Darkness,again.
I put my hands out in front of me and walked slowly trying to find some point of reference, anything to figure out where I was, but it was to no avail.
There was nothing but empty space surrounding me.
"Hello, is there anybody here?" I anxiously called out.
"I am here," a menacing deep voice emanated from the darkness in response to my call.
"Who are you?" I asked trying to keep my voice steady but my fear of darkness was something that traveled with me since childhood.
"You don't know who I am?"
"I don't, I can't see you, I...I don't understand,".
"I am everything you destroyed."
"What are you talking about, I'm just a courier" I pleaded knowing there was more to me than that. Apparently the entity I was speaking to knew also.
The voice laughed callously. "Look. Listen." it hissed.
"At what..." I began before being cut off by a blinding light that enveloped the area, matched in it's ferocity by the wailing screams that accompanied it. I clamped my hands over my ears and dropped to my knees, shutting my eyes and tucking my head into my chest in an effort to deprive my senses of the torture they were experiencing.
The wailing and the light slowly decreased in intensity until there were only low moans and a dim light. I opened my eyes and looked around. I was surrounded by NCR soldiers closed in around me silently looking down upon me. Their eyes were glazed over and their mouths agape.
Are they dead or alive?
"Are you alright?" I asked the soldier facing me.
"You," he began but started to cough uncontrollably,blood catapulting out of his mouth. Violently convulsing, his saliva now merging with the blood trickling out the corner of his mouth, he collapsed to the ground beside where i was still kneeling. With his dead eyes still staring at me, I opened my mouth to scream but no sound escaped.
Another body fell the other side of me. Within seconds all that surrounded me were laying on the ground, all dying the same horrific way. I hurriedly scrambled to get away from the bodies, clamouring over the ones that lay beside me, searching with my hands for a clear space. But there was none.
"Yes, trample all over them to get what you want," the voice hissed again.
I lifted my head and looked around me for the first time. I understood now where the screams had come from. The ground before me was covered with the dead as far as the eye could see. NCR, Freesiders, Boomers, Khans, various inhabitants of the Mojave, all lifeless. Blood was spilling out from their severed limbs, wounds, ears and mouths so quickly that a sea of red began to rise around my ankles. Panicking, I began to run. I'll die here with the rest If I don't get out.
"Wait," I heard a voice call from behind me, "Are you just leaving me here?".
I stopped and turned around. In front of me stood Arcade Gannon. He looked almost angelic. His blonde hair was shining. There wasn't a scratch on him and he looked so squeaky clean you'd swear he spent his life in the water. He was also completely naked.
"Arcade, where are your clothes?" I had to ask, despite I having far more pressing concerns.
"I have no need for them anymore," he replied as if it were something I should already know.
"Okay...well come on we need to get out of here," I said as I extended my hand out for him to take.
"You're taking me with you?"
"Yes, of course, come on"
"And are you taking me away from or leading me into danger this time?"
"I don't know but anywhere has to be better than here."
"You don't know what you're doing, do you? You expect people to follow you but you don't know where you're leading them. How do you know you're not taking them somewhere worse than where they already are. Maybe there is somewhere worse than here."
"Arcade, we don't have time for this" I pleaded.
"No I don't have time for this, you made sure of that. You, on the other hand, do have time," he said as he turned to walk away from me.
"Arcade wait, I'm sorry," I shouted and went to grab him but as I did so he vanished and with him my entire surroundings too. The ground beneath me became clear and all around me mirrors erupted from the earth growing so high I could not tell where they ended, if they did at all.
Now everywhere I faced there was only a weary face looking back. I was wearing a crop top and boy shorts that I always wore under my armor. There were cuts down the left hand side of my body and a bandage like a bandana covering a wound on my head. My long light brown hair was matted with dirt and dried blood. My eyes looked like they had seen enough of the world and just wanted to rest forever. They accurately reflected my thoughts.
While lost in my own despair cracking noises sounded all around me. One by one the mirrors crashed to the ground and I was once more in utter darkness.
"It's all in your hands now," the voice sounded. "It's all on your hands."
And with that I felt myself awaken.
I opened my eyes a little letting only a slit of light in as I struggled with the transition from darkness to light.
"Wakey wakey," I heard Veronica chirp from beside me.
I had never been gladder to hear her voice after being visually and aurally ambushed by the darkest recesses of my subconscious mind.
"Hey, Veronica," I groaned as I opened my eyes fully. The familiar surroundings of the Old Mormon Fort were a comforting sight. I had been sleeping on the bottom bunk of one of the two beds that were present in the tent. The bottom bunks were reserved for those with serious injuries, while the top was for anyone capable of climbing the ladder. All beds in the Fort were occupied.
"Any news on Arcade?" I asked. Arcade had fought with the Enclave Remnants in the battle instead of with the rest of us. Upon waking up a few days ago I had learned that since the battle ended two weeks ago there hadn't been sight nor sound of him.
"No, nobody's heard anything," Veronica replied sadly from the chair she had pulled up beside my bed. "I've some good news though. You're well enough to go home. Well so Julie says anyway."
"Oh right, that is good," I said sitting up. "I suppose I should thank her but I guess she's still not talking to me."
"Well, here she comes now so I guess you're gonna find out" Veronica responded as she nodded towards the tent opening.
Julie entered the tent and looked at me with a stare so cold a snowman would have felt a chill.
"Are you ready to leave yet? You know you're taking up a bed that I could really do with, it's not exactly slow season out here.
"Julie!" Veronica scolded.
"I'm serious. Do you know how many sick and wounded are out here. We're overrun and we're down a doctor since your hero here decided to send Arcade off like a lamb to slaughter." She turned back to face me. "Look, there's nothing more we can do here that you can't do for yourself somewhere else" And with that she left.
"Well at least she talking to you" Veronica smiled weakly at me.
"Yeah I see we're making huge strides forward in repairing our friendship. Hey maybe I can help out here so they won't be a doc down."
"Maybe you should just concentrate on recovering, you almost died."
"Yeah well I'm a pro at this almost dying business, it hardly has any effect on me these days!" I replied as I jumped off the bed.
"Ah shit" I cried out and held my ankle. "Forgot I hurt this"
"Are you okay to walk on that," Veronica asked concerned.
"Yeah, perfect, can hardly feel a thing."
"She says as she hobbles away."
"This is the way I always walked," I shouted back as I went to find Julie.
Julie had made it to the tent next to mine, clearly going around every tent to check on all the patients. She turned as she heard me enter the tent. "Are you leaving now?" she asked before I had a chance to say anything.
"I thought maybe I could help, I certainly know enough to heal most wounds"
"No, I don't want you here."
"Well maybe these people need me here."
"The Followers don't want to be associated with you. If you want to help people do it elsewhere. Now if there's nothing else, I have patients to tend to."
"Julie, he wanted to fight," I said feeling the need to defend myself. Her response was the only time I ever saw Julie lose her temper.
"He's was a doctor not a fighter, just because he got caught up in playing superheroes doesn't mean you shouldn't have tried to stop him. You brought him with you, you should have protected him. Now leave before I have my guards throw you out."
I hobbled back to the tent and met Veronica at it's entrance. She had obviously anticipated that my chat with Julie wouldn't go well and had already collected up all of my things ready to leave.
"Here," she said handing me boots, pants and a sleeveless t-shirt, "you might want to put some clothes on. Not that I want you to cover up or anything, but you might get funny looks otherwise."
I slipped on the clothes, the pants were a bit too long as usual but it didn't really matter with them tucked inside the boots.
"The curse of the short legged" Veronica quipped.
"Yeah" I replied not really in the mood for humor. "Are you coming with me or staying here?"
"I think I should stay here, help out all I can but I'll walk you to the gate."
I nodded, I understood her reasons.
"So do you remember any more about your accident?" Veronica asked as we walked.
"No, all I know is what you told me. Securitron rolled over a mine, the blast sent me flying, hit my head of a rock, correct?
"Yeah, that was pretty much it. What's the last thing you do remember?
"The last thing I remember was threatening to have General Oliver thrown over the side of Hoover Dam."
"Ah yes, I remember that, not a bad way to end your memory of the event"
"Guess not," I mumbled but I had other things on my mind. "Julie really hates me, doesn't she? I'm surprised she didn't inject me with with venom instead of medicine."
"Still thinking about her huh? Boone actually had the same worries when we brought you in. Kept questioning what she was injecting into you, at what dosage and what the expected effects of it was. Of course he hadn't a clue if anything she was telling him was true or not but you know Boone, hates to feel helpless.
"Speaking of Boone where is he, I haven't seen him? Has he been here at all in the last two weeks?" I asked.
"He stayed for the first day. Asked us to radio him if there were any changes. He's been spending all his time on the Strip at the NCR Embassy, 'sorting out the mess you made' I believe was the way he phrased it."
Veronica said everything in such an upbeat way I almost missed the really big blow to my pride in the middle of her sentence. "The mess I made?"
"Oh don't look at me", she held her hands up as if I were pointing a gun at her "You and Boone need to sort that out between you"
"Wow, good to know he cares more about his precious NCR than if I'm alive or not. Veronica, you think I was right to take the Dam and Strip don't you? I mean the NCR are arrogant fucks, they don't care about their citizens, they care about power and money. At least the ones at the top do."
"Sure! But you did give me that real pretty dress right before we went to battle so I may be biased."
We reached the gate and Veronica opened it for me. I hugged her and exited the Fort. "Guess it's on to the NCR Embassy for me."
"You know the Strip and Dam will still be there tomorrow."
"Yeah but they may not still be mine tomorrow."
"You really need to get some rest" she asserted.
I sighed. "There's no rest for the wicked'"