Chapter One—Requiem
Eighteen-year-old Anastasia ran from the shouts, the screams of those she used to love. Her heart was clouded with confusion, her eyes with tears and sweat. She leapt over the thick steel frame of the vault door, hearing bullets smashing into the metal floors and walls behind her. Even after the firing stopped and she heard the screech of the alarm signaling the closing of the vault's door, she kept running, stumbling in the new terrain of dirt and pebbles. She tripped and fell, dust and dirt flying up as her weary body hit the floor.
She lay there for a moment, and listened to the echo of the steel door screaming into place, and her labored breathing. It was a requiem, of sorts; the final song of Anastasia's old life, the life that was now dead to her. Jagged rocks and pebbles stabbed her body through the blue and yellow mesh of her jumpsuit, and she groaned, sitting up with some trouble; her arms covered in bruises from Officer Kendall's nightstick, and bites from the radroaches she'd beaten down to save Ellen Deloria. As she struggled to her feet, squinting toward glowing bright light coming from the cracks of a rickety wooden door, she felt the note from her father shift in her pocket, and she grimaced, remembering the cold touch of Jonas' fingers as she pried the note out of his corpse's hand.
Anastasia stumbled forward, adrenaline gone, body suddenly weary and chilled from the cool cave air mixing with the mist of sweat that formed on her body. She pushed open the creaky door, rocks tumbling from its wake, and flooding the cave with bright, white light, brighter and hotter than anything she'd ever experienced.
"Wake up, wake up!" Anastasia bolted upright, grabbing wildly for her sniper rifle before she realized it was just a Brotherhood of Steel Knight, shaking her awake in the barracks below Galaxy News Radio. She sighed in relief, sat up, and smiled wearily.
"Oh, Knight Dillon, it's you. I'm sorry, what is it?" Dillon smiled kindly.
"Sorry to startle you miss, but you were crying out in your sleep; I thought I had better try and wake you before you hurt yourself, thrashing about like that." Anastasia, blinked a few times, and remembered her dream. She smiled at the Knight kindly, and thanked him.
After he left, she pulled on her combat boots over her leather armor, and ran her hands through her curly blonde hair before tying it up carefully. She slung her backpack over her shoulders, followed by her assault rifle.
It had been two years since Anastasia, young and naïve, had stumbled out of the vault and into the harsh sunlight of the wastes. Now a woman of twenty, she was tough, experienced. She had honed the skills that she had learned in and out of the vault to survive, to thrive. And now, finally, she had picked up her father's trail, a trail that had been cold for so long.
As she walked out of the station and past wreckage and mutant bodies from an earlier fight, Anastasia consulted some notes Three Dog had given her. She was supposed to find some kind of satellite dish to place at the top of the Washington monument, and it was, supposedly, in the Museum of Technology. There was a faded and ripped poster advertising the Virgo II Lunar Lander exhibit, and directions to the mall were written on the back; take few subway tunnels and she would arrive in the mall. Three Dog hadn't specified exactly where on the mall the correct museum was, but he had scribbled a note at the bottom of the poster: If you get lost, ask directions at the Museum of History.
Anastasia made it to the mall with ease, expertly sneaking through the subways, avoiding raiders, mutants, and feral ghouls, as well as killing more than her fair share. She crept up the steep stairs leading out of the metro station, and was taken by surprise; the capital building was in the distance, almost unharmed, as well as the Washington Monument. She had assumed the entire mall area would be destroyed; only a few buildings left standing like in so many other areas, but she couldn't be more wrong. Now at a loss of where to begin looking for the Museum of Technology, she looked around, searching for old signs that could possibly point her in the right direction.
Anastasia boldly stood up straight to try and get a better view, but the moment she did so, she heard a cry of rage from behind her; just behind the metro landing stood a Super Mutant, enraged at her sudden presence and wielding a board spiked with nails. She quickly fired at him, hitting his chest a few times but narrowly missing his head. She moved backward quickly, hoping she wouldn't trip on any loose rubble. Although the Mutie was bleeding quite badly, he was still coming at her, screaming,
"You die now!" She fired off another round, and suddenly the Mutie fell to the ground, dead. Anastasia was about to lower her weapon when she heard heavy footsteps coming at her fast. She spun around and hit another Mutie right between the eyes, killing him instantly. She backed up yet again as two more Mutants ran toward her, one with another nail board, and one with a hunting rifle. Bullets whizzed past her, hitting the tiles at her feet with little explosions, and for every shot the Mutie fired, Anastasia fired off an entire round. Mutants just kept coming however; Anastasia's 'always on the move' fighting style was doing her more harm than good.
I've got to get out of here, before I completely waste all my ammo! She thought, eyes searching desperately for an escape. Finally, she slung the strap of her weapon over her shoulder and ran.
She stumbled over rubble and around old, obsolete cars, and she didn't stop running until she knew for a fact she was safe. Panting, she looked around, no longer knowing exactly where she was, and then she saw someone, walking around in front of a large, mostly in-tact building, with a metro station right in front of it. As Anastasia cautiously strayed closer, she noticed fallen signs: Museum Of Natural History.
"Ah, another smootheskin with a death wish. Welcome to the mall, tourist." A ghoul woman greeted her.