Title: Not A Sole Survivor
Premise: Nate and Nora must pursue their missing son while leading a community of Pre-War citizens through 'The Commonwealth'.
Chapter 1 - Despair and Determination [Posted - 13/08/2018[Edited - 14/08/2018]
A hazy white landscape permeates the vast emptiness of nothing. Endless snow pilling down from the sky, chilling the body down to the very soul. A siren can be heard through the harsh winds, progressively increasing in volume until suddenly a blinding flash. An ominous orange tinge races towards their eyes until suddenly it all becomes white.
Nate breathes in deeply. A brief memory of Alaskan snowstorms flashes in his mind before his vision begins clearing up. The memory fades instantly as the icy air tastes stale, and strangely like cough syrup. His eyes starts adjusting to the light and the blurry figures in his vision turn into his beautiful wife and son. Unfortunately, the situation quickly turns sour as an unknown in what looks like a sealed white hazmat suit begins inspecting the chamber his family is in, and then Nate notices him in the corner of his eye.
Adrenaline rushes through his body, clearing his fog of mind and giving him the strength to ignore the fatigue saturating his muscles. Who, what, where, when, how, runs in his mind but it all comes to a stop when Nora and Shaun's chamber door opens. Nate sees a lucid Nora struggling to awaken. His blood turns even colder than his environment as he sees Nora's arm dropping whilst holding Shaun. And the he steps closer to his family.
Nora experiences a weakness far greater than her time at Camp Yao Gui, and her arms feels like she bicep curled a ton. However, her motherly instincts jump starts too late as her arms descent quickly. She remembers holding onto Shaun and before her actions could horrify her, her vision starts clearing up. She was able to pick up on a brown figure holding onto what she knows is Shaun. Seconds pass by and she finally sees the form of her baby's hero, yet she couldn't help but be confused.
The most rugged man she has ever seen holding Shaun in the most unexpected way. Uncharacteristically, he holds the baby naturally like any parent would, and simply stares deeply at a sleeping Shaun. Before Nora could say a word, the chamber slams shut down again and the man finally looks her in the eye as he walks away. She would never forget that smirk on his face. She realises what happened too late and she forces are aching arms against the glass. She doesn't even feel the pain as she repeatedly slams against the chamber door, yelling as loud as she could with a parched throat. Yet, the familiar cold air begins setting in again from the vents and the last thing she sees is Nate's bruised hand sliding down from his chamber window. If the chamber had mirrors, she was one hundred percent certain that she had the exact same expression of the despair and confusion as her husband.
Nate has always been adaptable to any situation from training day to Alaskan forests. So when the intake of stale air circulated his body and the chamber door opened, he went into full auto-pilot, reminiscent of his days hiding in the snow to ambush his enemies. Sadly, his systems malfunctioned and he fell on all fours. A loud thump in front of him gave him just enough vigour to crawl towards his wife.
Nora hears a groaning Nate crawl towards her and she stares into Nate's eyes with soul-crushing anguish. She whispered, "I ... lost him. I lost our baby boy… I lost-", Nora could not finish her sentence before tears begun welling up in the corners of her eye.
Nate did not know a lot but he knew the only times Nora cried was during their wedding vows and when the Silver Shroud's lover, Golden Garment, died in the heroes arm after one of Copper Cloud's treacherous schemes. He did what he did for her when he found her shivering and starving in that Alaskan POW camp. He got on his knees, dragged her up from the floor and embraced her towards his chest.
Nora's quiet sob couldn't stop her from feeling the familiar embrace of her husband and his warm breath permeated her scalp. He softly yet firmly stated, "We'll find him Nora… We'll get Shaun back, I promise"
The sounds of the other vault dwellers finding their bearings didn't even enter their ears and mind as they sat in each other embrace. They were in their own world, and if one were to observe them, they might've thought that the couple were wallowing in defeat. Yet their eyes told a different story.
Suddenly Nora went silent and her arms started shaking minutely. Nate started feeling emboldened instead of worrying more. He knew that Nora's arms were shaking due to her fist clenching hard, his only worry at that moment was that she wasn't digging her nails into her palm.
Nora let go of her husband and pushed him slightly away, just enough so Nora and Nate were face to face, just a few centimetres apart. Nate saw Nora's determined eyes. Nora saw Nate's determined eyes.
"We will find our boy"
"That's my girl"
Author Note: I recently added the Horizon mod (shoutout to Wanderer on youtube for introducing the mod to me via my recommended feed) to my Fallout 4 and the premise randomly popped up into my head. I searched online for any material on the topic to satisfy my cravings and there was only one video by VinylicPumaGaming. While watching it, I forgot that they had Kellogg kill the rest of the Vault 111 residents and I'm like, 'What the… why'. So after years of wasting my time reading fanfic, it's time for me to waste more time trying to write this bad boy.
Our characters have to be badass to survive the wasteland so I tried to find real-life counterparts from WW2 to model them off. Also I need more research on everything. So far, the game, reddit users and the fallout wiki are my guide. Also I've come to appreciate writers and their efforts to write because boy is it hard (Took me like 3 hours to write 815 words, oh my lord). ALSO PLEASE REVIEW AND GIVE BACK CRITICISM. Also anyone want to edit my work? Had to google how to write dialogue and even then idk if I did right haha.
My Goal for this fanfic: Inspire more competent writers than me to write a similar fanfic so I can stop thinking so hard and just blissfully read Nora, Nate and the Vault 111 Gang fully fleshed out. Just like the lyrics in Japanese Denim by Daniel Ceasar "I don't want to think, f*k that"
Character Notes:
Nate Leon Murphy - veteran soldier, decorated war hero, undecided on his post war occupation.
Nora Bradley Murphy - veteran army medic, used G.I. bill to become a lawyer.