AN:- To all waiting for the next installment of Out of the Dark, it is coming. I finished my university exams on Tuesday, so I finally have a couple of weeks to do nothing but write. This is going to be a fairly short collection of ideas I had while playing Fallout 3. Basically the characters that the Wanderer interacts with, through their eyes. My Lone Wanderer is a girl named Kalis. The extracts are in no particular order, because I don't tend to play the game the same way twice. Maybe once I'm done I'll go back in and reorder them into something more easily followed.

Chapter One: Lucas Simms

Lucas Simms heard the gates to Megaton cycling open and walked over to see who had come through. There were several residents already there, staring at someone in a blue jumpsuit. Hang on a second, The suit had yellow trim, and there was some sort of device attached to the girls' wrist. Well I'll be...

"Move back people," He waved a hand vaguely in the direction of the gawkers, more preoccupied with the young woman, "Nothing to see here."

The people moved away, leaving him facing the newcomer, who was looking around at the city with wide terrified eyes. In her right hand she held a 10mm pistol, and the hand was shaking so much he was worried she was going to fire it accidentally.

"I'll be damned," He kept his voice light, hoping she'd stay calm. "You're from that Vault. Vault 101." He chuckled, keeping a close eye on her expression as she met his gaze. It was a struggle to ignore the pistol, but she didn't look like the sort to just open fire. "I ain't seen one of those jumpsuits in a long time."

She started to breathe deeper, and she started blinking again. Still smiling, he gestured to the gun, "You ain't planning on using that thing are you?"

She looked down as if she had forgotten she was holding it, and her arm shook again, hard enough that the pistol slipped from her grip. He caught it before it hit the floor and unloaded it, noting that it had been fired recently, and when he looked closer he saw that she had blood on her hands and jumpsuit. "You running from someone?"

"Yes, no, I don't..." She took a deep breath, "I lost my daddy and I don't know where he went and I've never been outside the Vault and they told us no one ever leaves and now I have left and I don't know what to do."

"Well, I'll help where I can, as long as you can tell me you ain't planning on killing anyone here. I'm Lucas Simms, Sheriff, Mayor, de facto leader of this little slice of heaven. Now you can have a place to stay over at the open house, but besides that I can't offer much. Too many people come through here for me to keep track of them all," Should I send her to Moriarty? No, he'd tear her apart as soon as look at her.

"What about my daddy?"

"You could always try asking around town, Moira over at Craterside Supply often pays more attention to new folk than I do, and if you're planning on living here long term you'll need the food she can sell you." He frowned, "You do have caps don't you?"

"Caps?"

He dug into his pocket and showed her a handful, "Currency out here in the Wasteland. You gotta have caps."

"I don't have any..."

"Well there's always odd jobs around town, people looking for some help." He sighed, most of this wasn't registering, he could see that. He was used to kids looking just as lean and hard as the adults. Harden had been thin as a rake from the day he was born, but this kid had seen good eating. She still had a little puppy fat round her cheeks for God's sake!

"You go get some sleep, and I'll see what I can do for you in the morning." He handed her back the gun, "I don't reckon you have much to steal, but some folks aren't as nice as I am, so you keep this close. You do know how to use it don't you?"

She nodded, fresh tears appearing in her eyes. He had thought as much, the gun had been used on someone she knew. "Sleep," He instructed her, "Everything seems better once you've had a little shuteye." As she walked off, still dazed, he shook his head and sighed. If she was lucky, she'd be dead within the week, before the stress of the hard living set in, or the thirst from drinking nothing but irradiated water.

Maybe it would be better that way, but there was something about her, under the grime and the fear. Whatever had gotten her out of that vault had to have been strong, and there was a glimpse of it, buried behind her eyes. If she survived, he had a feeling she was going to raise some hell around Megaton.

AN:- I won't be following the in-game dialogue. Like, at all. Also, these will be mostly very short, under a thousand words to maybe fifteen hundred at most. This will hopefully allow me to get back into the habit of writing without wasting words.

I hope you enjoyed Chapter One anyway, I have three written right now, and I'm planning to do no more than ten. Also, there will not be a perspective from Kalis' father.