Cold.
The cold is all I can feel and I'm so damn disorientated. Are they done with the decontaminating? I can barely here a low voice outside. The window in the pod begins to unthaw, and everything is blurry. Once my vision finally clears up, I see what looks like a woman in a hazmat suit, followed by a taller man with a scar on his face. He's wielding a pistol and his armor is nothing like I have seen before. My breath is shaky, and the numbness I feel in my entire body is slowly going away. I look down at my vault suit and notice that the blue color is a faded, almost lighter blue color. What the actual hell is going on?
"This one," I hear the low voice growl coming from the man as he points to Elenora and Shaun's decontamination pod. "This is the one." I watch as the woman messes with the controls. The man reloads his pistol, and I feel anxiety rise in my chest. I let out a shaky breath, which covers the glass window with fog. I slowly rise my arm to rub the fog off of the window before trying to push open the door. Open! Open, dammit! Elle's pod opens, and I watch as she nearly falls out with Shaun but catches herself with her free hand before she can.
"God, is it over?" Nora asks. "Are we alright?"
"Shut your mouth and hand us the child," the man growls, tightening his grip on the pistol. Nobody talks to my wife that way. The woman approaches her, arms outstretched, trying to take Shaun. I start banging my fist against the window, trying to find any way I can to get out of the pod and intervene. As Elenora refuses to give Shaun up, the man points his weapon at her. I'm practically punching the window by now. I will not let them do anything to Nora and take my son.
"You have one last chance! Give us the child!" he shouts at her. Elenora holds Shaun closer to her chest, not letting them take him. I look at the gun in the man's hand, at Elenora, at the gun, and back at Elenora again, trying to figure out the trajectory of the bullet if he were to shoot. What if he does shoot her? Oh god, he's going to shoot her. I need to get out of here, I need to get out of here. I continue banging my fist on the glass, pushing my shoulder into the pod door; anything to get the hell out of here and to protect them.
Nora refuses. I can hear the trembling in her voice, but her tone is defensive and she stands her ground. "No! I won't let you take Shaun!"
The man lowers his gun momentarily, mumbling something unintelligible to the woman in the hazmat suit, who nods and reaches for Shaun again, this time grabbing hold of him. I watch, unable to do anything, as Elenora struggles to keep him in her arms. I look over as the man aims the gun at Nora again, and as the woman pulls Shaun from her arms, the pistol goes off. At this point, I'm already screaming her name and my throat is burning in pain. My vision blurs and all I see before the window freezes over is that damned scar on the monster's face, and I hear his voice.
"At least we still have the backup."
I bang my fist against the window once more, still to no avail as I cuss him out and eventually silent sobs are escaping my mouth. "You piece of shit! I'll kill you when I get out of here!" I can just barely see him walk away from my view before I feel myself becoming cold once more. The glass fogs over and I can see it start to freeze over before everything is dark.
[-]
I open my eyes to see the window thawing out again. What, decide to come back for me, too? As my vision returns back to normal and the fog is gone from the window, I only see Elenora in the pod across from me. A pained expression is frozen on her face, and I can feel myself frowning at the sight. I push as hard as I can on the door of the pod. After a few moments of struggling to escape, the pod finally opens and I fall out onto the floor, reaching for Elle's pod across the room. I can't help but sob on the floor like a child who doesn't want to be punished by their parents. Elenora, the woman who I fell clumsily for, the woman who knew the inner workings of my brain and knew just how to get under my skin in just the right way, was gone.
I stand up with what little strength I have left, but still disorientated. I nearly fall over again as I stand up, vertigo taking its toll on me. I reach Elle's pod, pressing the buttons on the control panel next to it. "Come on, come on, come on," I say frantically. There is some part of me that hopes she's still alive, but I know deep down that the shot that was fired was most likely fatal. She couldn't have survived a shot like that a point-blank range.
When the pod finally does open, I have to look twice to see for certain if what I was seeing was real or not. Elle was halfway out of the pod, one hand on her shoulder and the other holding onto the handle of the pod.
"Elle!" I practically shout, helping her step out of the pod and allow her to fall into my arms. She's as cold as I am, and there's blood on her shoulder. I look over her and at the pod, finding a hole right above where her shoulder would be if she was still in the pod. He fucking missed! I thank whatever god is watching over us and I squeeze Nora slightly harder as she trembles in my arms. She tries speaking, but the only thing that escapes her mouth is a loud whimper, followed by tears streaming down her face.
"Shh, it's alright, Elle," I say, except it's not alright. Nothing is fucking 'alright.' I'm lying to her, to myself. Our only son has been taken, and we don't have a damn clue as to where he is. I can feel the anger building up, but now isn't the time. I look down at Nora, who is holding onto my faded blue vault suit for dear life. It's the most broken I've ever seen her. She's one of the toughest people I have ever met, perhaps more than my army buddies, so it's weird, it's foreign to see her so upset like this. I let myself slip a little too, but still keep my tough composure, for her.
Nora finally manages to get the words out that she needs to. "J-Jack, I-I let them take Shaun, I couldn't protect him, d-dammit!" She quickly blames herself for it. I comfort her by gently running my fingers through her beautiful locks of hair.
"Hey, look at me," I say, surprising myself with how calm I sound. Elle looks up at me, and I wipe the tears from her freckle-covered cheeks. "We're going to find Shaun, I promise. We'll find him. We'll find who took him from us and make him pay for it."
I can see the fear and guilt in her green eyes. She looks down for a moment, and then back up at me after rubbing her eyes. "W-We need to find a way out of the vault," she says. Her voice is still a little shaky.
"Right," I reply, taking her hand and leading her through the vault, wasting little time and passing the other pods, not daring to look inside them. Elenora takes one of the stun batons off of a dead guard, while I go with a 10mm pistol. Every corner we turn, we find a skeleton. How long have we been down here? We continue, taking out the large roaches that attack us.
"What the hell?" Nora mumbles, swatting at a roach with her stun baton. "Giant roaches?"
I fire my pistol at a roach that approaches me, and turn around to find that multiple of the oversized bugs are attacking her. I take them out hastily while Nora ducks under my outstretched arm to take out another roach. Once the room is finally cleared, we sweep the rest of the vault until we reach the Overseer's office. I bite my lip as I bend over in front of the terminal, searching through the computer. Behind me, I can hear Nora loading in rounds into another pistol.
"You've got to teach me how to use this, dear," Elle calls out. I look over my shoulder at her, smiling despite the circumstances we are in. She's looking over the pistol and looking down the sights before she grabs the holster on the table and straps it to her waist.
"Of course," I reply before turning back to the terminal. I read the words out loud to her, and she looks on with an expression of disbelief. "We were cryogenically frozen."
"Why would Vault-Tec do that?" Elle gasps, a hand around her mouth. With the terminal, I unlock the nearby door. I notice a large weapon in a locked case, with a label that reads Cryolater. "Come back for you later," I mumble before turning to the first aid kit next to it. I find some stimpacks. I take them and grab a bag that's slung over the shelf next to it, and stuff the stimpacks into it, leaving one out for Elle.
"Here," I say, handing Nora the stimpack. "For your shoulder." She winces as she injects the needle into her injured shoulder. I look closer at the wound; it seems like that man, no, that monster had just grazed her shoulder with that bullet. It was a miracle that he actually missed. He seemed like someone who would never miss a shot. We continue, eventually reaching the main room where the vault exit is. I walk over to the controls, and look down at the skeleton at my feet. I pull what I think is a pip-boy off of the arm and slip it on. While it loads up, I notice another one resting and the controls and throw it to Elenora, who puts it on as well.
I wipe the dust off of the screen as I look through each section. I look at the map section, and in the corner of the interface, I see the date. October 23rd, 2287. 9:24am.
"We've been in here for two hundred and ten years, Elle," I say looking over at her. She's shaking her head.
"No, no, that isn't possible," she says, looking through her own pip-boy. I approach her from behind and wrap my arm over her uninjured shoulder, looking down at her pip-boy. Nora mumbles something that I can't exactly catch as she looks down at the date on her screen. "You've got to be kidding me."
"Well," I begin, letting my arm fall off her shoulder as I move towards the controls for the vault door. "Only one way we can find out." I plug in my pip-boy to the slot of the door controls and press the button once the glass over it is removed. The ramp lowers onto the ground, allowing us to cross and make our way to the elevator. I grab onto Elle's hand and lead her onto the elevator, lacing my fingers with hers as the elevator begins to ascend. The shaking causes my vertigo to go haywire, and the screeching of the metal hurts my ears.
I feel Elle's grip on my hand tighten, my anxiety lifting only partially. As we reach the top, the bright light of the sun blinds us. I block the sun out with my free hand, and take a good look at everything around us.
It's all gone. The color, the liveliness… everything.
Nora excepts the fact that we have woken up to a wasteland before I do. I almost fall over as I look at the surroundings. Hey, at least the sky is still blue.
"No… this isn't real," I mumble, sitting down on the ground, head in hands. "We're still back home, sleeping… this is all a dream." Elle crouches down next to me, gently rubbing my back. She presses her lips against my head, and then leans her own head against my shoulder.
"Jack, we need to go. Come on," she says, taking my hand and stand up, urging me to follow her. I shake my head. "I wish it was a dream, but it isn't." She's surprisingly calm as she helps me up off the ground. I quickly embrace her in a hug before hiking down the hill towards our old home. Once we get there, I have to lean against the frame of the door. I watch as Elle continues inside our old home before me, examining the shelf to the left first. She grabs my trifold flag first, and then her law degree. They're not too damaged, other than the occasional burnt mark and tear. I finally enter the house, immediately going to our old room. I go to the hidden panel in the wall, pulling it off and revealing all of my old army stuff.
My fatigues are ruined beyond belief, and the assault rifle that lays in there is in horrible condition. The only thing that was left untouched was my dog tags. I grip them firmly in my fist by the tags, holding it to my chest for a moment. When I leave the room, I notice Elle is in Shaun's room. I slowly snake my arms around her midsection as she holds onto the bear that Shaun's grandmother had bought for him the day he was born. Mr. Bear. Nora holds it close to her own chest.
"We will find him," Elle says, looking down at the bear. "And when we do, we'll give him the bear back."
"Anything you wish, my dear," I say, trying put a smile on my face as I drape my dog tags over her head and onto her neck. "We'll find him. I promise."