All of the Fallout franchise belongs to Black Isle, Bethesda, and Obsidian. Not me.


"Stop it! This isn't solving anything!"

But I didn't care. Couldn't care. Blood was running down the right side of my face, my jaw not settling back into place just right. Butch's nose was twisted the wrong way, his face red with young bruises; he was squinting to try and see through the tears of pain. But we were both grinning, grinning like animals without a care in our little metal cage. Amata's yelling was a distant, faded tune to our combat, complementing the cracks of our bloodied knuckles just right. He and I were both hunched, circling each other like starving, bloodthirsty dogs. Then suddenly he lunged forward, fist pulled back, but just before he could snap into his signature right hook I drove my knee into his stomach. He jackknifed, fell to his knees, and stayed there for a long minute.

I backed off, still standing, rubbing my knuckles. The thrill, the rush was ebbing away, replaced by the unsteady pounding of my heart, an ache in my jaw and fists and shoulders.

"Shit," he coughed. "Pretty good."

"Yeah, yeah, says the one who taught me how to fight," I mumbled around a broken jaw. I extended a hand and pulled him up, but he still stood with a slight hunch. "Guess we should go take that test."

Butch nodded absently as he turned to his crew and motioned to them sharply. "Let's roll, Tunnel Snakes!" The three leather-jacketed members trailed after their limping leader, glancing at me apprehensively. I grinned at them, only to regret it as pain slammed into the floor of my mouth.

"Fuck," I grated.

With an exasperated sigh, Amata uncrossed her arms. "What the hell was that? He was about to go when you told him about the Overseer, why did you punch him-?"

"He was being an ass to you." I massaged my jaw gently as we turned and walked toward the classroom. I could hear Dad lecturing me right then: "Just because I'm a doctor doesn't mean you're obligated to go and get all your bones broken. But hey, I saw what you did to Butch- bit of the 'ol one-two, eh? Ha!"

I smiled. And regretted it, again.

Amata sighed again. Must be that teenage phase. "Well, thanks. Even if it was a stupid thing to do."

"Yeah, yeah," I mumbled, eying the empty desk in the very front row. With Mr. Brotch standing in front of it, tapping his foot impatiently. Great. Just great.


I blinked. Jericho was sitting next to me in the dirt, crumpled pack of Marlboros at his feet as he smoked his last one, eyes closed in nicotine bliss. "You think you're going to die today?" I rasped mildly.

Startled, the half-burned cigarette nearly tumbled out his mouth. "What the- shit, kid. You ain't said nothin' in like an hour. Thought you was asleep or somethin'."

Frowning, I scratched some sand out of my bristling beard. "What? How-"

"Okay, maybe two."

I looked up at the sky, searching for the sun to tell the time, just like how Jericho showed me. And- yeah. Seven o'clock, give or take, the dusty clouds streaked with rusty red. "You know, I- I think I might've had a flashback," I murmured, trying to remember. Butch's blood on my knuckles, Amata's eyes wide with concern...

Jericho blew out a long cloud of smoke, making my eyes sting. "Fuckin' great, kid. If I knew you was gonna crack, I would'a let you have the last one."

If I could still smile, I might have. "It's alright.". But obviously, it wasn't. My hands were shaking from gripping my Mosin-Nagant so tightly, and hunger kept me in a constant crouch to ease the hollow feeling. It had taken me the longest time to realize that Jericho didn't just smoke to stay calm, he did it to ignore the stabs in his stomach.

I pried my hands from my rifle for a moment, flexing my fingers to get warm blood back into them. But they stayed cold, and even the bandages I had wrapped around them didn't seem to help much. Cold- cold with panic sweat. Having my hands do something made me feel a bit better, so I gripped my rifle again, peering into the chamber thoughtfully. "Have they moved?"

"Not a fuckin' muscle." Jericho blew another cloud, coughing as he did so. He wiped at his mouth, leaving a patch of red on the sleeve of his field jacket. "Gah, shit, not this crap again..."

I wiggled my toes in my boots. I never had been the most patient of people. And sitting in the middle of a minefield with snipers waiting for you to get bored as you wait for nightfall so you can escape-

Wait, wait. You have no idea what I'm talking about. Okay, let me try again.

Maybe eleven hours ago, when we still had daylight, I caught wind of some easy money. Sitting in Moriarty's, these two half-dead looking scavengers were going on about a settlement that had been attacked by raiders, but somehow killed those marauding bastards then and there. I hardly believed that, but the idea of all that raider loot just sitting there was too much to ignore. Megaton's weapons and armor trade had gone stale, and I was running out of rounds for my Mosin-Nagant. Jericho had only two magazines left for his AKS-74U, and we had one RGD-5 grenade between us. My Mauser C-96 was dry, as was his Makarov PM.

No morphine, no food, no money. Not a good set up. So we thought, hey, let's go pay these raider-killers a visit, do a little trading, maybe some errands for a bit of good will. Couldn't hurt.

Jericho liked the sound of easy money (or, easy cigarettes), and as long as we weren't going east to fight those killing-machine mutants he wouldn't shut up about, he was up for it.

Maybe we should've noticed that something was wrong when we had gone twenty miles north, hardly stopping in our excitement, and then finally noticed that we were surrounded by land mines. Rusted to the color of dirt, we hadn't even realized we were in danger. Nope, the idea of all those guns just waiting for us, those traders and their open arms- had gone and blinded us.

Jericho wouldn't keep his mouth shut after that. "How the fuck didn't you notice? What the fuck was you thinking?" he would rant, digging through his pouches for a cigarette, then a light, then losing track of the cigarette and starting all over. But really, I didn't mind. Having him flip out kept me awake and focused on those little brown disks of explosive shrapnel-y death. I couldn't tell what kind of mines they were- PMN, maybe TM series- but then again, not like I could pick them up and take a long hard look.

Now and again, we'd come across an arm, or a foot, or sometimes when we got lucky, a jagged chunk of skull with shriveled brain still stuck to it. No wonder these guys had taken out an entire band of raiders- they didn't have to lift a finger with this sea of land mines protecting them. Problem was, where was the island? The question became heavier and heavier on my mind when dusk fell and we were still tip-toeing through mines, not a single soul anywhere. At least the sun wasn't in our eyes. Jericho spat when I pointed it out, mumbling about how he never would've done something like that ten years ago.

But things turned up. We finally found what looked like a town- well, part of a suburb- so there had to be settlers nearby. And stepping carefully onto the street, I noticed a figure standing on the roof of a townhome, its back to us. The town watch? Finally.

"Hey!" I howled. Jericho froze.

The figure turned, and without pause, raised its rifle.

Jericho grabbed the back of my collar and threw me to the ground as three rounds whistled by. We clambered to the nearest burnt-out house, expecting any second to be blown to pieces by a wrong step, but luck was on our side and we had our backs to a solid wall, and ten square feet without land mines. Oh, sure, we had a sniper to deal with, but who could've cared? We had a little plot of land that wouldn't blow up if it didn't like us. Can't say no to that!

I stuck a hand above the top of the wall. "We aren't raiders! Just want to trade!" I hollered. Another sharp report, another round that nearby took off my thumb. Jericho had slung his AKS-74U off his back and was scanning the area beyond the house for more people, but apparently saw nothing but land mines stretching into the distance. I pulled my Mosin-Nagant from my back, running a dirty finger along the round resting in the chamber. "They aren't disciplined, shooting like that," I pointed out.

"Yeah, or they has a fuckin' shitload of ammo."

Great. Didn't think of that.


And that explains how we got into that situation. A jackass with a SVD Dragunov standing on a roof with a couple of beers waiting for us to top our heads out to get blown apart. Or, at least, we thought it was that simple. Turns out we had three jackasses to deal with: the Dragunov guy, someone farther down the street with a SKS poking out of a broken window, and someone else with an AKM aiming out of the second story window of a house we had already passed. Boxed in like new meat. Jericho must've hated me right then.

"You know what, kid? I fuckin' hate you."

"Yeah."

"No, really, if we get out of this I'm gonna paint my walls with your brain."

"Yeah, I know."

I must've sounded calm, because Jericho swallowed the butt of his cigarette, washed it down with a handful of dirt, and handed me a small bottle of dirty water. "Take the shot."

"What?" I emptied the bottle in two gulps, licking the inside of the cap for good measure. My teeth crunched on grains of grit but I didn't care.

"You heard me, take the fucking shot. If we die at least no one will give a shit. That's somethin'."

What's sad is that's probably the truest and deepest thing Jericho ever said.

I nodded, sighed, and then something dawned on me. Amata would care. Butch would care. Dad would care.

Mom would care. Wouldn't she?

I popped up from cover and as soon as I did a round cut into my left shoulder, shallow enough to keep the socket from coming apart but enough to make my aim waver. I hurriedly steadied and fired, missing the Dragunov guy by three feet. Dammit, come on! It's only pain! I ducked into cover, chambered another round with a grinding effort, and popped up again. Jericho blind fired over the side toward the roof top, distracting the sniper long enough for me to put a bullet through his leg. Damn it, another foot and I would've had his chest! But it was enough to make him lose his balance and topple off the townhome, landing with a satisfying thump.

But as that guy was taken care of, the SKS guy had been firing away, his bullets knocking plaster our of our cover and making us duck down. We couldn't make it across the road. No way.

"I'll cover your ass! Move it!"

There wasn't a thought in my head as I jumped over some rubble and did a hopping jog through the house's backyard, eyes open for land mines. Jericho sent burst after burst of fire down the street, met with the single shots of the SKS. "You stupid fucks think you have a chance! You fucking think you have a fucking chance?" he screamed, and I could imagine his eyes glassed with his old raider rage.

I made it to the neighboring house, which hadn't been boarded up. Talk about luck, huh? I dashed in, crouched low, expecting anything. But then a few things clicked in my head:

1. All these houses were either burnt-out or almost untouched.
2. The ones that weren't untouched weren't boarded up.
3. There were people shooting at us from inside houses.
4. Damn it.

I had taken three steps toward the open kitchen before a spray of buckshot peppered the wall less than a foot in front of me. I heard a familiar cha-chack and hit the floor as another burst roared overhead.

He was standing in the open doorway, halfway through his cha-chack when I put a bullet through his stomach. He gasped, stumbled back a few steps, aimed his TOZ-194 at me in vain- and fell onto his back.

I breathed out, began to chamber another round- But was interrupted by a "You son of a bitch!" and a girl running out of the kitchen, a cleaver in her hands. Great. She lunged towards me and brought the knife down hard. I brought my rifle up hard. The edge lodged in the wood, and I quickly kicked out her feet, sending her to the floor. I drew my own combat knife- jagged but blunt as Jericho's advances towards Nova- and drove it into her throat.

That was easy.

I never got used to how easy it was end a life. One minute she was glaring up at me, dirty hair spread out behind her like a fan, her mouth moving silently in swearing as it filled with bubbling blood.

I twisted, and she was gone.

Wrenching the knife from her neck, I wiped the blood off on my pants, scooped up my Mosin-Nagant, finished chambering it, and picked up the battered TOZ-194 in the kitchen, along with the four shells in the guy's pockets. The gunfire outside was still going, but now new sounds had joined the melee- four, five more against Jericho's AKS-74U.

I slung the shotgun onto my back and hurried upstairs, keeping my rifle shouldered the whole time. Choosing what used to be a bedroom, I pushed open the shutters and looked out.

Two guys taking cover behind a house. Another one sneaking through a backyard. The SKS guy was still alive and reloading. I couldn't see down the other side of the street. Jericho had resorted to single shots to conserve ammo- he couldn't have more then fifteen rounds left.

As I watched, the shutter on my left exploded in a spray of splinters. I dove back, covering my eyes. Pieces of wood were stuck in my left lid; I clamped it closed and exited the room, making my way down the stairs and pressing up against the wall next to the door. Glancing out I saw no one and made a quick dash to the next house- the mines were beginning to thin out. I was getting closer.

I rounded the next house, got a clear view of a guy moving up the street, and fired. The shot caught him in the arm, and he stumbled long enough for me to line up a shot through his middle. My impatience screwed me over, though, as the two who had been taking cover before dove out of cover and opened up at me. At least I was buying Jericho time. But he was trying to buy me time...

In a house across the street, someone appeared in the broken window and started shooting. I rounded the house again, considered going inside, but instead clambered over the rotting fence into the next backyard, nearly landing on a mine. I took off at a run, trying to lean left to counter using only my right eye. I had no idea what to do. All I knew was that I wasn't leaving Jericho behind.

Strafing along the side of another house, I peeked around, saw no one-

A deafening "Fuck you!" and a volley of shots. Great. Jericho was running out of ammo, so he was resorting to words.

I sprinted down the street, my malnourished legs protesting at every step. Once I passed three houses, I turned, jumped over a backyard fence, moved into the street onto which the fight was raging-

Too many. There were six, maybe seven guys with their backs to me. Or girls, I don't know. I put a round through one, then two, but then had to take cover on the other side of the street. I could hear the footsteps of two or three trying to sneak up behind me. What was the point? It was over. You can't win a fight against four times your band. I'm not a hero.

"Jericho!" I thundered into the air. The footsteps stopped.

"What, kid?" he yelled back.

"You alive?"

"No shit, dumbass!"

The footsteps began again, but I had already loaded the TOZ-194. One came around the corner, Nagant M1895 raised, only to shoot and miss a crouching guy with a shotgun. Who didn't miss. One.

I spun, hit the dirt, and as she poked her head around the corner, I reduced her head to meat- but not before she she squeezed a shot off that found its way into my ear. Rush of blood. Two.

Blood was gushing out of the side of my head and I could hardly hear, but I could sort of squint with my left eye so that was an okay tradeoff. I got to my feet, looked around the corner and almost got a face full of AKM bullets. Okay, that's three, but how do I get him?

Another shot rang out, and a body dropped from the roof and landed less than a foot near me. A hole was neatly placed in the center of his forehead.

"Nice one, Jericho!" I hollered. I snatched the fallen guy's gun- a Zastava M76, not bad- placed the TOZ-194 and Mosin-Nagant on my back. I checked the magazine- twenty three bullets. But Jericho had apparently spent his last shot saving my life, so I decided to return the favor.

I went around the back of the house, almost forgetting to watch out for mines, and moved up two backyards, just before a burnt-out house that wouldn't give much cover. From the gunfire, there were four or five guys left, maybe more, not counting the AKM guy. I glanced around the corner and shot a few rounds into the window where the AKM guy was- only for a muzzleflash to appear in the window next to it, and a flash of pain to ignite in my leg.

I would've screamed, I really would've liked to, but that would've given my position away. I dove back behind the corner, laughing in my head as I heard more bullets impact the wood wall. Way to waste bullets, dumbass. But there were two he didn't waste that were buried in my upper leg, and I wasn't going anywhere.

But I was. "Kid!"

The pain flared. I wanted to call back to him, but a groan of pain was all I managed.

"Don't come back! Run!"

I couldn't do that. I couldn't run. Couldn't abandon Jericho like how I abandoned everyone else.

"Run!"

Like how my mom abandoned dad, how my dad abandoned me.

Lurching out of cover into the street, I fired into both windows of the AKM guy's house as I hobbled forward. Everything was a brown blur, between the sky and the pavement and the houses. My leg was slick with blood and I could feel those two bullets pounding away with my pulse. I was in so much pain time didn't register, and suddenly I was on the ground, staring at nothing.

An old boot came into view. I followed it up to find ripped up jeans, a brown leather jacket falling apart, and finally, a girl no older than me- her sweaty face twisted in anger.

Jericho was at gunpoint a little behind her, his bloodied bayonet at his feet. Blood and dust choked his beard, but when he looked at me, he was as calm as I'd ever seen him.

"Trade." My mouth was dry and my teeth hurt from gritting them so much.

"What did you say?" the girl growled. Their leader, I guessed. Nine of them hung about her, three with their guns on Jericho.

"Just... wanted... to trade." I tried to swallow, but my throat wouldn't move right, so I coughed up blood instead. "So... so..." I got a kick in the bad leg. I howled in pain- the steel toe of her combat boot was as hard as hell.

"S-so... why'd you shoot?" I rasped shakily around shallow gasps. I was vaguely aware of my guns being pulled from my back. The girl herself stooped to pull my knife from its sheath.

"It's a wasteland, kid," she said, putting mocking emphasis on the last word. Jericho scowled. I was too tired to. "Got to kill to live. Right, Jericho?"

"Fuck you, whorin' bitch-ass cum-drippin' cunt." He got the butt of an AKM for that that sent him to the ground, but he chuckled all the same.

I tried to push myself up, but my arms trembled and they got kicked out from under me. My jaw stung. "Can't live forever. Might as well... live... peacefully..." So tired.

"Whatever, kid." She grabbed me roughly by the hair and pulled my face from the ground, placing my combat knife against my throat, enough that I could feel its bite. "That was my sister you killed. Where's your peace, huh, fuckhead? Big talk for a small raider!"

Maybe her eyes used to be gray, but they were so clouded with fury I couldn't tell. I smiled. "Can't live forever," I repeated. I didn't regret it. She screamed, and I felt the serrated blade sink its teeth into my throat. A flash of flame, of nothingness, and I left my body.

But I came back, and the body hurt and I wanted to leave and be dead where I couldn't feel pain but ten feet away was a bloody mess and the girl was flat on her face bleeding and I couldn't find Jericho but everyone looked dead but a few moved a bit and the girl tried to get up but their was shrapnel in her back and she cried out and I couldn't find Jericho-

He used the last grenade shit shit shit why did he do that-

I pushed myself into a sitting position, my ears still ringing. Where Jericho and his captors used to be was a circle of blood and organs and limbs.

The girl was on her side, sobbing, contorted in agony as she jammed syrette after syrette into her back. Seemed like a stupid thing to do, Jericho was dead and I was almost dead, not like she was in danger or anything. I reached over and plucked my knife from her weak grip, ignoring the hands that scratched at my face and throat. I crawled over to Jericho's pieces. The pain in my leg was subsiding into a numb shock, but I was barely conscious. I rummaged through my pockets and found the cap to the water bottle he had given me. I put it next to his eyes and his brain and his heart and his liver.

"Thanks," was all I could say. I fell asleep, clutching my knife close. Maybe I'd die.