The apocalypse changes a man, even if the apocalypse happened over 200 years ago. I'm a thawed out relic from a bygone time. MacCready likes to introduce me (in all the bravado he can muster if he's been drinking) as "Elliot Kavinsky! The man time forgot!" I thought I'd crawled out of that vault into hell the day I woke up. Not much has changed since then, I thought, as I lay back to back with my companion in these cramped quarters, taking turns peeing in the beer bottles scattered about us. When one would fill up we'd chuck it out and yell curses at the group pinning us down. This was humorous at first, but quickly became tiresome. We were almost completely out of supplies and as I tossed the latest bottle of piss away I wondered if we would regret not keeping them to drink. The fact that we could see our extra pack of supplies a few yards away really poured salt in our wounds.
The sun would be going down soon. It had been around a day and a half since we set out on our current job and here we were pinned down by gunners- tightly stuffed into a ticket booth already half filled with stinking debris as cover. On top of it all I had a bullet wound in my leg that just kept slowly oozing. It hurt like hell and the bandages were soaked. MacCready was of course furious at the fact that gunners had us in such a state. "If they didn't have rocket launchers I'd of already taken them all out myself," he winged. He really hates his former comrades and who could blame him?
The hours were dragging on painfully slow. As I lie listening to the gunners having a meal around the corner, laughing, and the steady sound of MacCready breathing as he rested I found my hand drawn to my pocket and feeling for the little toy soldier this mercenary had given me. His wife had carved it for him...before she died. I slowly tried to reposition myself without waking MacCready, took the soldier out of my pocket, and continued to turn it over in my hand. I couldn't understand why he gave it to me.. this token that had to mean so much to him. Of course I had helped him substantially in the past, but look at us now. I took this job and got us in this situation. He had already given me back my payment to him. I guessed he would leave if we made it out of this alive. A shame as we'd built up quite the reputation...I'd miss the guy. "Stupid sentiment," I muttered aloud.
MacCready half rolled over and looked at me like I'd killed his dog. "Kav do you need something?" I quickly froze and felt my face grow warm. "What's with you?" He asked. "You're not getting a fever from that gunshot are you?" For some reason I was relieved he couldn't see the soldier in my hand. "Ah..yeah I feel kinda woozy," I replied. He lifted his arm to check my wound and time stopped as we both stared in horror. His whole arm was soaked in my blood. The familiar darkness and deafening silence began to wash over me.
"God Kav…we have to get out of here- look how much blood you're losing...this is so bad!"
Everything sounded so far away. I fumbled to put the soldier in my pocket. Guess I really was woozy. Darkness enveloped me and I knew no more.