Chapter One: Prologue.
The cold air wafted over her damp vault suit and clung to Ava's skin. The light that burst forth into her vision was blinding and made strange green shapes appear in her eyes. When the blinding light faded, the world formed shapes- charred trees, wrecked buildings and the once green hills of these suburbs were barren and desolate. She looked around, her breathing becoming ever more laboured and she felt she might collapse. What the fuck had happened? Of course she understood that the thunderous boom and mushroom cloud over the horizon meant total atomic annihilation, but she never pictured it like... this. Everything was dead and decaying and... wrong.
What's the point? She had lost everything. Her life, her home... her family. Tears spilled over when she shut her eyes, the memory of Nate's lifeless body slouching back in that icy sarcophagus as that bastard shot him. Why go on? The moment was fleeting, very fleeting. Her grief and sadness gave way to a primal anger. Shaun was out there somewhere. Her baby boy was alone and frightened and without his mother and that thought, well... It fuelled something dark in her heart that she hadn't realised was there.
She had to go on. She had to find Shaun, and she was just about willing to do anything to succeed. With a determined frown, she gripped the small pistol she'd found that little bit tighter and set of back down the hill. At the gates to the vault, however, her determination was stunted. Skeletons scattered the area, some still wearing tatters of clothing. These were the people she knew, people she's seen nearly everyday and now they piles of bones. The reality of what happened finally dawned on her. It was the end of the world as she knew it. Gods knows what was out here now. For all she knew she could be the only person for miles and miles. Maybe the people who took Shaun were dead like these skeletons, maybe... No. She refused to even think it. Shaun was out there and he was alive, she could feel it in her gut. She stepped over the skeletons and continued on, ignoring the way her chest constricted as she did.
She followed the same old trek back down across the small stream and in to Sanctuary Hills. She had meant to teach Shaun to walk in this little glove of nature. Back before the bombs, it had been beautiful and quiet. It was rare to get a piece greenery so undisturbed as this. Sanctuary Hills was a nice place to raise a child, her in-laws had always said that, back when Shaun was just a twinkle in his father's eye. Nate would just roll his eyes and insist that they were going to wait until Ava got her law career back on track. It must have been about two weeks later that she found out she was pregnant and neither of them could've been happier. Shaun was what you called a happy accident. He wasn't planned for, just the result of too much Merlot and the rest is history. When Ava found out she was pregnant, she wasn't anxious about the change of plans, or having to put off her career. No, she could pick that up after, but she was frightened, she'll admit that. She was frightened right up until the day he popped out. But when they handed him to her, his little red face all scrunched up in a frown, it all disappeared. He reached out to her and held onto her little finger, so tight and so... desperately. She promised then and there that no harm would ever come to her little boy. She thought at the time that promise meant protecting him growing up, from the bullies and the bad heartbreaks. She never thought it would include travelling half way across Boston to save him from a bunch of unknown kidnappers in the wake of a nuclear war. Who really plans for that anyway?
Regardless, here she was, travelling half way across Boston trying to find her little lost boy.