The vault door slid close a second, and last time. Gaia stepped away, out into the light for the first time, blocking the sun with her hand. And she wondered: What now?
She stood in awe of the rolling hills, and long road that went in between them like a great black snake. Leading all the way down to a huge parking lot where rusted cars lay in ruin as rusted hunks of metal, twisted and distorted by the apocalypse.
Gaia looked to see where the road came from, and saw on the horizon a large cluster of rectangular splotches, blocking her sight of the distant sky. This must be one of the pre war cities she's read about in class. Back inside the vault.
Perhaps she'd find a new group of people. A new place to call home.
She took a deep breath, and set off. Walking on that lonesome road, like a marty headed to some distant land to spread peace to the peaceless.
It was certainly an odd feeling for Gaia, travelling the unknown. Not sure where to go, or if shes the only one out there.
In the vault only one person had ever left and came back. Her father. According to him there was nothing out here but a wasteland full of monsters. But she didn't believe in monsters. Hadn't since she was a little girl. So why should she believe in them now?
She travelled the road for a good hour before she stopped. On the side of the road was a dead two headed cow looking thing, with a large assortment of satchels, and cases strapped to it's back. Beside it were three corpses, each one of them burned to ashes, still smoldering, as the rough wind began to pick up.
Gaia puked. It wasn't the corpses, so much as it was the horrible smell. A smell she'd only smelt once before, and that was when her grandmother was cremated. She'd snuck into the vault's crematorium out of pure curiosity.
The smell was much stronger this time, though.
She wiped her mouth off, and stumbled away, back to the road. She sat there for a long while, trying to get the courage to stand up again. How had her father done it? Who could've done something like this? A monster?
The wind picked up more speed, and it frightened her. It whipped her hair all about, and she was almost fearful it would blow her away. She didn't even know what this was, the closest thing to it she'd ever known was the air a fan blew at you, or an air conditioner. She knew it was just air, but she didn't know how powerful it would get. Her father told her stories of great swirling demons that would pick you up, and toss you miles, and miles away.
Eventually, she curled up into a ball. Hoping that the wind would just blow right over her, and it did. She was grateful, and when the wind finally died down a bit, she rose, and set off a second time.
The next time she stopped, she stopped when she heard distant chatter, the sound of gruff voices talking and laughing.
She crawled up the first hill that stood before where she had placed the noise to be coming from. She lay and listen, trying to decide whether or not to avoid these people. These "monsters" perhaps.
"I come from way off. Place called the Capital Wasteland." She heard come from a male voice. A voice that sounded young, but wise.
"Why you comin' out this way?" Another, older, male voice said. "Ain't nothin' out here but death."
The other voice laughed a little. "Nothin' but death everywhere, nowadays."
Gaia slowly peeked over the hill, and looked down to see two men and a dog sitting around a fire. The one with the wise voice spoke again, "I heard of a place to the west, rich in opportunities. Some place I think I can go and make a better place. Like I did back where I'm from. "
"I still can't believe I come across the Lone Wanderer."
The Lone wanderer? Who was that? Some new world super star? A hero in this world of monsters?
BLAM!
Dirt kicked up in front of Gaia, and she covered her eyes, frozen stiff.
"Stand up, with your hands above your head." The first voice yelled, firmly.
Shaking, she did just that.
"Who are you, and what are you doing here?"
Gaia opened her eyes, not realizing they were shut, and she saw the man holding her at gunpoint. He was tall, and wiry. It took a moment for her to realize it, but he was wearing a vault suit, though his was worn, and had patches of armor worked into it. And some sort of hood with a hat attached to it. Something she read a storm chaser might that was.
"Last chance before I shoot you dead," The man said, and Gaia realized she had been asked a question.
"M-My name is G-G-Gaia. I-I'm no body, just a wanderer!"
"A wanderer, she says," the second voice croaked out.
"Yeah," The man holding the rifle said, looking at her vault suit. "And I am inclined to believe her." He lowered his weapon,and waved to the girl, "Come down here."
Slowly, she began to walk, hands still above her head.
"You can put your arms down, too," He called.
She blushed, quickly putting them down.
Once she had reached the two men the one who had held her at gunpoint asked her to turn around. And on the back of her suit was where the two digits that had been her vault number had been torn off. A mark to show some sort of disgracement?
She turned back around to face the man, "Please," she whimpered, "P-Please don't hurt me."
The man smiled under his scraggly black beard. "I'm not gonna hurt you."
Gaia was almost in tears. "Y-You're not?"
"No."
Gaia let out a deep breath, "Oh, thank you," She put a hand on the man's shoulder.
He just stared at her. Smirk across his lips.
"Tell another one," The old man said to the, apparently, one and only Lone Wanderer. From what Gaia could tell, this guy was a big deal around these parts.
"Golly, old man, I'm about out'a tales to tell," The wanderer said.
Gaia just listened to him, telling story after story about his dutiful deeds in this world. She hugged her knees to her chest, hearing the fire crack, and pop under his steely voice. It was something about how he'd once come across an old refrigerator filled with water bottles. Clean water bottles specifically. And surrounding it was a group of people ready to kill each other over the contents. Killing just for water?
Occasionally the Wanderer's dog would wander over, and she'd pet him. He was a nice, but she knew he could be mean. There was dried blood all over him, matting down his fur.
The Lone Wanderer spit in the fire, listening to it hiss.
"God almighty, ain't that somethin'? Don't know what I'd'a done in that situation." The old man said, grinning, showing his few remaining teeth.
Come morning the old man was dead. He'd been coughing all night, and when the other two awoke they found him, blood bubbling from his mouth.
Gaia had barely slept at all. She'd never slept on the cold hard ground before, obviously.
She was amazed to see that the sky changed colors, though. From black to blue. At night there were small, shining orbs floating in the sky. She didn't know what to call those, and they scared her to some degree. But the Wanderer assured her they were harmless.
In the morning, when the sky had become it's pale, pale, blue there were puffy spots of white. Something gaseous floating about the sky, and she was almost afraid of those, too. But they seemed harmless. Mysterious, and soft. They reminded her of the pillows she had back in the vault, on her bed.
But at the moment she just stared at the dead body. She'd never seen a dead body, aside from her grandmother's. She cried then, but not now.
The Lone Wanderer began to wander.
"Wh-Where are you going?" Gaia asked.
"West." He wandered between the round foothills built of sand, dirt, and patchy splotches of aged grass.
Gaia looked at the corpse, then back at the Wanderer. She quickly hurried over to the man walking off. "Where, West?"
"Someplace called the Mojave. Place they say is crawling with opportunity for someone like me."
"Like you?"
"A drifter. You know, Lone Wanderer."
"Ah. I see." She said, eying the dog who followed them.
"Whoof!"
The two walked in a long, constant silence that gave the feel of a foreboding eternity. They did not walk along the road, they cut their own wath through the tall, dying grass. The only sound was that of wind, and the dog panting at his master's side. Along their way the Wanderer would occasionally stop, and look at his Pipboy.
Nothingness was the extent of what they saw. Only the surrounding foothills, and grassy plains. Perhaps finally they came across a group of three men, each with long unkempt hair and beards. They carried rifles, and wore mottled armor ripped from the ruins of what had once been the grand metropolises of the pre war times.
The leader of the pack pointed his gun at the Wanderer.
The Wanderer's dog pounced on the man, and the Wanderer pulled from his belt a pistol, and shot the other two men.
He looked down at his pet who was biting the first man's throat out. He then turned his gaze towards the only survivor, a man lying on the ground, clutching his wound, bleeding all over the place. He was mumbling obscenities, and praying to tribal gods.
The Wanderer shot him again, and reloaded his pistol.
Gaia was frozen in shock and horror. "H-How?"
"How, what?" The Wanderer asked.
"How could you do that to those people?"
The Wanderer looked at her with a queer expression. "What do'ya mean? They were gonna rob us blind, probably kill me and Dogmeat, and rape you, keep you 'round as a toy, I bet."
"You could have let that one go, couldn't you?" Gaia pointed at the last man to die.
"He'd of bled to death within the hour. I did the humane thing."
"We could have helped him, couldn't we?"
"Why would we wanna?"
"Because they were a human being, that's why!"
The Wanderer scratched the side of his face, "Way I see it God can sort out all those I send his way."
"God? What do you mean?"
He looked at her. "I mean God. The man who made everything."
She just looked at him, with a look of unknowing.
"Nevermind. Your parents ought'a told you about him."
After a short argument the two trekked onward, through the lost foothills. The wind started picking up, and Gaia felt scared again.
"Don't worry about the wind," said the Wanderer.
"What's wind?"
"It that thing you feel, kind'a like you're being pushed by something too weak to push you down. If it gets bad enough that it might actually hurt us I'll tell you, okay?" They didn't stop, they just kept moving.
Gaia said nothing. But she took his word for it. After all, he would know.
"I heard that out west there's a bunch'a twisters. They say they connect the sky to the ground, and they spin, and sling you everywhere."
The thought of these "twisters" alone was enough to scare Gaia.
Finally, as the sun nestled itself upon the horizon the three stopped, and set up a small camp. The Wanderer produced, from his pack, a large mat and a jar of some sort of meat. He sat down on the mat, took a few dry chunks of meat from the jar, then passed it to Gaia. Gaia was sitting just to his left. She looked at the burnt little crisps inside the jar. She had never eaten meat before. But she was hungry, and she figured she wouldn't get a chance to eat anytime soon, so she ate a few pieces of meat, then handed the jar back to the wanderer.
Gaia popped her neck then lied down. Slowly, she drifted off to sleep.