1. Alone
The sky was a vibrant orange with the last few rays of the ancient sun escaping over the black silhouette of the distant hills. Houri sat high above the Wasteland ground in her personal sanctuary. Her mind was whirring with everything that had happened in the short space of two days, and she finally allowed the plaguing despair to sweep over her, as the sky morphed from it's previous vibrant orange into a heavy purple; nobody could see her cry now. Sobbing hard, she thought of her family: her parents, the two people she had loved the most in her life, who had raised her in the harsh, unforgiving Capital Wasteland, and her brother, the one person her age who she had been able to talk to. All the other kids in Megaton had been so cruel to their family, all because her parents were "outsiders". So what if they had come from California? So what if they had come from a vault? So what if it had been Vault 13? What happened at Vault 13 was not her parent's fault, it was all the Enclave!
She shook with hatred at the thought of the "government". Stupid bastards! What they had done to her relatives, and everybody else in Vault 13 was unforgivable. She abruptly shot up onto her feet, and glared out to the eastern hills, screaming out as loud as she possibly could, considering her parched throat.
"Come and get me you stupid fucks! I'll kill you all before you can kill me!"
Collapsing back to the floor, coughing and spluttering, she laid her head down on what little of a mattress she had and began to sob again.
Everything that had happened was too much. First the bomb. Such a shattering sound, and the blast that came with it. But the moment that it happened, she knew what had become of her home. She had seen some auburn haired woman hanging around the bomb over the week before she left home. There was also a guy who had been hanging around there just before that woman had arrived in town, and then he left suddenly. 'Oh, what was his name' she thought, 'Mr Crawford? No, Mr Crowley, that was it!'. She knew that he and this woman had something to do with what had happened. It was overwhelming what had happened. In just a couple of seconds she had realized that everything that she knew was gone: her family, her friends, the few of those that she had, and all the possessions she didn't take with her. It was sickening to think that somebody could destroy a whole city. She hoped that those two got what they deserved!
To make matters worse, the same day the Raiders had come calling on her camp at Kaelyn's B&B. It was all a blur and she had no idea how she got out of there in time to escape them, but they didn't even see her fleeing. Of course, she returned later that day, and from the top of the cliff that she knew conceals Vault 106, she saw what she feared most. From then she knew that she had to move on and find somewhere new. 'Trust bloody raiders to take any decent place to camp' she had thought. So she trekked back south, and it was just as well that she did. She had been overjoyed to find a ruined five storey building just off of Jury Street. All the walls were missing and she would be exposed to the elements, but she would be safe and out of enemy eyes. Nobody would ever think of looking up the top, for one there was no easy way to get up, but she knew that she could climb up. All of those years that she'd been climbing up and down the struts of Megaton made for excellent experience.
By the time that the sun had risen on the second day she was up on the fifth floor and making herself a home. It wasn't as cold and exposed as she had thought it would be, which was good, and there was lots of sheet metal on the ruin, so she had begun to build a makeshift wall on one side. It was a spectacular view from here, seeing for miles, all the way to some satellite dish thing near the hills to the north, what she knew as Fort Bannister, from her parents, to the west, and to the east, she realised the bad thing about this place. In quite plain view, probably only about 5 miles away, were the ruins of her previous home. "There's always a fucking catch" she sobbed. It felt like the twisted metal shards of Megaton were being stabbed jaggedly into her heart.
For the rest of that day she could do nothing but sit there and stare at the city ruins.
2. Saved?
The morning following her rage, she was exhausted, but supplies were almost out. Last night she had been suddenly awoken by the yell of a Super Mutant. 'Obviously killed something' she thought to herself, whilst rolling her eyes and resting her head back onto the shredded mattress. At that point, looking out to the north, she noticed lights. At first she thought it was just a raider party or similar, but then she noticed that the lights weren't moving and they seemed to be coming from the old motorway bridge across the Potomac. She had heard of other settlements out in the Wastes, but she had never been told of their locations. That was until she had been sent out into the Wastes by her parents on an important errand.
She had been so proud the day that they had asked her to perform this important task, and had readily accepted, though she knew the Capital Wasteland was a very dangerous place. Her parents had asked her to head off to Arefu to the north west, where the family had an old friend that they had met on their travels from California. So after a days preparation she set off from her home and headed roughly north west. By the evening of that day she had stumbled across Kaelyn's B&B and made up a small camp.
The rest was too terrible to think about again; she knew she'd end up in tears. Now that the morning air and what little sleep she had got had cleared away the immediate rage, clear thinking was in order. With everything that had happened, she had almost completely forgotten about Arefu and her task. But now it was not the errand that attracted her to the small settlement, but the supplies and safety. It made sense that the lights she had seen were Arefu's, because when tracing her steps from when she had set out, the bridge was almost directly north west, and her mother had said about a bridge. 'How could I not have seen that before!?' she scolded herself, 'Idiot!'.
So after packing up the essentials, which was not very much at all with the lack of supplies, she began to climb down the precarious building. This was made easier this time by the fact that she had used a rope, given to her before she had set out into the Wastes, to create a makeshift rappel line. It was likely that if she was quick, Arefu could be reached by mid afternoon. Even with all her practice at climbing, she was still exhausted by the time she reached the ground, for the first time in almost a day. And so the long trek began across the scorched earth of the Capital Wasteland.
3. Memories
The sun was just beginning to head towards the hills once more, and the light was becoming less harsh. The Mole Rats were beginning to shuffle about, ready for another night of foraging, and the Radscorpions were preparing to hunt. When she had been a bit younger, Houri's father had once taken her just outside the gates of Megaton, to the nearby ruin of Springvale. For the first time she had seen what the world looked like outside of her home and what things had looked like before the bombs brought her family to Megaton. Her father had been sure that they would be perfectly safe to just take a walk through the old town, but he had been wrong. Just as they were about to turn around near the old school, they had been spotted by raiders and ambushed. It had been a miracle that they hadn't been killed on sight. Just as the raiders appeared, so did a pack of Radscorpions. Under any normal circumstances, this would just make things worse, but luckily the Radscorpions went for the raiders before they went for Houri and her father. This gave them a perfect chance to escape. So they ran, but just before they made it round the corner, Houri span round, held her hunting rifle up to her shoulder, and took aim. In just one shot, expertly placed right on the back of the head, as it were, and the Radscorpion was down.
'Such good times' she recalled, 'dangerous, but good.'
It was such a relief when they had made it back home. They had collapsed down onto the floor, just inside the door of their house, and instead of panting and shaking with fear, they panted and shook with laughter. Houri's mother could not help herself but join in the laughter at the sight of her family in hysterics. As their sides began to complain from the repetitive motion, Houri's mother asked what was so funny; her father just replied, "We just watched Walter get soaked by the stupid pipes. "Oh", she had replied, and that was that. Houri was so grateful to her father for his silence, seeing as her mother would have skinned her alive. But admittedly, she probably would do the same to her husband, so she guessed he had good reason for his silence.
Oh how she missed her family and hated being alone. She had never been one to be alone, especially since she had had her brother around. He had always been there when needed. He was who she probably missed the most of all the people she had ever known, of all the people she had ever known and who were now dead. He was who she cried for. He was who she dreamt of. He had probably been the best brother anybody could ever have had. He had always been the one that she had been forced to hang around with, not that she would complain. He had always found fun, if a little dangerous, things to do, such as seeing who could climb from the Church all the way up to the roof of the Moriarty's Saloon the fastest; she always won.
This thought made her let out a little chuckle, which was soon swept away by the sight that befell her eyes. Just as she made it over the crest of a reasonably large hillock, she saw what her eyes had been begging to lay themselves upon all day. There, finally, was Arefu. She had made it and could now, she was sure that they would be welcoming enough to let her, have a bed to sleep in, rather than on the hard concrete. Beginning to run along the bridge ramp, heart soon pounding from lack of oxygen, legs starting to seize up from all the walking, panting throat becoming even more bone dry. She could see the glint of the metal houses. She was saved, and look, there was a man to greet her. Maybe this was the Evan King that she had heard so much about.