"I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end. I will give unto him that is athirst of the fountain of the water of life freely."
I remember my dad saying that to me.
I realise that I am depressed. I realise this is stupidity. I realise that there's no point in this.
I realise that today might as well be my last day.
People died before me, succumbed to the harshness of the post-apocalyptic wastes. Ruined civilizations, broken dreams, wrecked lives. I just want it all to end.
As I sit in the basement, with closed blinds, and the bright, unforgiving sun peers through tiny cracks in the walls, and under the blinds. The wallpaper in this room is falling off, peeling away at the top and bottom. The furniture is shabby, ripped in different places and there is a faint aroma of whiskey present in the room.
As I sit on the old, 1940's era armchair, magnum rested against my temple, I try to remember all the good things I've done in my life, and all the bad things I swore I'd stop.
I remember once I walked upon a raider camp.
Raiders are sadistic bastards, and scour and plunder the honest people trying to make their way in a lie-filled world. They make sick decorations, like hanging mutilated dead bodies by big hooks in various poses, often blood still dripped from their corpses. They also had a habit of locking up people, and watching them starve to death. Sadistic, don't you think?
Well as I was saying, I walked upon a raider camp. It was near sun-down and the sun quavered in the distance, almost shaking because of the illusion of the heat waves.
The raider camp was well guarded, guard dogs and all. The raiders were equipped with old hunting rifles, barely held together by old duct-tape. I could hear screams, and crying. I knew they had hostages.
They never saw me coming.
I just walked into the camp, bringing one raider down who stood above the entrance, taking swigs at a bottle of scotch. I cock my rifle again, another raider down. I remove my bowie knife, and threw it over the heads of other raiders, straight into the chief raider's temple. I dropped my rifle, and pulled out my Thompson machine gun, often favoured by the Mafia in the waning years of the Almighty War.
By this time, the raiders were scrambling for their guns. About seven or eight of them were in front of me. I squeezed the trigger, gun down at my hip.
I butchered them like animals. Filthy animals! And animals they were, you can't call any sadistic bastards like them, Human.
The empty shells sprung from my gun, bouncing of the floor, and still I kept shooting. Some raiders were down on the ground, writhing in pain. Some raiders were trying to crawl away from me, but I bore down on them. I had stopped shooting, and picked up my hunting rifle, slinging both guns over my shoulder by old straps. I retrieved my knife from the chief raider's corpse, and paced over to the raider who tried to crawl away. I lightly traced up his back with the tip of the knife making him gasp before plunging the sharp bowie knife into his spine and wriggling it about in his skin.
They deserve nothing more than that.
I look over to the other side of the camp, and laying eyes on the hostages; I walked over to them and set them free, cutting the ropes around their hands and feet with the bloodied knife.
They nod their thanks, and exclaimed several things like "Thanks, how can I ever repay you?" and things along the same lines as that. I just shrugged it off, and advised them to loot the dead bodies of the raiders for some bottle caps, which we use as currency in this dead world, and some guns, maybe some food and water. They took my advice and walked off in the direction I came from.
There's a chest in the corner, a silver, rusted metal chest.
I walk over and try to pull it open, but it's clearly not happening. I give it a hard kick with the ball of my foot, hardly feeling it because of the special Paratrooper boots I'm wearing. It bursts open, and that's where I find it.
I retrieve the steel gun from the box, and hold it out in front of my with the wooden handle. It was quite a heavy gun, but I suppose that is expected as the barrel is the length of my forearm.
The Magnum Revolver is a beast of a gun, and could blow your head clean off if you even glance at the owner the wrong way.
It's already loaded with six .44 calibre bullets. They are a monster of a type of ammunition, one bullet being the length of my index finger, and I'm a grown man.
Anyway, back to the present time.
I can feel the cold metal barrel of the very same Revolver slightly pushing against the side of my head.
There's not much good people left in the world.
Most have been corrupted by their efforts to seize power, and wreck other people's lives.
Kind of like the government in the earlier years, around the year 2000.
I'm not even sure if there are any good people left. Who am I kidding? There is still quite a bit left, albeit I haven't seen one in a while.
The last one I laid eyes on was Lucy, a beautiful, but fierce woman I met back at the nearest safe-haven for do-gooders, named Megaton.
I'm not sure if the place even is there anymore, I'm out of range of the radio station that reports anything important happening in the wastes.
GNR, Galaxy News Radio. Ran by a man named Three-Dog; he's a legend of a man.
He's got humour, and honesty, which is hard to find these days. He helped my find my father, and for that I'm ever grateful. I still pay him the odd visit, to make sure he's alright but I'm sure the Brotherhood of Steel still keeps him alive.
The Brotherhood of Steel is basically the only good people that feel like standing up the harshness of the wastes. To be quite honest, I don't really know much about them.
The gun is still rested against my temple.
If there are any good people still alive, they won't get past on their own, even if they try.
There's no point in me pulling the trigger, washing away all the pain, all the worries of my life.
As long as there is a cause, I will be there to help. I will be there to enlighten.
I will be there to fight another day.
I bring the gun down from my temple, standing up, and head for the stairs, then out the door, and back into the harsh reality of what we call "the capital wasteland".