Chapter 1: Vengance

I can smell saltwater. I Hear the ocean climb against the shore. Every night I lie here in this raggedy cabin with holes in every wall wondering how it is I'm alive.

Rolling over onto my side, I feel the wood beneath me, lightly buffered by my 200 year old sleeping bag.

My mother lies across from me. She sleeps so peacefully, it's almost as though she forgot the world ended yesrs ago. Something about her golden hair made me smile. It reminds me of the sunlight on days in April. Those days are long gone. Now whenever I see her hair I'm reminded of the day my father was killed.

Commonwealth was never a place I wanted to go, but I never had a choice. My mother, Celene and my dad Brent saved up for six years so we could move there. I didn't want to go. I liked living in the countryside. There was no stupid neon signs, no ugly sweaters and best of all, no war. Still, I tried to make the best of it.

Usually I spent my time wandering the streets aftee school, trying to bide my timr so I wouldn't have to listen to my mother argue with my dad about my little sister on the way.

That's when the second worst day of my life happened.

5:34 AM my dad came into my room and pulled me out of bed.

"What's happening?" I asked.

He didn't speak. He didn't even look at me.

"Dad!"

My mother sped past us. "I'll get the car ready." She had one hand on her stomache.

"Shoes. Put your shoes on!"

I bent down to pick up my boots. "Please, I'm scared."

"When we're in the car, let's go. Now."

I kept my mouth shut after that and continued with my laces.

My mother had the air conditioning blasting in the car. It was already freezing outside, why didn't she turn it off?

"Do I make a left or right up here, I don't remember." My mothe asked dad.

"Right." He kept his eyes on the road. I could see several cars merging into the road. One had their high beams on. Another nearly crashed into an electrical pole.

I knew asking my dad what was happening would irritate him. I've seen him like this before.

"Mom, what's happening."

She glanced over at dad and then looked at me in the rear view mirror.

"We don't know a lot, but we-"

None of us saw the car come at us from the left. Whoever was driving was either dead or stupid because they hit us head on. The car was pushed into a tree. I was in the backseat screaming at the top of my lungs. Then I blacked out.

I could feel someone touching me, holding my body. I managed to open my eyes and saw the ground. Two feet were running. My head was burning. Then I heard a voice, his voice.

"Take them, I'll be right back."

I was being moved. I felt something cold beneath me. Something metal.

Crows began to flock together overhead.

The sound of footsteps surrounded me.

I pressed my arms against the metal and managed to get on my knees. Above me, mother stood with two bloody hands against her belly. I looked around at two dozen people standing on the metal surface below me. Where was dad?

My eyes began to burn, searing with pain. Cries burst from around me as Commonwealth was obliterated by nuclear weapons. I flung my arm over my face and listened as a city stood before us, crumbling away.

Then I saw him. My dad. He was carrying someone over his shoulder, a younger woman.

I could hear my mother mutter something.

I looked up at her and watched as she pressed a button on a control panel. Sirens began wailing sround us. We began to descend. The people around me were scrambling. Screaming obscenities at one another and trying to push eachother off the metal.

My father was screaming something at us. He wouldn't let go of the man he was carrying. The last memory I have of him is a cloud of fire and soot looming over him as he turned around at it.

My mother, unborn sister and I were going into something called a Vault. Number 204 to be exact.

I was greeted by several officers tearing off my clothes and spraying me with something that smelled and tasted horrendous.

I only had seconds to dress myself before I was being shoved into some kind of pod.

I woke up with a dozen others that survived the 200 years in cryogenic stasis.

My sister was born the year we went in. The medical team in the vault made sure to wait until she was born to put my mother and her in stasis together.

I slept for 200 years. It felt like an hour.

None of us knew what we were in for when we left the vault. A desolate wasteland. Commonwealth had been torn to shreds, taken over by mutated feral beasts that were once human, ogres with guns the size of great danes and worst of all, the same exact scum of humans that lurked the city before this hell.

There was no trace of my father near the vault. None at all. Ash and dried gourd vines covered the ground.

We entered the city. That's when half of us died. The ogre looking creatures went after the women first, taking them into building for the worst of reasons. They didn't even spare children and I had to watch as toddlers fell before my eyes.

We ran the hell away from the city and made it here to Nordhagan Beach, they call it. We've been here for a year so far. A year and one day now, as I lie here staring at my mothers hair. I hate her. She let my father die. She killed him.

Turns out the woman my father was carrying was another woman he was having an affair with. My mother knew who she was and she killed him for it.

But she's my mother. And I had to learn how to forgive.

My eyes open as once again I'm being pulled out of bed. My mother stands above me, her hair glistening in the morning light. Outside, the waves crash against the shore. I look over at the other survivors lying in the sand, dead. Our camp is being invaded by the scum that lurk the city, Raiders.

"Die motherfucker!" My mother shouts, firing two rounds into a raider's skull. My sister and I stay behind her. She pushes me toward the bridge connected the island to the city. "Go!"

I pick my sister up and run towards the bridge as fast as I can. Nothing else matters in this moment. Not my dead father. Not the hatred for my mother. All that matters is my sister, Evangeline. My bare feet slap against the concrete as I speed down the bridge. I feel like my lungs are going to explode from running so fast. Halfway down the road, I turn back to see my mother chasing after us.

The raiders wouldn't let us get away. I could see something flare and soar through the sky. A missile!

"Lookout!" My voice isn't quick enough. The missile struck beneath my mother's feet. The ground gave way and began falling into the water. My mother tries to stay on the bridge, but falls in with the concrete. I kneel down on the edge of the bridge above her.

"Give- Give me your hand!"

I watch as she struggles to stay afloat in the freezing and irradiated water. I can see the raiders beginning their way down the bridge. I look down at my mother and see my father in her eyes. Something inside me exploded and I couldn't bear to look at her anymore. She took him away from me. I loved him and she killed him out of anger.

I said to her the same thing she said to my father the day he died. "Go to hell, you son of a bitch."

Grabbing Evangeline in my arms, I continue down the bridge into the city. Behind me, I can hear her calling my name. BOOM. Then a single gunshot. I don't stop running.

My name is Leon Harbor and today I murdered my mother.