(AN - I do not own Fallout or any of its characters. I only own the OCs and the plot. Please R&R and enjoy.)
Introduction – Falling
This was it, the end of the world, the end of everything. Nothing would survive this, nothing could, could they?
The bombs were falling.
People hurried left and right, like bugs under a rock now exposed, not really listening to the military giving out instructions. There were Vaults that could protect them from the radiation, but not everyone wanted to walk into those depths where they might never return from.
There were a couple of small trucks blocking the path to one of the Vaults, and young people, between the ages of sixteen and twenty, were being dragged over to it and questioned.
It was chaos.
The trucks had strange symbols on their sides, and the name of a company, it was called Cryo-genesis.
Cassandra Fuller was the next to be ripped from her family being shoved into a Vault and pushed towards the tall man waiting to speak to her.
"Name!" he barked, glaring down at the girl before him, his brown eyes nearly black with his rage and worry, his usually neat, slicked-back, hair now falling into his eyes without the care he normally took of it. He had a computer-pad thing in his hands, and was scrolling down it quickly, searching for something.
"Who wants to know?" Cassandra retorted with venom.
"General Yates. Name… please."
"Cassandra Fuller. Look, what's this about?"
"Age?"
"Nineteen. Seriously, my mum's looking for me-"
"Gotcha! You'll do just fine."
And with that the now sweating General yoinked Cassandra through the gap between the trucks and down a slope into a Vault. He shoved her into a room filled with strange bed-like tanks and took her over to one that didn't have glass covering it. The glass on the other tanks were frosted over, like they were immensely cold inside.
She was pushed in front of an open cabinet; it was filled with weapons, though some of them were missing. She was made to pick a weapon and explain why she'd picked it.
"I want the sniper rifle because I'd be useless at close-combat. I'm not strong enough to overpower someone with my bare hands or with a knife. I'm also not strong enough to lift heavier guns. The sniper is the best for me; I can strike from a distance and get away before I get caught."
Yates nodded, made a note on his pad and pushed a rucksack into her arms before picking the girl up and tossing her into one of the tanks.
It was kitted up like a bed inside, with a mattress, pillow and thin blanket. There was that same symbol on top of the glass, the same name, Cryo-genesis.
"I'm sorry." Yates frowned as he pressed a button to slide the glass closed over the near hysterical girl. She started beating her palms on the glass, screaming to be let out, hot tears forming in her eyes.
There was a soft hush from the tank and General Yates took a few steps back from all eight of the now filled tanks…
Eight kids to make it… he hoped. He recorded a message on his pad and put it into a drawer next to a computer.
"Forgive me." He whispered as he left the room, sealing the door behind him and making his way out of the Vault. The huge round door also rolled into place and locked.
Yates reached into his pocket and took out his wallet. Inside was a picture of his wife, and his daughter at her wedding. He smiled and looked up at the sky; he could see it now, the bombs falling to meet the earth, to destroy all that anyone had ever known.
The shockwave struck him first, knocking him off his feet and flung him, and the few left out of the Vaults off their feet. Yates smacked into the Vault door and heard his leg snap with the impact, he didn't really feel it though, he didn't have the time to.
Everything went fuzzy, and he felt dizzy. He knew this was the first wave of the radiation, and he looked at his wife and daughter one last time. They're been killed in a car accident on a family holiday last summer. At least he'd get to see them again.