Survivor: Chapter One

Disclaimer: Bethesda and Obsidian have made something awesome. I just like to play in it.

Notes: Sometimes I make changes for better storytelling effect, and sometimes it's because I believe the in-game source may be considered unreliable and the "truth" may be somewhat different. Please enjoy, and leave feedback.


There's a feeling of coming-to, but Alice has no idea how long it takes to become aware of her surroundings again. All she knows at first is that there's an alarm going off. Her clock? Is she supposed to be getting up to go to work?

No - her alarm clock makes a buzzing, or sometimes plays music. This is different. It isn't coming from her nightstand either, because the next thing she becomes aware of is that the alarm is all around her, surrounding her with a blaring siren. There's a woman's voice too, but she can't understand - or maybe can't process - the words.

That's when she realizes that she isn't lying supine in bed; there's no sheets or blankets to pull off, no soothing scent of laundry detergent. She's propped in a standing position with flat cushions behind her. Her eyes open, but she can't make sense of what she sees - there's frost on a small window directly in front of her face, and she's in some sort of shipping container?

She's cold, and she can't breathe. So cold, and it would be easier to just lie back and go back to sleep. She would too, except that the coughing starts. Deep, hacking coughs that start near her diaphragm and rise through her lungs like a virus from hell. She bangs her fist on the window as one cough after another tears through her throat, trying to brace herself.

If she could just get a moment without a cough, she'd be okay. She could get her bearings and figure out where she is. She could figure out what in the world is going on.

Either banging on the small frosted window has had some effect or something more is going on here, because the window begins to rise in front of her - the whole wall begins to lift away, and she falls forward, crashing out of a metal cannister to a concrete floor.

She gasps - something about the air is different now. It has weight. She can feel it going into her lungs. She gulps another lungful of air, and tries to figure out how to get her feet beneath her and stand up. Involuntarily, she shivers.

After a moment, she's calmer. Things are beginning to look familiar - a long narrow room of metal pods, all closed except the one she came from. Overhead, the warning blares.

All vault residents must evacuate immediately.

Vault? Something niggles at a corner of her brain. Something familiar. If only -

She retches but nothing comes up. She wipes her mouth with the back of one hand and turns and that's what she sees him. Nate.

Nate, in one of these pods. Still, slumped to one side. Hair tinseled in frost.

Somehow she scrambles up, her feet finding purchase against the damp concrete. In a moment she's banging on the door of his pod, slamming her palms against the window. All she can see is the blood on his chest, the emptiness of his arms.

Where is the baby?

She turns her head from one side to the other as one memory in particular floats to the surface: a man with an angry face staring at her through the small window and the screaming of a baby in the background.

Shaun?

I takes her a moment to find the post next to the pod; she jabs a hand against the button and the door of Nate's pod swings smoothly open. Inside, he appears much the same. His body is silvery with ice crystals. His chest should rise and fall with slow breaths, but instead lies unnaturally still. The wound in his chest is red, the blood frozen into small drips around the entrance wound. Somehow it reminds her of a case she studied in law school; looking at it is overwhelming but at the same time seems no worse than the crime scene photos she'd studied through her internship.

Part of her wonders how she can see him as both her husband, mortally wounded and just another corpse, a mystery to solve. These two feelings shouldn't coexist, and yet somehow they do.

She leans forward and lays her lips on his. There's no response from him, of course. It would be foolish of her to expect anything else. Whatever else Alice Delaney may be - if she even still is Alice Delaney, and she's really not sure of that at all anymore - she's always tried to see things clearly. It served her well in school, to be able to step back and consider all angles.

But Nate could always throw her for a loop.

She glances around the long room again, at the flashing lights and the blaring siren. She shivers again; the cold is deep in her bones. She can see all the way through the doorway and down the hall, and there's not a living human to be seen.

When she turns back, Nate is still there, still alone, still dead. Still.

Carefully - probably more carefully than warranted, given his situation - she reaches out and takes his left hand in hers. Pries the plain gold band from his finger and, without taking her eyes from his face, slips it inside her bra.

It nestles against her breast, creating a circle of ice against her cold skin.

"I'll find who did this, and I'll get Shaun back. I promise." She's not sure who she's talking to anyway. It's not like he can hear her.

Slowly, dazedly, she turns and begins to look for signs of life.


The elevator descending reminds her why she was below to begin with. Something about the sound of it chugging down to her connects a dot, and suddenly she's seeing the blast again. The shockwave charging across the suburbs like a tidal wave, the fear and confusion and the sound of another woman crying. He last look at the sun before dust and riotous fall leaves blew up over their heads. She can remember the frantic run through the woods to the vault door, to telling the guard that they were "on the list," in a voice she didn't recognize.

Kissing Shaun before she climbed in the decontamination pod.

Telling him, "Mommy's here. I love you, baby."

The sweet smell of his head and his happy smile, a few teeth peeking out at her.

She stands there, staring at the floor of the elevator with the pistol she found in the overseer's office in her hand and wonders if she's ready to see what's up there.

According to the computer she found, it's been at least two hundred days since the bombs went off. Considering the skeletons she found scattered around the vault, it's probably been a lot longer; all of them were picked clean by the oversized roaches she'd dispatched with a baton in a fury of revulsion and panic.

She realizes she's breathing fast. She tries to slow her heart and immediately gives it up as pointless. Not another single living person in the vault, nothing but frozen corpses and skeletons and the smell of trapped decay.

No sign of Shaun. No sign of a vicious-looking man with a scar on his face. Not that she knew what she was looking for.

After a long moment, she steps onto the elevator and delicately presses the button to send it to the surface. Beneath her, the floor rumbles and she rocks, then regains her footing. A soothing voice careens off the rust covered walls that cycle upwards and tells her to enjoy her return to the surface.

It seems like the elevator goes up for miles - through a series of lights, then into blackness. Was it this long going down? She can't remember. Gradually, overhead, she becomes aware of a circle of light growing larger, coming closer.

It's happening too fast, now, but she realizes that she doesn't know how to stop this.

The sun dazzles her eyes, and she stands at the top of the elevator for a long time, one hand suspended over her face, squinting and trying to see through the tears that have sprung up against her better judgment. The first impression she has is that it must be winter - all around her, the trees of their wooded suburb are bare of leaves. She shivers and can't tell if it's the residual cold from the vault, or if it's because it really is winter.

More than anything she wants to go home, but she stands there panting, wondering if she has the strength to confront Sanctuary, knowing what she does now.

The big one. It really did happen.

She hears Nate's voice, again, telling her that they really should consider a game plan "just in case."

She'd scoffed at him. "They wouldn't really do that, would they? Everyone knows mutually-assured destruction is dangerous nonsense."

He'd placed his calloused hand over her own. They'd been eating breakfast. It had been a sunny morning not long before Shaun was born and the daily paper seemed progressively more alarmist. It seemed silly to argue about China when it was such a beautiful day and they had so little time left to just the two of them, and so she'd just moved his hand to her belly. Shaun, ever the pleaser, had been obliging enough to kick for his daddy.

Nate had smiled. "Perhaps you're right. But you'd be amazed what people will do when their back is against the wall."

It's this that echoes through her head as she traces her way back home. The trees are dead or dying around her, many of them lying on the ground. The underbrush seems to be done. Is this winter?

Or is it nuclear winter?

About halfway down the hill, she trips and goes flying towards the footbridge. She lands, face-first on the ground and in that moment, realizes she's crying. The world around her blurs and she moves into a sitting position, not even bothering to wipe her eyes as she sobs. There's nothing to lean against, and so she curls into a ball, hugging her dirt-caked knees to her chin, and shakes with cold and loneliness.


Finding Codsworth proves to make her feel a bit better. If she's the last person left alive, at least she'll have someone to talk to. Even if that "someone" is a moderately depressed and prissy robot butler, it's someone she actually knows and she won't be alone forever.

Less welcome is the news that she's been gone for two hundred years. More accurately, she's been in the same place, but it's the world that's been gone for more than two centuries.

Sitting by a small fire in her former carport, she tries to process this and can't. Trying to visualize the passage of time makes her dizzy, and she sticks her head between her knees for a moment to try to get her bearings again.

When she sits back up again, she sees Codsworth returning to her with a can of something and a fork. The fork is miraculously unchanged; who knew that you could leave a fork in a drawer through a nuclear blast and two hundred years and it would look the same?

The can, on the other hand, looks a bit worse for the wear. The can itself is dented and rusted, and the labels hangs in faded tatters. When Codsworth presents it to her, she takes it gingerly, wondering about botulism if she consumes whatever horror lies within. She stretches the label flush against he can and tries to make out the decrepit words, but gives up and studies the picture. Corn? Beans? She can't be sure.

"I do so hope you'll feel better once you've eaten," Codsworth fusses at her as he builds the fire up more. He'd offered to go find something called brahmin meat, but she didn't dare let him go too far - she's so unnerved, she doesn't want to be alone.

If he leaves, she might cease to exist.

"Thank you Codsworth." She means for lasting this long, but knows he doesn't understand that.

The can, when she opens it, contains something green. She can't tell if it's supposed to be green or not, but that's the color it is. She puts the fork in carefully, trying to to gag at the gelatinous texture. Finally, with a bit of it on her utensil, she ferries it to her mouth.

Peas. At least, at some point it was. Now it's pea-flavored goop. It tastes better than it looks, but chewing it is still a trial.

She swallows forcefully and feels her stomach try to revolt. With a great force of willpower, she forces it back down. Another mechanical bite, and then she sets down the can and the fork and tries to warm her hands over the fire. It feels as though she has icicles instead of fingers and she begins to wonder if she will be cold forever.

It was the ninth circle of hell that featured the frozen lake, wasn't it? She can't remember. Perhaps one of these days she can get to library and look it up.

A frantic giggle escapes her lips, and she claps a hand over her mouth before another can come out.

The library. As if such a thing still exists.

After what feels like forever, she collapses on the mildewed mattress Codsworth has dragged outside for her. It's colder out here than in the house, but she lies there a long time, staring at the stars and willing herself to stay awake.

Eventually, she loses, and her eyes close and don't open.

The dreams, when they come, are terrifying.

Dreams? No - memories.

She's back in the decontamination pod, watching as her son is taken from Nate. Asleep, her brain gives her more than it did during her panicky exploration of the vault. Now she sees the whole incident from beginning to end. She locks eyes with the monster who murdered her husband. She hears him say that at least they still have a back-up.

Over and over again, she hears herself say that they'll start a brand-new life. She hears Nate yell about how he won't hand over Shaun. She hears the muffled bang of a pistol and watches him slump back into his pod.

The dream always ends where it began: with the blast whipping over their heads.


When she wakes up again, nothing is better. Around her the world is still falling apart.

After sleeping for two hundred years, you'd think she would feel more rested, but she still feels the kind of exhaustion that sinks deep into your bones and holds you down. The kind that makes it impossible to get up and go anywhere. Lying there on the mattress, she debates going back to sleep and waiting for death.

It's the bird song that changes her mind. She can't tell which direction it's coming from, but it doesn't matter - something is alive out there.

If a bird made it, she can't be the only living creature on this god-forsaken rock. Somewhere out there has to be another person.

Somewhere out there must be Shaun.

Out of habit, she goes inside the house and to the bathroom. Codsworth has helpfully brought her a small basin of purified water; she doesn't ask where he got it from. She wets her finger and scrubs it over her teeth, trying to work off the film left last night from her aborted dinner. It's not very helpful, but at this point she feels almost anything would help.

Bracing herself, Alice looks in the mirror. She's not sure what she expected, but she actually looks pretty normal. Not like she spent two hundred years frozen at all - whatever mark something like that might leave ona person, she doesn't see it. Her cheek is creased with sleep and she washes the grime from her face, and then she looks about the way she always has. There's a tangle of blonde curls to her shoulders, thin lips, a slightly too-large nose. Her eyes, as always, seem to give too much away.

What she wouldn't give for a pair of sunglasses.

With a sigh, she turns away, running her fingers through her hair in a fruitless attempt to tame it. Unless there's some ancient makeup lying around, this is likely to be as good as it gets.

If she's going to head to Concord, she'd best get moving. Who knows how long it'll take her to walk - she's always driven before but that's not an option now, not with their Corvega a burned out husk, laying on one side.

The gun is where she left it, lying next to her abandoned mattress. She picks it up, marveling at the heft of it. She's grateful now for the time Nate had spent teaching her how to shoot and clean his guns. She checked the house the day before and they were long gone, although she can't be sure if it's because someone took them or because the blast lifted them and sent them to Maine.

Outside, the day is crisp. Somehow, even without the bright leaves, there's a fall smell to air. Codsworth seemed to think it had been exactly two-hundred and ten years, and she's still unsure about that. Still, it's undeniable: it's definitely fall.

Somewhere Codsworth has scrounged up a small satchel and some supplies for her - sealed water, a few more tins of food. A stimpak that she didn't even want to ask about. She packs the bag, shoving the extra bullets on top. The pistol she keeps in her hand as she sets out.

Her boots make a clapping sound on the cracked pavement and she stops before she reaches the bridge to scrape them against the stoop leading up to a collapsed house. She scrapes them for several minutes until the soles make no sound when she walks. Nervously, she looks at the bridge. This is it.

When she crosses it, she really will be starting a whole new life.

She passes the gun from one hand to the other, rubbing her sweaty hands against her pants. When she puts it in her right hand again, it's with a steady, certain grip.

"You'd be amazed what people do when their back is against the wall."

And so she takes the first step.


When she sees the dog, Alice stops dead in the road, blinking. She scrubs her eyes, and blinks again.

The dog is still there.

What's more incredible, is that he (she?) looks friendly. It stands in the parking lot of the fuel station, half-hidden in the shadows so she almost didn't see it. Head cocked to one side, watching her. Wagging its tail.

Wagging its tail.

She stands still for a long, long moment, unsure of what to do. It feels like only yesterday that she had a full life - husband, son - and at the same time it's been so long since she connected to anyone else.

Then she's running to the dog, and he's running to her. They both skitter to a stop about three feet apart, and she starts talking to him, overjoyed. She stuffs the pistol in her bag.

"Hey, boy," she begins, reaching down to pet his sun-warmed fur. "What are you doing out here by yourself?"

Like he's going to talk back.

And then he does: he barks once, happily. He leans into her hands as if he hasn't been rubbed in forever and she thinks of the dog she had as a girl. He'd been a beagle, smaller than this one, and louder, but still a good friend to have by her side.

She misses that dog. Has for years.

"You seem like an okay guy," she murmurs as she massages his ears. The words aren't important. The tone is.

So far, the tone of this meeting is going great.

The dog leans up and licks her cheek. His tongue is like sandpaper and his breath smells as bad as any dog's breath she's ever smelled, but he's real and he's here and damn it if that doesn't feel amazing.

She wonders why her cheeks hurt and realize it's because she's grinning.

"Okay then," she straightens, looks around. "Let's stick together."

The dog gives another happy bark. His tail starts going again. It's like he understands her, which is crazy because he's a dog.

It's crazy, but then again, she's not alone anymore.