Chapter 1 - Awakening

...

July 7, 2287

Is this thing working? Unfortunately, I didn't get those holotape that record voices, just these holologs. Not much I can do but record these. Got a nice pack of them, and that whole 'vault sickness' thing is getting to me. Everyone tells me that it passes after a few years; failure to adapt would mean that the population of Vault 91 would have had a massive drop before the first decade after its door sealed. Fortunately, I have my Ink Spots holotape to keep me company, and a few copies of Grognak the Barbarian. I actually managed to get myself a copy of the script for the canceled AntAgonizer comic. Hubris Comics had only a thousand of these made, the rest scrapped after they canceled that arc due to poor publicity. The Great War was also probably not kind on these drafts, so I'm surprised that Neimi managed to hold onto hers for so long.

Enough of me typing random crap. Not like this'll be read by anyone besides me. For future reference to myself, if the 'vault sickness' drives me mad, my birthday just passed. Now 15 years old, and the Overseer has seen it fit to release the Shooting Gallery on that very day. He says, eventually, we'll have to go out into the Wasteland, as the Vault's systems have began to fail. Can't blame it, given how long this thing's been running. He's said, so far, there have been some scouting parties that have reported good things in the Wasteland. Well... besides the irradiated animals. There have been people outside, people who have managed to form together and create something.

... What was I writing about, again? Oh, the shooting gallery. Was actually a pretty decent shot; might even hope that, on the GOAT, I get a job as part of the Security Force. It'd get me some free meals from the diner. Well, might want to start considering studying for the damn thing. Heard it's the hardest thing anyone in the Vault can expect, the Vault Dweller's equivalent to being tied up and left for dead to a pack of Deathclaws. Lesse... The Bloodied Red Flag - The Chronicles of the Commie Menace.

... Maybe I should cheat.

Her lips curled into a subtle smile, reading over last night's entry. Early morning, as it constituted for the Vault, had come upon its underground dwellers, the sounds of footsteps echoing from outside her room. Rebecca, twirling the green (dyed, of course) highlight in one of her two pigtails, laid the hololog aside, the first of a near mountainous pile by her bed. It was a Sunday, and Vaults, fortunately, abided by the old Pre-War concept of "No school on Weekends". Neimi, she recalled, said she would be over in, say... 3:00 Vault Time (specifying from Vault Time, which was about 0 minutes and 0 seconds different), and the last time she had been late, the girl had taken one of Rebecca's better jumpsuits, wrapped it around the helpless girl, and stuffed her in her closet for an entire week, coming only to feed her. Knowing that she had no limits to her rage and no checks on it (her parents long deceased due to reasons no one has ever adequately given them), angering her would be the worst thing since the F and piles of homework she suffered due to her captivity.

Rousing herself, finally, from the covers, she sat up in her bed, her legs still warmed by her blanket, and took a long glance at the clock to the side of her room, its green glow illuminating part of a Vault-Tec Energy Weapons bobblehead.

2:30

She blinked, rubbing her eyes in disbelief.

2:31

"Shit!"

Tripping over her bed, instinct only catching herself with her hands rather than her face, Rebecca scrambled to her feet and opened (bashed) the door to her room and soon after the door to the bathroom, her Vault 91 pajamas and dark blue bra and panties flying behind her before the door slid shut.

Inside, the shower ("Kyyyyyaaaaa! Cold shower, cold shower! ... Kyyyaaaaaaaaaaaa! Hot shower, hot shower, why the fuck have they not fixed the damn showers yet?") flew on for a brief second before shutting off, serving enough to pass as a half-hearted shower. Wrapping a Vault 91 towel around her, she made a quick pass around her teeth with her toothbrush and flipped the hair out of her eyes, taking the (Vault 91 licensed) ribbons in her hands. Making sure the green highlights in her made pigtails were prominently shown from her normal tone of raven-black, she tied the ribbons, her similarly emerald eyes winking to herself in the mirror.

Treating the doors with about as much respect as she had before, the towel flew in the same pile as her discarded clothes behind her as she threw the doors of her closet open, picking her favorite outfit. A (Her eyes glittering as her hands slid over the soft fabric.) Vault 91 Jumpsuit, the yellow numbers reflecting the ceiling lights to create sparkles. She quickly threw it on herself, finally breathing a sigh of relief as she took a quick look at herself in the mirror. Her slim build, slightly thinner than that of her own age, complimented the jumpsuit well, and the pigtails reaching down to her midback were a personal, guilty pleasure of hers, suppressing feelings of irritation when some ass behind her would take one, tie it to one of the poles at a corridor intersection, and watch as she would inattentively pass by and suddenly find herself yanked back by her own hair.

Come to think of it, she recalled with a grimace, one of Neimi's earlier punishments was tying both pigtails to a pole, binding her hands behind said pole, and splitting her jumpsuit down the middle so the many denizens of the Vault could gape awkwardly at her. How the two were still friends, she had yet to figure out.

Finding her pale skin flush at this, she shook the thought from her head, running her hand through a pigtail as was common of her. Neimi probably had something fun planned for the both of them, she still probably running on the adrenaline gifted to her from Rebecca's birthday party from only a day ago. She opened, the door, eyes expansive with thoughts of the day ahead.

And gagged, immediately finding her windpipe constricted. A girl not that different from herself in stature or dress, her hair cut down to her shoulders with a violet highlight running down the bangs, stood in the doorway, her eyes as dark as the Vault-Tec insignia dangling from her neck. The hand around Rebecca's neck connected to an arm, which in turn was connected to said girl, she wearing an expression of 'mild' irritation.

Rebecca's eyes shot to the side of her room, barely able to make out the shining green numbers in the clock hanging by the bobblehead.

3:51

"How is that even possible?" she managed to spit out, each syllable prompting Neimi to tighten her grip to the point of strangulation. Bringing Rebecca even to her face, her lips curled into a mild, oxymoronic smile.

"You're late."

...

"Come on, Rebecca. Just a little more. I assure you, this is perfectly safe."

"No! Cut me down! NOW!"

A BB discharged from the gun, a smoking hole just a few centimeters from her exposed face. Rebecca's controlled gasps for breath quickened, beginning another frenzied attempt at struggling at the the makeshift bonds created from the ruining of many of her favorite Vault 91 jumpsuits. Neimi's... venting habits... have always been abnormal for a girl her age, but she couldn't help but feel that, perhaps, Neimi had gone a bit too far. After dragging a reluctant (struggling) Rebecca in her newly created (straight)jacket made by a loving friend to one of the lower, storage levels of the Vault, she had placed some of the iron poles against a wall, enough distance that, with both arms or legs outstretched, you would be able to reach both. After cutting Rebecca loose from her jumpsuit (tearing it off) and removing the battered boots and socks from her legs, she carefully bound the half-naked girl, eagle-spread, to the two poles, placing a package of sugar bombs on the top of her head.

"And remember," she reminded her with a wink. "If you cause those sugar bombs to fall, and not me, I'll start my target practice with your forehead instead."

Another BB shot out, clipping a strand of hair from Rebecca's head. "Kyaa!"

"Oh dear," Neimi groaned, almost oblivious to her friend's hysterical pleas. "Missed. Once more, then."

Shot number two, its trajectory nearer to to the sugar bombs, but still missing short of the box and inclined more toward her head. Rebecca winced on the bullet's impact, as though it still had struck her dead-on.

"No? Once more, then!"

Rebecca gave a short whimper, her eyes tightly shut.

Click.

Slowly, an eyelid slid open, Rebecca watching her friend groan and toss the gun aside. "Out of ammo. Guess we're calling it a night, eh?"

Rebecca obediently nodded, feeling the sugar bombs coming off her a weight that had been compressing her head. She slowly slid down to the ground, rubbing her wrists and ankles as the circulation returned to them both. Turning to Neimi, a feeling of elation rose in her as she revealed a small collection of Vault 91 jumpsuits, one already unfolded and ready for her use. A childish laugh was shared between them, a clear paradox to the events unfolding just only moments ago.

"So, I'll see you at class tomorrow?"

"Yeah. See-ya later."

With a wave, the door to her room slid closed, Neimi's warming smile hidden behind a slab of rusting iron. Eventually, she would have to ask her why the two were still friends given some of the circumstances leading to how they spent their time together. However, she decided that such questions could be answered some other time. Maybe at the GOAT, she chuckled as she thought. The holologs lay unused behind her, a hand resting on a new tape. Rebecca had since sealed herself within the embrace of her blanket, and fatigue had overtaken her before she could even move the muscles in her arm to bring the hololog to the edge of the table.

...

you shall be That which is the driving force
and wHose will is that which is breathed in and sharEd
like the wine of water granted from fOuntains
crafted of gold upon which salvatioN will be
raining from its Edge.

Sweat plastered her face as she shot up from her slumber. No matter how tightly her eyes had clenched shut, Rebecca could still see blood dripping from the walls of her once-glorious vault, the classroom overturned, desks astray and papers sprawled all over the ground, with the phrase carved into one of the Vault's great steel walls, punctuated with blood filling its cracks. Her forehead felt like a roaring furnace, and she moaned softly as she fell back to her pillow, murmuring for her parents to come and comfort her, to take her into their arms and wipe away the dream that seemed so vivid in her mind.

It then occurred to her that a pungent stench filled her nostrils, an impure stench that burned and caused her eyes to tear. She made a motion to wipe off the newfound water on her cheeks, but her wrists rattled around an iron circle. Any energy devoted to panic was fortunately absorbed by a still prevalent fatigue, and she rose nonchalantly, taking note of her surroundings.

Lack of surroundings, to be more exact. Still enshrouding the room was a thick darkness, not unlike her room in the middle of a vault night, though an odd hole in the... ceiling... allowed a peculiar, pale light to fall upon her bed. She looked about her, instead of buried in her Vault-issued bed comforted by a dirty mattress, dirt and grime coating what may have been a pearl white surface. Covering her bare legs was a blanket almost twice as dirty, to her shock. The edges were fringed from what may have been a fire and its fabric contained numerous holes where insects had dined upon. Giving a quick yank to her legs, she unsurprisingly met a similar resistance that kept her ankles shackled together.

With what little light shone above, she forced her head behind to peer at her wrists. As she suspected, but still greatly confusing, a pair of handcuffs had secured her wrists behind her. She pondered the possibility of this being a feverish dream from yesterday's events, but usually she didn't find herself still in her pajamas, and she never had holes in the ceiling in her dreams.

"Hey, the bitch is up. What do we do?"

The gruff voice caught her ear, and in interest she listened as a pair of footsteps echoed in what may have been a hallway not far off. The creak of a door, an unfamiliar sound that made her brow crinkle, reverberated in the room, and the figure came up to her, looming above.

A Grognak the Barbarian impersonator, she immediately thought as her eyes focused on him. Bruises and scars littered a dark face, a mohawk took up his head, and, lacking a shirt, instead wore what appeared to be belts filled with... magazine rounds, she surmised. A strap around his shoulder led to a decrepit hunting rifle to his side, an antique Rebecca had only seen hanging from the atrium of the Vault. He smiled, revealing a slew of missing teeth amongst a yellow set.

"Hey, little princess. Did I wake ya?"

"Who... are you?"

"None of your business, girl. If you know what's good for you, you'll be a nice one and go back to sleep."

"But I can-"

"Pretend, then!" he snarled, spit dripping onto Rebecca's face. Her eyes widened for a moment, eyes focused on a hand reaching for a glint of steel opposite his gun, then relaxed as his arms returned to his sides. The barbarian, as she dubbed him, turned to leave.

"Wait!"

"Fucking what, bitch?" he yelled, spinning to meet the girl.

"Could you, like, move my arms in front? I can't sleep like this."

An incomprehensible stream of words left the barbarian's lips as he came up to Rebecca. Immediately lifting her by the collar of her pajamas, she only managed to let out an astonished scream before she slammed to the ground (face first, as luck would have it). She felt the handcuffs loosen, her arms able to stretch out, and a hand quickly turning her over, returning to the handcuffs to a locked position.

"Thanks," she grumbled, raising her bound wrists to her face.

"Whatever," the barbarian grumbled, disappearing into the dark fog that consisted of the room's surrounding.

A smile slowly spread across her face, as she turned her head so the angle of her eyes would be more forgiving to the glint of light on the head of her makeshift bed. Moving her hands to the bobby pin placed by the mysterious stranger of deus ex machina, she took the redeeming key in her fingers, steadying them so as not to fumble and have it fall out of sight. She was not keen to studying stuff she cared little about, propaganda being one of her pet peeves, though she had an avid curiosity, and one of these had stretched to the structure of Pre-War locks. The bobby pin slid into the keyhole of the cuffs, clicked once, and the iron circle constricting her broke. She quelled her excitement even as her shackles were freed, keeping in her mind the exit of the barbarian.

"This is a weird dream," she muttered, slowing her gait so as not to let even the slightest sound come from the soles of her feet. "Wonder when I'll wake up."

...

Rebecca Richmond

S: 4
P: 5
E: 3
C: 9
I: 9
A: 9
L: 1

Tag Skills:

Guns

Science

Speech