A/N: Hello there. I've been reading fanfiction for about 10 years, but this is my first attempt at writing one. Constructive criticism is very welcome, as my main reason for writing this fic (other than my own personal enjoyment) is to improve my writing.
Although I've been playing Fallout since 3, this fic was inspired by my vault in Fallout Shelter. As such, the vault number and the names of all the vault dwellers come from my own vault. I don't claim to be an expert on Fallout lore (despite having poured hundreds of hours into several of the games) so I apologize for any glaring inaccuracies you may find. Point them out, if you like, and I may try to fix them. Also, I have no plans as of yet to include any known areas or characters in this fic, so if that's a turnoff this is not the fic for you. Enjoy!
Warnings: Strong language, violence, romance between two women (will probably add more depending where the story takes me)
Chapter 1: Graduate
This was it. This was day they'd been preparing for since they were children. Scout Force Alpha, the name given to them by the Overseer, was emblazoned on the banner over their heads. There were others, of course, but they were the first squad that the Overseer felt was ready, and she didn't make any decision lightly. Especially not one so vital to the survival of the vault.
So, thought Evelyn glumly as she adjusted and readjusted the straps of her pack. Shouldn't I feel a little more prepared? She swallowed thickly and tried to hold back the wave of panic that was threatening to overwhelm her.
They were standing at the head of the meeting hall, her and the other two members of Alpha Squad. They were a small group, but their textbooks had all said that small numbers were essential for an effective scouting force. And, really, books were the only reliable source of information they had on the subject, given that no one had left the vault in over 200 years. They would be the first, sent to gather information on an unknown world that even their grandparents had never seen.
Yeah, no pressure or anything.
The Overseer was just beginning her farewell speech. All eyes were trained on her and, as they were standing directly to her left, on them. Evelyn knew she should be standing at attention, but her nerves made her fidget restlessly. A stern look from her father made her still for a moment, but she was soon clenching her fists and shifting her weight from foot to foot, anxiety written all over her face.
A hand settling on her shoulder made her turn her head, and an understanding smile beneath a pair of sparkling blue eyes did the job that nothing else could. Evelyn took a deep breath and nodded, returning the smile weakly. She clasped her hands behind her back, finally standing at attention, and felt the hand retreat as her companion did the same. She could still feel the warmth the hand had left behind, though, and she focused on that to keep her from panicking all over again.
She was damn lucky that Danielle would be there with her every step of the way. She'd never make it through, otherwise. You wouldn't be going at all if it weren't for Dani, said a voice inside her head. She studiously ignored that voice, because it liked to spout all sorts of uncomfortable things at the most inconvenient times. Like, when she was supposed to be listening to the Overseer, for instance.
"-present to you, Vault 687's first ever Scout Force." The Overseer paused while everyone applauded, then raised a hand to both silence the crowd and signal one of them forward. "Noah Frosts," came first.
He was a sturdy young man of about 20, stood at around 6'3", and his blonde hair was cropped close on the sides, but allowed to curl a bit on the top. He gave the assembled dwellers an easy smile that revealed even, white teeth as he stepped toward the Overseer. He was the picture of a Vault Boy made real, and he received a loud cheer from the crowd as the Overseer pinned a small Alpha symbol onto his jumpsuit.
Their suits had been modded with armor from the security force. Not enough to slow them down, but enough to make them feel a little more secure as they went out into the unknown. They'd also been dyed black, something that Evelyn was extremely grateful for. She had no idea what the world looked like out there, but she was hard pressed to imagine the bright blue of a vault jumpsuit fitting in against any of the landscapes she'd seen in her schoolbooks growing up. Except, maybe, a winter scene.
The thought made her nervous again. She'd heard about nuclear winter—but surely the effects of the radiation would have dissipated by now? But they didn't really know that, did they?
Absorbed in the troubling thought, it took her a moment to realize that the Overseer was motioning her forward. Noah gave her a little shove as the Overseer chuckled.
"Evelyn Parker—no need to be nervous," she said goodnaturedly, but her eyes were hard. Evelyn swallowed again and stepped forward obediently. The Overseer put a great deal of importance on ceremony, and Evelyn was acutely aware that she was making a mess of things. She was glad that her blush would be hidden by her caramel colored skin, a blessing bestowed upon her by her mother.
Evelyn was short, and seemed especially so when compared to her squadmates. She was about 5'2", and had a thin, wiry frame that belied her strength. Her hair was black and stick-straight and came to just below her jaw. She tried to smile as Noah had done, but it probably came across as a sort of grimace.
The crowd cheered for her as well, though not as much as they had for Noah, and the Overseer gave her an appraising look as she pinned her Alpha symbol into place. She was sure that the only reason she'd been allowed the privilege of being an Alpha Squad member was that she was the best shot in the vault. (Though, as their instructor was quick to remind them, hitting a moving target within a secure facility was one thing, and fending off something big and hairy that was bearing down on you was another.)
Her test scores didn't hurt either, as she was consistently at the top of the class in both the medical and wilderness survival fields. Public relations, however... well, she'd been explicitly warned that she was to let her squadmates do the talking on the slim chance that there was anyone living up there. She took her place beside Noah again as "Danielle Hardy," was called forward.
She stood at an impressive 5'11", and had a more classically feminine frame than Evelyn. The crowd gave their biggest cheer yet when she stood next to the Overseer, and Danielle beamed. She could light up a room, that one. Her teeth weren't perfect like Noah's, Evelyn mused, in fact she had a sizable gap between her front teeth, but instead of being offputting it was endearing.
Everything about Dani is endearing, the accursed voice chimed in. Evelyn was once again grateful for her skintone as Dani pulled her dirty blonde ringlets out of the way to provide the Overseer with a place to put her pin. That done, Danielle stepped back and the Overseer turned to the microphone once more.
"The members of Alpha Squad have been training for—"
Once she was certain their part was over, Evelyn tuned out again. She'd heard the speech many times already. The Overseer was a stickler for rehearsals. The applause which marked the end of her speech brought Evelyn out of another bout of anxiety, this time over whether their water rations were really sufficient because, although they were each carrying 2 gallons and a filter that could remove anything down to .02 microns, including radiation, what if they couldn't find a water source?
The Overseer held up a hand to silence the crowd once more, and turned to face the Alpha Squad. This hadn't happened in their rehearsals, and Evelyn had to focus very hard on not fidgeting.
"What each of you has volunteered to do for the good of the vault is truly remarkable, and your bravery is an inspiration to us all. Godspeed."
She shook each of their hands as they stepped down from the small platform, and Evelyn tried to wipe the sweat from her palm as discreetly as she could before it was her turn. She wasn't sure she succeeded, though, because the Overseer gave her the same searching look as before.
Then they were being escorted from the meeting hall and into a small room where their families soon joined them for a last goodbye. Evelyn hugged her two younger siblings, Kyle and Janice, murmuring assurances that she'd see them again soon and trying to ignore the tears in her sister's eyes. She hugged her mother next, and it was harder to ignore the tears there. She gave an extra hard squeeze and another promise of her safe return, then turned to her father. Here she hesitated, because he wasn't really the hugging type, but was saved the decision when he pulled her into his arms for a quick but heartfelt hug.
"Do us all proud, Evie," he said.
"I will," she assured him, and saying the words aloud helped to calm her nerves a little. Their mission was a simple one, reconnaissance, but it was out of necessity. The vault simply couldn't survive for another generation on the supplies they had remaining, so venturing out was the only recourse they had. And, since the one camera outside the door had stopped working about 160 years ago, they had absolutely no idea what they'd find out there. The information that they brought back would be vital for all future excursions, recon or otherwise.
Again, no pressure.
Evelyn's eyes flicked to Danielle, who was in an animated discussion with her younger brother, Greg, about the kind of creatures she expected to find outside. Her parents were standing by, chuckling a little, but not enough to completely mask their anxious expressions.
Meanwhile, Noah was glommed onto his girlfriend, Ruth, in a spectacular display of public affection that made everyone within a ten foot radius extremely uncomfortable, especially his parents.
They were given a two minute warning and Evelyn's attention snapped back to her own family. A burning sensation began in the corners of her eyes but she fought it back, refusing to cry in front of everyone, especially her father. She wasn't a helpless little girl anymore. She was representing the entire vault now. She reminded herself of that even as she gave everyone another hug and they exchanged goodbyes and I love yous.
Then she, Dani, and Noah (the latter of which had to be forcibly removed from his girlfriend's face), were being escorted out of the room and through a door none of them had ever been through before, down another hallway, up an elevator, and into a big room with a massive, gear-shaped door that could only lead outside.
Here they were left behind with nervous smiles and good wishes as all but one of the guards retreated back into the elevator. The remaining guard, who seemed to be sweating profusely, waited until the elevator reached the bottom before inserting a holotape into the big, raised control panel in the middle of the room and, after a deep breath, pulling the lever.
There was an unearthly screeching noise as mechanisms that had been unused for hundreds of years roared to life and rolled the door—their greatest protecting force—out of the way.
They stood there in a silence that was almost as deafening as the cacophony that had come before it, and stared... out. It was dark, lit only by the the light flowing from the open door, but the rough floor and walls that could be seen could only be made of stone.
"A cave," Evelyn murmured, and the others glanced at her. She fiddled with her backpack's straps, almost as uncomfortable with their attention as she had been with the entire vault's mere minutes ago. Then it occurred to her that they would need a light, so she reached down and punched a button on her pipboy, which lit up and added a green tinge to everything around them.
Danielle smiled. "Good thinking," she said, and she and Noah lit theirs as well.
Despite this, no one seemed eager to take the first step toward the door. The guard was getting impatient (and had moved from mere fright into the region of terror) and began lecturing them on all of the bacteria they might be letting inside with every moment of hesitation. Evelyn grunted at this, since any damage that could be done would have already been done as soon as the door cracked open.
She felt a hand press against hers and jumped a little in surprise, giving Dani a curious look before taking it. When she looked down she saw that Dani had also taken Noah's hand, which stilled the fluttering that had begun in her gut. Dani gave them both a grin and a reassuring squeeze before taking the first step and basically dragging them along with her.
This was probably why the Overseer had made Dani the head of Alpha squad. Not only was she incredibly charismatic, she just didn't let things get to her. She could be plunked into any situation and she would try her best with a smile on her face, and convince others to do the same. She made it all seem so effortless, which was amazing to Evelyn, who tended to stress over every little thing.
They crossed the threshold that way, hand-in-hand, and experienced the strangeness of the rough, uneven ground and stale air together before letting go. The guard wasted no time pushing the lever back into place, and as they turned to watch the door roll back, cutting off access to what had, until a few moments ago, been their entire world, Evelyn felt a mad desire to jump back inside.
Then she felt Dani's hand in hers again, and turned to see that same understanding smile, and she let out a breath she didn't know she'd been holding. The door clicked into place, and all was silent again.
"Thanks," she murmured.
Dani squeezed her hand once more. "No problem."
She hadn't grabbed Noah's hand this time, Evelyn noted, and just like that the fluttering was back.
"Smells awful in here," Noah observed.
"Really? I think it's kinda nice. Different," Dani said. She pulled her hand away so that she could touch the wall, and Evelyn allowed herself only a moment of wistfulness before doing the same.
Noah snorted. "You're different."
Evelyn scowled at him, but Dani just laughed.
"This is crazy... can you believe that we're actually outside? I mean, I know we've been training for it for years, but..."
Evelyn nodded in agreement. It felt very surreal, standing there in those dark, strange surroundings, without the constant hum of machinery and the whoosh of circulating air. She was beginning to feel very stifled when Noah suggested they move on, and she eagerly agreed.
They moved as a unit, slowly and carefully, with Noah taking point and Evelyn and Danielle bringing up the rear. There was nothing to see for a while, not even any branches in the path for them to puzzle over. Evelyn took a moment to ponder what the ramifications would be if they came to a dead end, but after a bit the ground began to slope upwards, and before they knew it they could see light leaking in from above.
"Is that... sunlight?" Evelyn whispered.
"Quick, turn off your lights," Dani prompted.
Evelyn complied, but Noah gave her a look.
"Why? We're not even out yet, I don't wanna trip over—"
"C'mon, you can see well enough without it now. I want to be surprised," she said with a grin.
Noah muttered something about being surprised he'd been stuck out here with her, but pressed the button to turn off his light anyway. They continued their ascent for a minute more before they reached the opening of the cave. Noah stopped abruptly and the others hurried forward to join him.
The world stretched out in front of them.
The ground was mostly a hodgepodge of brown, tan, and gray tones, but the sky... the sky was so blue, and so immense. Evelyn felt a little like she could drown in the vastness of it all, and wished Dani would grab her hand again, but she was too busy taking everything in herself.
"...Shit," Noah breathed.
Evelyn echoed the sentiment internally.
"Everything's dead," he said in a quiet voice.
Evelyn tore her gaze from that endless sky, and the bright yellowish-white circle that was the sun, and examined their surroundings. It was true that, at first glance, it appeared barren. The trees were gnarled and looked as though they'd been dead for... well, about 200 years. But here and there there were bushes with, although not green leaves (like those of the plants that grew in the vault's hydroponic gardens), at least leaves, and she even spotted a couple of flowers struggling to eke out a living in the harsh landscape.
"No... not everything. See the flowers?" she pointed and the others followed her gaze.
"Oh, how pretty!" Dani cooed.
Noah rolled his eyes.
Evelyn shifted uncomfortably, though she knew he didn't mean anything by it. It wasn't that Noah and Dani didn't like each other. They got along just fine. This was just their dynamic. Dani was positive and upbeat, and Noah made cutting remarks which would make Dani laugh, and then Noah would smile because seriously, nobody can hear Dani laughing and not smile. Even the thought of it made the corners of Evelyn's mouth twitch.
It was probably strange, considering Dani was their commanding officer, but the three of them had grown up together. They knew all of each other's annoying habits and mannerisms, had shared good and bad times... they'd gone through puberty together, for God's sake. Any hope for detached professionalism between them was a pipe dream, no matter what the Overseer encouraged. It was almost like they were siblings.
So these are just sisterly feelings you have for Dani, huh? chimed the voice. Evelyn ignored it. She dearly hoped that if she ignored it for long enough, it would go away. Funny, that's the same thing you've been hoping about the feelings, isn't it?
"Oh, shut up," Evelyn mumbled under her breath. The others either didn't notice, or were used to her whispering things to herself. Most likely the latter. She knew she did so more than was probably healthy.
Dani was, again, the first to step outside. They were at the top of a small slope, overlooking a little valley, and she made her way to the bottom of it with the other two following a couple steps behind. Evelyn made sure to open the map on her pipboy, which, although incredibly outdated, had a GPS system that showed your position at all times. She made a mark on the map to show the entrance to their vault, then opened a different feature, one that allowed you to create a new map using the pipboy's own mapping software.
She held her pipboy at chest height and did a slow 360, then checked the results. It had worked well enough, giving a rough, small-scale map of their immediate surroundings, but it would have to be done from higher ground if she wanted a wider viewpoint and more accurate data. She marked the vault's location on the new map as well and, after a bit of searching, she found what she was looking for. There was an outcropping of rocks a ways up the hill to the left. If she stood on the top and did it again, she'd get a much better reading.
She was already on her way up the hill when Noah called after her.
"Hey, you ditching us already, brainiac?"
Evelyn stopped abruptly. She'd completely forgotten protocol. She turned to face them, totally embarrassed, only to see Dani had almost caught up with her already.
"S'not our fault you're so slow, Noah!" she taunted, giving Evelyn a conspiratorial wink.
For the third time that day Evelyn was glad that her blush was invisible.
Noah grumbled and followed after them while Evelyn explained her plan.
"Another good idea, Evie," Dani beamed, and Evelyn walked with a little extra bounce in her step after that.
They made it to the rocks uneventfully, and Evelyn took a moment to snap a branch off of a nearby bush and poke into a few of the crevices before she began climbing. She didn't know if snakes were still a thing, but considering all the warnings about their venom they'd had in survival classes, she thought she'd rather not find out the hard way.
Noah and Dani waited for her down below while she took her reading, which only updated the current map rather than overwriting it completely. She examined the new, much bigger map for a moment before climbing down to rejoin her companions. She didn't have to do big readings like that every time she wanted to update the map, because, if she had the feature activated, it would constantly collect data everywhere she went. Still, it was the best way to get a good chunk of land mapped out without having to do quite so much walking, so she felt it would be worth it to stop every so often and do a scan. She told the others as much, and they agreed, though Noah murmured a bit about how, yeah, they'd all taken the same classes and they knew how to work a pipboy, thank you very much.
Now, the question was, where to first?
They had orders to find the nearest water source, but Evelyn hadn't seen one from up on the rock. What she had seen were some ruins, which piqued everyone's interest, so they decided to head in that direction.
"What kinda ruins are we talking about?" Noah asked as they headed down one slope and up another. "Town? City?"
"Nothing that big. It just looked like a few isolated buildings... maybe a farm?" said Evelyn.
Noah grunted. "Lotta luck they'd have farming in this." He scuffed the hard soil with his boot, sending a cloud of dust in Dani's direction.
"Hey—" she began to protest, but ended up sneezing loudly instead. The sound echoed off of the surrounding hills like a gunshot and they all glanced around nervously.
"...Damn, Hardy, way to tell the whole world we've arrived," said Noah.
Evelyn swatted his shoulder. "As if that wasn't entirely your fault."
Noah opened his mouth to argue (or possibly to concede the point, but Evelyn doubted it), when a loud cracking noise, followed by an unearthly roar made them all freeze.
"I think... we should find some cover," Dani suggested quietly.
Evelyn nodded and did a quick survey of their surroundings. The cave mouth was now several hundred yards behind them, and going for it would put them right out in the open. Not to mention, lead whatever-it-was right to their (still very closed) front door. As it was they were near the crest of a hill with nothing around them but dirt, scrub, and a tree so withered even a child playing hide-and-seek would be hard pressed to choose it.
Evelyn motioned for the others to get down. They did so without complaint because although, technically, she was the low man on the totem-pole, this was exactly the kind of situation that had secured her a spot on their squad. She crept to the top of the hill on all fours, silent as a ghost, as the unmistakable sound of battle began above them. She stiffened when she saw what was causing the disturbance, then backed down the hill impossibly slowly. When she was level with her squadmates again she just shook her head at their questioning looks and motioned for them to follow her as quietly as they could.
They began a slow, circuitous route around the hill, with Evelyn taking point this time. They'd made it a quarter of the way around when two more loud cracking noises split the air—closer, this time. Close enough that they could hear the crumbling that followed. Evelyn was sweating heavily, and her squadmates were following suit as their imaginations ran wild.
When the ruins were in sight, Evelyn steered them in that direction. Her fragile sense of calm and determination lasted until they heard the roar again. From right behind them.
"Run," she whispered.
Noah took off in front—he was the fastest, thanks to his long legs—and made it to the ruins first. Somewhere in the back of her mind (one of the few areas that wasn't focused on moving her legs as fast as humanly possible) Evelyn noted that she'd been right—the building that Noah entered appeared to be a farmhouse. Or, at least, it had been in the distant past. Noah searched for a way up while his squadmates caught up to him. After discovering that the staircase was completely demolished, he waved them over to a place where a mostly-intact table stood under a hole in the ceiling and took turns boosting each of them up. It took their combined efforts to pull him up after them, but they managed.
Evelyn immediately began searching for a way higher up, or at least for something to block the hole. She found an old mattress and Noah helped her to drag it over the hole. That done, they sat quietly at Evelyn's signal and just listened.
When five minutes had passed with no change, Dani decided it was safe to speak, albeit quietly.
"What was it? I didn't want to chance looking."
"Yeah, what the hell just happened?" Noah chimed in.
Evelyn shook her head. The adrenalin was wearing off and she was only just starting to process what she'd seen herself, but she owed them an explanation, so she cleared her throat and began.
"It was... like nothing I've ever seen. The closest thing from our books... you remember that picture book we had in nursery? The one about dinosaurs?"
Noah and Dani shared a look. "...Are you saying we just got chased by a dinosaur?" Noah asked, disbelief dripping from every syllable.
"I'm saying I have no fucking idea what that thing was, but it was big, with these huge horns," she gestured wildly as she spoke. It was a testament to how shaken she was that she swore, and Noah sobered up quickly. "And it looked sort of reptilian, or like... like a demon. And it was fighting something else—something like... I've seen them before in our books, I forget what they're called. They're kind of like a spider, but they have this tail thing that has venom?"
"A scorpion?" Dani supplied. She'd always been interested in animals.
"Yeah! That's it. It was a scorpion. A massive scorpion. Like, at least six feet long. Bigger, with the tail. And covered with a thick carapace—these would've done nothing against it, let alone the dinosaur thing," she said, patting the 10mm pistol that was holstered at her hip. They'd all been issued one, as well as a box of ammunition each. The Overseer had entrusted them with a huge amount of non-renewable resources, and an equally huge responsibility. If they died out here, the vault would be taking an enormous loss.
"Well, shit," said Noah.
That sentiment just kept getting more and more appropriate.
"What're we gonna do? We can't go wandering around when there are things like that out here," Noah said, turning to Dani.
"We can't go back yet," she replied smoothly. "The vault is depending on us. They've given us the best that they have to offer, we owe it to them to do the same."
Evelyn blinked. It wasn't unusual for Dani to do that—seemingly read her mind. It had been like that since they'd been kids. Still, it caught her off guard sometimes.
Noah sighed. "Dammit, Hardy, why d'you gotta be so goddamn noble all the time?"
Dani grinned. "It comes with the position."
"Thank God the Overseer didn't choose me, then."
"She knew no one would want to be on a squad you were in charge of. They'd mutiny in the first ten minutes," Evelyn said. That made Dani laugh, which in turn made Evelyn laugh. Noah joined them when Dani started snorting, and because he was generally a good sport when it came to criticism. Sure, he complained and sniped constantly, but he could take as good as he gave.
It was good to laugh, even if it was in a muffled, desperately-trying-to-hold-it-in-so-that-you-don't-get-mauled-by-whatever-the-hell-that-thing-is-outside kind of way. It dispelled some of the terror that had been clawing at Evelyn's heart, which allowed her to focus. When their laughter died down she really examined their surroundings for the first time. They were on the second floor of a wooden house that was standing remarkably well for its age. That is to say, it was listing enough that if she'd dropped a pen it would've rolled all the way to the crumbling lathe-and-plaster wall to her right, but still, it was standing, which was impressive after 200 years.
"Let's spread out and look around," Dani suggested. "Grab anything that looks useful."
Evelyn thought privately that anything useful would have been scavenged long ago, but then, they didn't know that there was anyone left out here to scavenge, did they? The thought depressed her, so she made her way silently down the sloping hallway and into the first room on the right, where she'd found the mattress before. Dani took the room on the left, and Noah tackled the one where they'd begun.
The room had been a bedroom once. (The mattress had been her first clue.) She navigated around broken glass from the blown-out window and rifled through toys and linens that were covered with dust and rubble. A child's room, then. The thought made her sad for some reason, although logically she knew that whoever it was that had lived here would've been long dead even if there had been no war. Still, she thought as she dusted off a worn, moth-eaten teddy bear, somebody ought to mourn this child who had lived in a world so full of promise and had probably died in horrible circumstances.
The thought was confirmed when Dani appeared in the doorway moments later, a little pale, and announced that she'd found the family.
"They're in there all huddled together—the parents and their kids... I know they're just bones, but..." she shuddered.
Evelyn wanted to reach out and take her hand, to offer the same comfort Dani so readily gave to her, but she couldn't bring herself to do it. Instead, she mumbled something about being sorry that Dani had to see that and told her they could search the next room together. There was nothing to find in here but sad memories that didn't belong to her. Dani nodded and they went to the next room on the right, which turned out to be a bathroom.
The toilet was cracked in half, and Evelyn idly wondered how that could even happen when the rest of the room seemed to be intact, but Dani drew her attention when she held up a handful of stimpacks she'd found in the medicine cabinet.
"Score!" she said, beaming. Evelyn nodded enthusiastically. Stimpacks were one of the resources they were running low on in the vault, so the find was especially significant.
The last room, another bedroom, held nothing particularly useful, but Evelyn found one book that wasn't completely destroyed and slipped it into her pack. Dani just smiled at her. Evelyn was well known for being a bookworm, and she'd exhausted the vault's library several years ago. The prospect of some new literature was almost as exciting to her as the stimpacks had been.
They rejoined Noah in the big room and he showed them his finds—a battered magazine on electronics that Evelyn carefully stowed next to her new book, an ancient and highly suspect box of Sugar Bombs, and a bottle of Buffout he'd found in the back corner of a closet.
That done, they sat and decided to hash out a plan. They couldn't go back to the vault, but they couldn't just wander around aimlessly. The sun was creeping higher in the sky. They'd started out of the vault at 6 am, what they had understood to be sunrise, though none of them had ever seen the sun until today. It was now 9, according to Evelyn's pipboy, and it was getting very hot. The prospect of going out into the sweltering heat wasn't pleasant, even if there hadn't been dinosaurs and giant bugs out there.
But they couldn't just sit there and do nothing, Dani insisted, so Evelyn suggested climbing up on the roof to get a better look around them (and to make sure that the dinosaur was really gone). Dani was hesitant, not wanting to draw attention to themselves and wondering about the stability of the roof. Noah flat-out refused, citing his fear of heights. Evelyn vividly remembered the time he'd fallen from the vault's second-floor balcony and broken his arm, so she couldn't fault him. In the end they decided that Evelyn would go, since she was the lightest and most agile of the three.
"Be careful," Dani warned her as she hung halfway out the window. She smiled reassuringly and caught hold of the overhang, first testing it to see if it would hold her weight before letting her legs fall free and pulling herself up. She cautiously made her way up to the peak of the roof, panting now that she was feeling the full brunt of the sun's force, then stopped to take in their surroundings.
The view from up here was great, much better than it had been on the rock, and she took a moment to do a careful 360 scan for her map. It showed an interesting cluster to the east, and she shielded her eyes, wishing she had a pair of the sunglasses she'd seen in one of the movies the vault had on file, as she scoured the landscape in that direction.
A cloud passed over the sun and she saw it: a town. It had to be. There were at least two dozen buildings surrounded by a high wall. The cloud moved and everything reflected the sun at her, barring any further inspection. So they were made from metal, or at least something reflective, unlike the building she was standing on now. The realization excited her, because she'd never seen a metal house in any of the vault's movies. Was it possible that there were survivors? That people had been living on the surface all this time?
She scanned the rest of their surroundings carefully, inhaling sharply when she spotted two dinosaurs to the southwest. They were busy chowing down on the remains of a giant scorpion. There were pieces of other scorpions strewn about, and with a sinking feeling she saw that there were more dinosaurs resting in the shade of a rock nearby. There was a whole nest of the things, apparently. And they just happened to be located right between her squad and their vault.
A/N 2: Electric Boogaloo: There you have it! I do plan to continue, but as I am currently living in rural Tanzania and have dubious internet connection at best, please be patient with me. Also, I happen to be incredibly lazy. Feel free to nag me incessantly (hold on, let's clarify that: nag me incessantly within reason) if you enjoyed the story. Reviews welcome. Thanks for reading!
