Prologue
The memories won't go away. They haunt my dreams at night and squat on my mind like a feral on a corpse during the day. I've tried so hard to forget but no matter what I do they are there crouching in the forefront of my mind. No matter where or I go they are there. I tried drowning them out with cheap wasteland alcohol and chems but they refused to be silent. I thought mercenary work would be enough of a distraction but I still couldn't escape them. I thought being a wanderer would give me some reprieve but they still claw at my mind. No matter what I do I can't get away from them. Every night I hear their screams in my sleep. Every time I close my eyes I'm forced to watch them die over and over again helpless as their lives bleed away in my arms.
The screams tear at my mind like a razor blade. I see the looks of fear and pain in their eyes day and night as my mind replays that terrible moment on a continuous loop. My little girl looks up at me as her life ebbs away. She clutches at the gaping wound in her stomach with one little hand as a tendril of blood trickles from her mouth. She looks from me to her mother as her eyes close for what I know is the last time. My beloved slumps against me as she wraps an arm around our precious little child one last time. With a shuddering breath she collapses against me and I watch the light in those green eyes go out. There is nothing I can do but watch them die and it tears a gaping wound in my soul. I can faintly hear the laughter of those strange men as I fade into inky blackness. The last thing I see as I black out is that strange feathered helmet.
These are the memories that fill my fitful nights and my every waking moment. It has been a total of three years, four months and three weeks since that horrible day. But the memories are as fresh in my mind as if they had only just happened. The love of my life and my precious little girl so violently stolen from me in a single moment. The only thing I have to remember them is that old worn photo the scavenger took of us in Goodsprings. It is all I have left. I keep it close to me at all times safe in a little leather pouch under my shirt near my heart. At least in some small way they are still with me. I don't want to let go of them. I can't.
I've wandered alone ever since never knowing why I survived and they didn't. It is a cruel joke that two of the most beautiful souls in this world were extinguished but so many evil men are allowed to live on. What did my Natalie do to deserve to die? Why was my sweet little Anna taken from me? I guess I'll never understand and I'll just have to carry these memories with me for the rest of my life. That's if the raiders or the ferals don't get me first. I heard about those poor bastards down south in Coyote Springs who were eaten alive by a pack of ferals. At least that's something. At least my sweet ones don't have to go through this daily hell any more. But I don't think I'll ever stop feeling the pain of losing them. My soul was ripped to shreds that day leaving me nothing but a broken shell of who I once was. Nothing destroys a man like having to watch the people he loves most in the day bleed to death in his arms knowing there isn't a damned thing he can do.
My wanderings eventually led me to Sinclair. A rundown desert town in the ass end of Nevada with nothing but a few shacks and an empty saloon to its name. The locals tell me that they found me on the edge of town passed out in a ditch. It seems that after I ran out of food and water I gave in to the wasteland. But I really can't remember anything after my canteen ran dry. The kindly old man at the saloon told me I would've died if his boy hadn't found me. It seems fate isn't done with me yet.
