Ghoul, they called her: freak, ugliest thing in the Commonwealth. The folks in Diamond City had been well and truly duped by that McDonough fella. Nobody cared that up until two years ago her name had been Stacie Lee, that she had been a daughter and a wife, that she had been loved and had loved. No, all they cared about was the ugliness of her skin, the gruffness of her voice. Sometimes her skin flapped in the breeze, flaked away, like a snake shedding. They hated that. The people were angry; the ghouls were their targets. Ghouls, these days, were almost worse than Super Mutants or Synths in the eyes of Diamond City.

Stacie could easily see that McDonough was using the ghouls as his ticket to the election. It was just a shame it had worked. The people of Diamond City had had the curtain wrapped around their face, covering their eyes, stifling their common sense. Even that fella Hancock, the mayor's smooth-skinned brother, so vocal in the ghouls' defense, couldn't do anything. The events had been set in motion, and now here she was, husbandless, effectively an orphan, wandering.

Many of her ghoul-friends fled to Goodneighbor. There was a life there for them, they said, and they would be safe. There was a place to hide. And if you didn't want to hide? If you wanted to live? Well, you were shit out of luck. It was either stay in Diamond City and get your head torn off, or flee to Goodneighbor and fall in with mercenaries and thieves and hookers and gangsters. Stacie had had enough of killers to last her a life time.

Before she was a ghoul (before the nasty chem jag which had robbed her of skin, love, and family) Stacie had escorted a lady called Marcy Long across the Wasteland. She carried a custom-built .45 combat rifle, with a reflex circle sight, an elongated quick-eject magazine, and an anti-recoil stock. She either wore her combat armor over some comfortable long-johns, or the metal armor she'd scavenged from some dead Brotherhood fellas. But now… she wandered with naught but a shirt and some tatty jeans.

Oh, she had been a Legend of the Wastes. Marcy had never been safer, as they journeyed from Sanctuary Hill all the way to The Castle; these places were naught more than wrecks, but that Mr. Handy Codsworth up at Sanctuary sometimes had something to trade, the rusty old thing. And there were sometimes chem addicts or friendly(ish) raiders at The Castle. Marcy had said to her once: "Stacie, with you around, I feel like we can go anywhere, be anyone. I used to live in fear that my Brahmin would be killed, mutilated, whatever. You know how it is. But now I think we might actually be able to live, not just survive." Stacie had smiled at her employer and patted her on the back. The Wasteland blew up a dusty wind and that night they took shelter in an old wood cabin, a low fire of embers between them, the Brahmin huffing in the corner, silly grins on their faces. And when she returned home, it was to John, her lover, and her mother and father.

The radiation from the Glowing Sea bit at her as the memories did, but the memories hurt more. The radiation was nothing more than an irritant, like a fly that won't stop buzzing. It even infused her with energy. She had nicked her hand a day ago, climbing over a broken car, and now she could feel the healing process quickening. She wished she had a gun, however; there were stingwings and bloatflies and all kind of nasty things in this place. She had only ever been to the Glowing Sea once before, to deal with this fella named—Aenid, no, Virgil? It was hard to remember. The guy had been a super mutant claiming to have once been a man. Whatever, Stacie had collected a nice chunk of caps and chems for some food and water, and then begun her return journey to Marcy. Of course, then she had been wearing a Hazmat suit. But not now. No need.

And that was the day she had hunkered down in a cave, hiding from a radiation storm, and just thought Fuck It. That first suck of Jet had been like manna from heaven. Everything had slowed, heightened, and she was suddenly struck with the horrible idea that she had never really seen anything before. The cave's stalactites and stalagmites were now more than scenery; they were fingers, reaching. Each gradation in the grey was like a rainbow of color in the amplified world. Everything bloomed, exploded, refracted. And then it passed, far too quickly. She cursed, and took another suck. And then that had passed, and another, and another, until there was not a thing left. She had rummaged through the bag, desperate for another hit. Then she had found it, the words EXPERIMENTAL printed on its side—

"Damn it," she cursed, in her gruff voice. "Stop it. Just stop it. You won't do no one no good thinkin' on it like that."

She walked headlong through the Glowing Sea. Nobody would follow her here. There would be no judgmental husband or parents, no distraught Marcy, screaming that she needed help, no McDonough, decrying an entire species of humanoid. No, here there was only the radiation, the insects, and—

The footsteps rocked the earth. Stones rumbled against the ground. Her legs turned to jelly-like blobs and she had to focus to stay upright. Her heart was suddenly a war-drum in her ears. The Deathclaw lumbered past, its head low, its horns curving like twin scythes, its feet splayed. Its spine was visible, ridged, like the edge of a mountain, and each of its breaths sent shadowy plumes into the irradiated air.

Stacie stood statue-still. Perhaps if she'd had her .45, or her 5.56, or even her goddam .38, but she didn't. Perhaps if she'd had her metal armor, her combat armor, even her battle-coat, but no. Here she was, jeans and a shirt, barefoot, half-crazed with hunger, and the Deathclaw was looming.

As quietly as she was able, she began to turn. She would sneak away and bury herself in sand and rock until the thing passed. She hadn't realized how badly she wanted to live until the Deathclaw had come into her sight. She turned, her bones feeling old, full of aches.

She would look back, just once; and the Deathclaw would be gone.

She looked back. The Deathclaw charged.