All she'd wanted was a drink, a mother fucking drink. A Sunset Sarsaparilla, a Nuka Cola, a wine, beer, hell even some clean water would have been awesome. Maybe add to that a quick trade to get rid of some of that damn scrap she'd been lugging around, a little nap somewhere out of the burning sun, and things would have been just superb. What she hadn't planned on was her lunch date being interrupted by a bunch of Legion fuck heads so that she could become part of the idea of entertainment. She had been so excited to see the Nipton Sign, now she wished that she had run. She should have run as fast as she could, until her feet bled and then run some more.
Hindsight however was a wonderful thing.
In reality she'd waltzed on into the town to carelessly, stupidly assuming that she'd be welcome, and that it would be safe - or at least as safe as anywhere in this god forsaken wasteland, ready to go about her business, when she'd been grabbed and herded along with all of the rest. Now she knelt shoulder to shoulder with a group of other women, her knees throbbing on the hard wood floor, clutching her small, golden piece of paper – her lottery ticket, frozen in fear as she watched the man in front of them pull out numbers.
It wasn't the numbers that scared her. Numbers are just numbers. What's a number going to do to you? Nothing, obviously. However the group of legionaries standing to one side of the room, they were fucking scary. They were like dogs waiting for their prey. Waiting to hurt you. Wanting to hurt you. They didn't have to wait long either. Every time the man at the front called a number, the legionaries were waiting to take the corresponding person away. They weren't taking people out of the room to let them go either. The knot in her stomach grew tighter. She could hear the screams. Hear the crackle of the fires. She was one side of total, blind panic. She could die here, and nobody would ever know who she was, nobody would care, she'd just be another faceless corpse.
"59"
Another number was read out. This time a small child, with a mass of blond curls, in a ragged prewar dress was led away from her mother and out of the room. The child looked to be barely out of nappies, yet she went silently with the legionary. Her mother never blinked, never looked away from the man with the numbers. Didn't make any sort of reaction to her child being led to what could be her death, and that was if she was lucky.
A tear ran down the Couriers dirty cheek, but quickly dried in the stuffy hot room. She didn't know if she was a religious woman, but as she knelt on the floor in wait, she prayed. What else can you do when you run out of options? She prayed for the little girl, she prayed for herself, she made all sorts of bargains with every higher power she could imagine, asking to go back in time. Just far enough back to have never walked into this god-forsaken place. Far enough back that she'd never have to hear that number.
"Six"
Fuck. It was over.