplified. The source of the smell was definitely the mass of flesh and blood in the main room, reminiscent of something from a slasher flick. Atop the pile of cartilage and flesh lay a man, his body folded up like he'd been tossed onto the pile by something or someone. He looks to be in his late 30s, with long unkempt brown hair and a beard to match. He has a couple scars on his cheek, easily visible on his pale skin. The man appears to be wearing only a tanktop and underwear, which have now been drenched with blood. The man appears to be alive, taking shallow breaths. He lays face up, and his eyelids are closed. Despite this, his eyes are flickering around, he's obviously conscious. After a while he opens his eyes, gasping. He takes a few seconds to calm himself, looking around the room.

The room looks like it was some kind of civilian bunker before the war, the kind that people in the suburbs used to pay top dollar to have installed in their basement. There are a few cabinets and shelves around the room, but they hold nothing but dust, obviously been picked clean previously. Aside from those, there are two bed frames in one half of the room, one with a mattress on it, with springs poking through, threatening to scratch up whoever was foolish enough to lay on it and probably give them a severe case of tetanus. Against one of these beds, the one with the mattress on, is slumped another body, the body of a younger looking woman. Her skin is black, that of an African American. She is wearing a white, blood-drenched shirt with a satchel slung over her shoulder, resting at the waist. Almost her entire torso and her legs are covered in blood, still dripping from the open gash in the front of her head. The gash looks like it had been caused by some kind of large blade, and more or less disfigured her facial features beyond repair. On the stairs leading up to the above-ground section of the safehouse lay another corpse, this one of a young boy, looks no older than a teenager. He is laying on his stomach, and is wearing a torn red hoody with jeans. His back has a hole in it, looks like it had been caused by the same weapon used to cleave open the poor woman's skull. The kid is posed out as if he was trying to crawl up the stairs when someone killed him, his hand still clasping at one of the steps. The bearded man looks between the woman and the kid groggily. He appears to know the woman, but does not recognise the boy. He sits up and looks her over, sighing heavily.

"Annie... fuck..."

The man speaks with the accent of someone from around Washington DC, he's a long way from home.

He rubs his head, standing up and checking her over. He opens her satchel up and pulls out a small piece of cloth, wrapped around something. He unfurls it to find a needle filled with a dull orange liquid, a small cork on the end of the needle to prevent it from jabbing through the cloth. The man sighs again, rolling the needle back up.

He knows exactly what it is, the woman had called it her "escape plan", which in the Mojave could only mean one thing: it was some form of deadly poison, for the user to take their own life in extreme circumstances. He takes the needle and starts looking around the room for his gear. After a brief rummage he arms himself with a lead pipe with a jagged, sharp end, and manages to find a pair of old, dusty, weather-beaten jeans. They appear to be his, as they fit him. He can't find the rest of his gear in the room, they must have been removed.

As he passes the kid on the stairs, he hears the door at the top of them rattling, the knob turning as someone opens it. He grasps the pipe in his hands, getting into a defensive position. The door opens and a figure emerges from the dustclouds that seeped through the door. The figure is wearing a brown duster trenchcoat, over tribal armour, made from cloth and leather. He has war-paint on his face, and looks like some kind of Native American. At first he doesn't notice the man on the stairs, getting halfway down before stopping and looking at the man. He gasps loudly, obviously in tribal stutters, backing up a little.

"Y-Y-You... how are you alive..."

The tribal rummages in the duster, trying to grasp at the machete on his belt. He doesn't get far, as the man lunges at him with the pipe, growling. The tribal lets out a surprised yelp as the man's pipe finds it's way into his throat, the sharp end digging deep into his flesh, causing blood to trickle out. The man shoves the tribal past him, causing him to topple down the stairs uncontrollably before landing on his head on the bottom step, letting out a sickening crunch as his neck snaps. The man looks down at the now dead tribal, breathing heavily with a look of disgust on his face. He walks down and grabs the duster off the corpse, throwing it on over his bloodstained tanktop. He loots the tribal, finding a small pouch of a sweet smelling herb, he can vaguely remember someone saying it was "healing powder" previously, and a hunk of meat in a cloth. It looks like flesh, but upon closer inspection there is a human finger lodged in the middle of the meat. The man looks at it and scowls in disgust.

"Ah Christ. Sick bastard..."

He takes the machete that the tribal had, and stuffs it into his belt. He turns and walks up the stairway to the door. He takes one last look at the corpses in the room, from his now deceased girlfriend Annie, to the kid he'd never met before, to the tribal, and opens the door, stepping out of the safehouse and out into the Mojave air, covering his eyes with his hand so the sun doesn't singe them out.