This is yet another attempt of mine to write and finish a story.
My apologies to anyone who read any of my other stories. I will return to them once my muse returns to me.
Fallout 4 does not belong to me. The only things that belong to me are the things that do.
Prologue - At a Minute's Notice
Along a windswept shore stood a monument to the past, a stone star that had weathered more than six hundred years. She had seen nation's rise and fall, inhabitants came and went, their goals and dreams as endless as the sea, that was its only companion. Until recently that is, it was one of her latest inhabitants that drew the most interest. He had arrived months ago, proud and fierce, and killed off her previous inhabitants. A great beast, and her brood, had made her once proud battlements into their nest.
He had arrived with his pack, and with thunder and fiery light in hand had defeated the ancient queen and her court. He had brought more of his kind, and together had worked to restoring her to her former glory. Walls were repaired, vines were torn down, guns and cannons were placed, new buildings were raised and those that already existed were improved and reinforced. She felt better than she had ever felt before, and more importantly for the first time in hundreds of years felt whole again. Once more she was home to proud men and women, not wild beasts or frightened survivors, people with a purpose and who in turn gave her purpose.
But recently he had changed, his once proud figure had become hunched as if carrying some great burden. His eyes once clear and filled with grim determination, had become cloudy and doubtful. He no longer slept soundly at night, but spent hours seated at his desk writing in a little black book he keeps locked in a safe, along with a bottle of brandy, a case of cigars, and a small framed picture.
It was here he sat now, while the storm raged outside, with that little black book in front of him, a glass of brandy in hand, a still lit cigar resting in a ashtray along with two others that had been ground down to their filter, and that little framed picture, studiously ignored and resting face down on the desk, as if looking at it pained him.
He looked down at what he had written once more.
I can feel it all wash over me. The heat. The force. The radiation...the fear. It's the end of the world - all over again.
He remembered that day vividly, he saw it everyday in his nightmares, the fire may have scorched the earth and poisoned his home. Yet it was the cold and the shadows that had destroyed what remained.
I've lost Shaun - all over again.
Images flashed before his eyes. Of his little boy, his laugh, his cry. He clung desperately to every little detail, in a effort to hold onto what he once was and not the monster they had both become, in order to survive in this cruel, cruel world.
I close my eyes, I see my life before all of this. Before the bombs. Everything can change in an instant, and the future you plan for yourself shifts - whether or not you're ready. At some point, it happens to all of us.
He saw his angel, and once again sought out the corners of his mind in order to go back to those beautiful emeralds that would light up with mischief, to those little smiles, to those little moments they shared everyday.
This, wasn't the world I wanted; but it was the one I found myself in. The Commonwealth, my home. Ripped apart, and put back together.
But they were gone, Shaun, Nora, the Ables, Russell, the Smiths, Baker, the Whitfields, Jahani, the Summers, even Rosa and her little boy Louis. THEY WERE ALL GONE. He remembered the little parties and barbecues we threw. He remembered sharing a beer with the guys debating last Sunday's game, who had the better car, even politics every now and than, as their wives sat back and gossiped and laughed. He remembered Louis, the boy he had come to see as a son, he remembered taking him to school, picking him up from the park, teaching him how to play baseball, he remembered how proud he was of him.
He also remembered their reunion. He remembered glassy black eyes, painted hungry howls, flaked and cracked skin bulging and distorted by massive tumors that rested just beneath the skin. He remembered each of them, he never took his eyes away from what he did…from what he Had to do. He remembered the trek back to Sanctuary, he remembered pitying eyes and comforting words. He remembered placing them below the earth next to a dozen other mounds. He remembered the wooden crosses, placed above their final resting places, names and dates. "A Loving Husband", "A Loving Wife", "A Beautiful Mother","A Father","A Great Man". Such simple words, they sounded nice but they would never tell all of the little things that made them, them. The smiles, the laughs, the dirty jokes, the hobbies, the meals. But that was all he could do, that was all he could ever do.
I thought I...I hoped I could find my family. Cheat time. Make us whole again. The way we were.
He remembered his angel, a flash in the darkness, that drove away the cold and filled him with a numb rage. He remembered her cold eyes, her mouth opened up in shock defiance, her body frozen in time.
He remembered his baby boy, who was no longer his baby, or his son. He remembered the bitter old man who wore his name. He remembered his eyes staring up at him from his bed. A weak body worn down by age, labor, and sickness, yet enough strength left to curse him and all that he had done. He remembered his eyes filled with disgust, his mouth set in a thin hard line, that expression stayed on his face, judging, even as he past on to the next world.
Two more graves he had dig, two more crosses that would never be enough.
But now, I know. I know I can't go back. I know the world has changed. The road ahead will be hard. This time, I'm ready. Because I know, war...war never changes.
This was all he had left, all he could do. His world may have been gone, but he could do what he did best, and try to make this world better. His family may have been gone, but he could protect other families, and the twisted little family he had gathered as he traversed this equally twisted world.
The door opened and one of his new family looked in.
"General, they're here."
It was time for him to be able to do more.