Agent 94: Hey thanks for being my first reviewer, you are awesome! And I realize and will take your advice to heart, but really I'm just exploring my long lost ability to write lol. I had started an account years ago in high school, but later stopped. When I go to college I decided to take up writing again starting lastchos as my new account, but gave up promptly as work overwhelmed me. Now that I've got a bit more balance in life, I've decided to go back to writing, so hopefully I'll manage to pull a bunny out of my magic hat, and failing that a yao gui ;)

ELMO-fAN cLUB MeMbER: (Hope I got your penname right), hey glad you're enjoying it, stick around maybe you'll find some other stuff you like =)Hopefully I'll be able to get going a bit on the main story itself, but most likely not for the next few chapters. John's gonna be doing some wandering before the story really gets going.

*Italic quotes are thoughts and normal quotes are spoken speech

The dim rocky cavern cast strange shadows on the ground; in between the darkness were the skeletal remains of those who had died in the nuclear holocaust right outside the doors of vault 101. The skeletons lined the area, bones scattered across the floor causing John to stumble whenever his foot caught onto the jagged marrow. Here and there wooden signs lay on the ground or propped against stone, each with a message that would have never been seen by those who had managed to take refuge within the blast proof vault doors. Pausing to examine one of the particularly interesting messages (Fuck the world. This is the end man deserves, the end we created when we figured out how to split the atom. Einstein was the anti-christ, only now has the truth become apparent), John knew that he was simply stalling. The barbed wired door that led to the outside world was within a dozen yards, but here he was dillydallying next to a bunch of age old corpses because he was too scared to confront what lay outside.

When he was younger, he had dreamed and played out make belief fantasies of opening the vault door and exploring the outside world. Hell every kid who grew up in the vault must have at some point, a steel box wasn't the most interesting place to grow up in, even if that steel box was meant to hold hundreds of people for an indefinite amount of time. As a child the outside had always been this mysterious fantastical place that must have been more interesting than the gray interiors of the vault. Growing a little older, schooling taught him about what life had been like before the Great War that ended the majority of human presence on earth. He saw photographs of trees, houses, cars, sidewalks, parks, lakes, rivers, oceans. But knowing what life had been like also gave him the knowledge that that was not what the surface was like anymore, after all the nuclear blasts would have cleansed the surface like a puff of air into a dust filled CPU fan unit. Trees would have been plucked from the ground, houses flattened, roads disintegrated, oceans irradiated. Life would have been virtually impossible, and it was their jobs as the people of the vault to survive preserve and reproduce until such a time the radiation had died down enough for them to start over anew.

Ironically enough, now that he was on his way to the surface, John no longer felt the same exhilaration and excitement he had imagined as a child while playing with Amata. No, he only felt the lead in his stomach and the harsh dryness of his own mouth next to the rapid fire pulse of his heart. While his thoughts had wandered, John's feet had brought him to the entrance that led to the gate of vault 101. His hand as though controlled by another had already found its way onto the handle. Gulping, the vault escapee gritted his teeth and tightened his leg muscles to halt the small quiver in them. His father had said they had come to the vault from the surface, meaning there must have been people that managed to survive on the surface. Perhaps it would not be as good as life in the vault had been, but certainly he would not be alone. Swallowing once, he closed his eyes and turned the handle and pulled back.

Even through his closed lids the sunlight's warm rays seemed extraordinarily bright. Grunting at the searing pain jabbing into his eyeballs, John backed up a few paces back into the darkness where his closed eyes found some relief. He had read the manual that had been created for the people who would one day be the ones to venture onto the surface, and it had warned them that years of living under artificial light would render their eyes much more sensitive to natural sunlight. It would take some time and patience before their eyes would adjust and they would feel comfortable seeing in normal light. Resting his back against the wall, John slid down into a sitting position with his eyelids still closed, waiting for the light burn in them to pass.

He didn't know how long he sat there in the half darkness, but slowly the translucent light began to fade, and for a moment he thought he was adjusting. Feeling safe to open his eyes, he was dismayed to see that the light from the outside had vanished. An inexplicable feeling of panic rose into his chest and he rushed outside into the fading light, ignoring the jabbing pains it brought to his head. Staring out into the fading rays, it took him a moment to realize what was happening. The sun was setting. Inside the vault light was kept on at all times (nuclear power wouldn't run out for centuries) and in class they had learned about sunrise and sunset. It simply had not occurred to John that he would live to see one.

Now in the gloom of night setting in, John was finally able to see properly and the sight took the breath from his lungs. Gray. Gray as far as the eye could see. The Wasteland was unlike anything he had possibly imagined. The rocky land was framed by numerous crumbling buildings, and here and there poked up the remains of dead trees too stubborn to fall over. Metallic structures that stretched into the heavens lined parts of the land, and off in the distance he could make out what appeared to be some sort of bridge if he was recalling his education properly.

Scanning his pipboy, he noted that it was close to 7pm. inside the vault, time had little meaning other than keeping schedule. 7 pm simply meant it was time for dinner followed by brushing of teeth and some light reading before bed. Out here, 7pm meant the light was vanishing and it was time to find shelter. John knew that the temperature dropped at night on the outside (or so he had been taught), and having only a t-shirt and a Kevlar vest wasn't the best protection from the cold. Not that he knew what cold really was, after all the vault never fell below 74 degrees Fahrenheit. Silently thanking Butch, John removed the Kevlar vest and hastily pulled on his rival's favorite leather jacket. Feeling something hard within the pocket, John pulled out the switchblade Butch had loved playing with whenever he was bored. A cutting edge might come in handy. Pocketing the knife, John struggled back into his protective gear and checked to make sure his pistol was properly loaded. Glancing down at the ground, he noticed a set of dusty footprints that lead off into the outside world.

'Dad, did you stand here in this exact same spot as I did? Did you think about me and what it would mean now that you left?' Pushing those thoughts out of his head, John inhaled sharply and took his first step into the outside world. Following what he assumed was his father's footprints, he struggled downhill onto what appeared to be the remains of a road, the prints left by his father becoming steadily harder and harder to see as he got lower. By the time he got down to the disfigured road there was no signs left of his father's trail, and certainly no note left behind telling John where the man might have gone.

'Well first things first, I have to get a lay of the land before I go off in search of Dad, and the best place to go is where people might be.' Recalling seeing what might have been the remains of a town from the vantage point of the vault exit John began heading north, eyes adjusting to the inky blackness. Cursing as he stumbled over yet another obstacle on the ground, he swore aloud and flipped his pipboy screen light to maximum. The dim greenish light shone like a blazing torch in the darkness allowing John to see a couple of feet ahead of him. Stumbling forward once more with his left arm held high, he blundered through the darkness heading in the direction he thought the destroyed town would be.

Half an hour later, he found himself wandering through the remains of broken houses and slumped buildings. His hopes of finding people dashed, John couldn't help but noticed the sting his exposed flesh felt. The biting feeling that left his extremities numb must have been that cold thing they had learned about back in the vault. The books had not done it justice in their description of how miserable he would feel in it if he wasn't wearing enough. 'If I ever get back I'm going to rewrite those books. Hell while I'm at it I'm gonna shove my foot up the Overseers ass.'

Following what appeared to be the road on the ground, he was startled by the strange howling noise that sounded not too far behind him. Whipping around, he raised the pipboy as high as it would go and tried to see into the darkness. The howl sounded again, this time joined by the sounds of other animal voices, and John's free hand came up with the pistol.

"Shit!" 'Stupid, the light must have attracted their attention!' Frantically putting the pipboy to standby mode, John hurried to the side of the road and slid down behind an overturned car (at least that's what his vault education told him), he crouched down to listen, praying that whatever animals had made that noise would lose interest. The soft patter of feet and deep growls begged to differ, and John quietly cursed himself for his shortsightedness.

'Fucking stupid!' Peeping up over his cover, he squinted into the blackness and counted 5 lanky shapes creeping forward while hugging the ground. The dogs (vault manual warned there might be some domestic dogs that got left behind that managed to survive but turned feral after a couple of generations) were sniffling along the ground, clearly trying to track his scent. Propping up the pistol, John drew a bead on the head of the closest one, exhaling before tightening his trigger finger. The shot was perfect, punching a hole through the canine's eye, dropping the thing where it stood. Its companions barked and snarled, and a second fell before they began charging towards him. Emptying the entire remainder of the clip into the charging mass, John flung up his pipboy encased arm to block the incoming dog's bite. Teeth cracked against the hardened titanium basing of the wrist computer, but the momentum of its charge sent John to the floor. A much deeper growl sounded from above, and as Johns back smashed into the ground driving the air from his lungs, he caught glimpse of a massive shadow leaping from the edge of the third floor building into the fray.

His world blurred as the dog tightened its slack hold on John's wrist and shook him like a rag doll. Dropping the empty pistol, John frantically fumbled for the switchblade in his pocket, all the while in the background he could hear the growls of the two remaining dogs mixed in by the much deeper and menacing growl of whatever had come from the top of the building. Fingers finally finding what he had been looking for, he flipped open the blade and jammed it repeatedly into the side of the dogs neck, eliciting a shortened whimper of pain from the animal. The grip on his pipboy slackened, and John took the chance to free the hand and grab the side of the dogs head. Using his grip as leverage, he smashed the blade deeper into the side of the canine's neck before dragging the blade downwards, ending its pitiful struggles. Pushing the warm weight of the dead animal off his chest, John scrambled to his feet, vaguely noting to himself that the dogs were no longer growling.

Eyes that had adjusted to the gloom caught sight of the massive bulk that had leapt from the third floor of the broken building, and his breath caught in his throat. For a moment his heart simply stopped as he stared at the massive creature that was less than ten yards away. The thing must have been at least 6 feet tall even though it was crouched on all four, and was perhaps even wider. The limbs were much too long for the body size with coiled muscles that rippled like steel cables with irregular patches of fur lining the body. The elongated head of the creature must have been the size of John's torso, and in its powerful jaws were the mangled remains of one of the wild dogs that had attacked him, its entire body clamped down upon by massive incisors that was easily a foot long. Milky white eyes stared back at John, and he had to fight down an insane urge to giggle. Vault education hadn't quite prepared him for whatever this was. Taking a slow step back, he kept his eyes on the creature that was currently snacking on the flesh of the dead dog. Seeing no reaction, he continued backing away gradually towards the building. The slow backwards shuffle was going well until his foot hit something on the ground that caused a clatter that echoed like a drumbeat in the darkness. The massive creature whipped its head in John's direction, and he realized that it must be blind.

'Oh fuck me sideways into a tree.' Abandoning stealth, John turned and sprinted for the doorway into the building, all the while praying to whatever higher being that may be fortunate enough to be listening that the entryway was not locked. Acutely aware of the heavy but fast footfalls that were following his own desperate sprint, John slammed bodily into the door, smashing it wide open. Stumbling into the darkened room, he heard the door bounce off the adjacent wall and rebound back into the entryway with a definite click. A massive shudder rippled through the steel door and a massive indentation caved inwards as the creature slammed into the entryway from outside. Staring at the damage with wide eyes, John gave a startled jump as the massive bulk of the creature slammed into the doorway again, this time smashing the bottom parts inwards, destroying one of the two hinges holding the door to the frame.

"What the fuck?" The foreign voice registered in his mind like a dream, and he turned around to face the man in the room he had intruded upon. The first word that came to mind to describe the stranger's appearance was wild. He had a mane of unkempt hair along with a beard that would not have looked out of place on Santa Clause's face. Unlike the jolly old St. Nick, this man wore tattered stretches of cloth coupled with what appeared to be leather strappings crisscrossing his body. Here and there spikes jutted out along the obviously homemade armor, and what exposed skin John could make out seemed dirty and unwashed.

John opened his mouth to speak but the words died out in his mouth as the other man reached across his shoulder and unslung a rifle which he promptly jabbed into John's face. 'Great just what I fucking need, someone else trying to kill me!'

Surging forward, the vault dweller managed to push the rifle barrel up before it went off, but the defeating bang at close range still left his ears ringing. The two men struggled for control over the rifle, John in silence and the other man screaming profanity at a rate that left the words barely comprehensible. Finally with a knee to the groin, John managed to pry the rifle from his enemies grip. Bringing the rifle butt down onto his keeled over adversaries skull, he was rewarded with the sickening crack of smashed skull bone. The sickening wrench of metal being shorn apart warned him that the creature was through the door, and John wasted no time in taking off, sprinting down the first dimly lit hallway he could see. The scrabble of claws on tile floor followed behind, and John cursed his luck. He had hoped the dead man would slow down the creature, but evidently it was much more interested in live prey.

Pushing past dozens of obstacles made of desks and filing cabinets, John absentmindedly noted that this must have been a school at some point. What little of the rooms he caught sight of as he ran past appeared to be like the classrooms he had been forced to attend as a child, numerous rows of desks with attached chairs neatly lined up in front of a blackboard with a much larger desk off to the side. A woman similarly dressed as the man John had just killed appeared in the doorframe of one such room a couple feet ahead of him. She wore the same outlandish armor and held what appeared to be some sort of wrench in her hand.

"Hey!" ignoring her angry shout, John blew right past, well aware of the beast that was steps behind. Her angry shout turned quickly into a screech of pain which was silenced with the sound of tearing flesh, but John didn't pause long enough to see what was happening. He charged down the hallway and swerved right like a pro football player. Blindly following the dimly lit corridors, he feverishly muttered prayers under his breath as he moved. Finally, after a long while of not hearing the heavy footfalls of the monster that had chased him into the building, John finally came to a halt and hunched over his knees. Breathing heavily, he quickly scanned the hallway he was standing in and noted he had no idea where he was. The rifle of the dead man was still held in a death grip by his hands, and he checked the magazine to see how many rounds were left. Four. Jamming the magazine back into place with trembling hands, he chambered a .32 round. The rifle itself was remarkably similar to the BB gun his father and Jonas had gotten him for his 11nth birthday, and having spent hundreds of hours shooting at random targets as a child John was fairly confident in his aim. The question was would a .32 round even bother that creature that was somewhere in this building.

Taking a long draw from the bottle of water he had scavenged off Jonas's desk, he rummaged through the rucksack for one of the guards pistols. Loading a full clip into the gun, he jammed it into his waistband, making sure it was within easy reach. He was trapped in a building with a monster that could tear him apart with ease along with god knows how many of those insane humans that seemed quite ready to kill him simply for intruding upon the place. This was not exactly what he had in mind as a child when he dreamed of exploring the outside world. Hefting the rifle so that he could easily get into a shooting stance, John grimly pressed on. When God gives you lemons, make lemonades. When god gives you a .32 rifle, make lots of dead bodies. It was time to move on.

AN: Anyone else's pulse rate up from all that running? Just me huh? Whipped this up in the middle of a sleepless night. Hope you guys enjoyed it. I'm still exploring my rusty writing skills, so expect to see some changes in my writing style until I get into rhythm. To clarify, the creature is a Yao Gui (ran into one of those suckers on my first nights wandering in waste at level 2; did not end well for me), and yes John is in the Springville School place. I think I'm going to push this fiction to rated M soon, I feel like trying my hand at a steamy love scene ;). Let me know what you think.