Chapter 2: Sympathy for the Devil

Now, off the record, I guess I should ask myself, who am I?

I am Ishmael Ashur, son of Abraham Ashur. Brother of Isaac Ashur. All of my family members were part of the Brotherhood of Steel.

But like the biblical story of Ishmael and Isaac we were not to be together. During the scourge we fought and fought the locals. They resisted with all their might, yet they managed to kill no Brotherhood paladins. All but one. I died that day.

No longer am I a Brotherhood of Steel Paladin! I have shed that pathetic title, that scourge that weighed down on me. Out of the ashes rose Ishmael!

I was cast out into the world. That explosion in the steel mills of the Pitt freed me from my destiny with the Brotherhood.

Abraham and the Brotherhood of Steel were my fathers! I followed them and their stupid ideals of steel and technology. Deep down I wanted to save lives, and I believed that rescuing technology was the way to do that! But how wrong was I. The ideology and arrogant pomp of the Brotherhood shielded me from the real world. In the real world dogs eat dogs.

The real world is unforgiving. It doesn't wait for you. There is no prodigal son to return to the warm, comfortable, cozy home. The prodigal son dies in this world, or he becomes something else.

Abraham, representing Elder Lyons, and my real father, chose Isaac, which were my fellow Paladins, and my real brother. The Brotherhood cast me out, like Abraham did with Hagar and Ishmael.

I, Ishmael, was cast out into the desert, left to die! No one bothered to look for poor old Ishmael. If he's alive, he won't even last a day. But Ishmael lives! Between mouthfuls of sand and breaths full of determination and fear, I held on!

Lying on the dirt beneath the mill, representative of a bottomless pit where the Devil's lair is present laid Ashur. Someone came to visit poor old Ashur. He told me to wake up. He told me to wake up, that I had things to do. He told me it wasn't my time yet. I asked the voice why it came to me, why didn't it leave me to die in this pit! The voice told me not to be a fool.

I woke up to raiders trying to steal my power armor. I killed them. I took my laser rifle, and shot both of the raider's heads off. But soon enough more raiders surrounded me, demanded that I hand over my power armor, and my laser rifle. They beat me with my rifle, and locked me in a room below the mill, where I could hear the trogs outside howling for food like mad men seeking food, starving and willing to eat even the largest of the steel ingots lying in the steelyard!

But I was a changed man. I knew that I was supposed to die that night. But I didn't. That night, during my half-starved, half beaten to death night, I fell into a deep sleep far into the cold night. My savior came to me in a dream.

He wore a shining white suit. He had sparkling white teeth, something I had never seen in my many years of living in the Wasteland of America. Not even Brotherhood members had teeth as white. He had shining bright white eyes with blue iris. I don't even know how I knew this, since the sight of his eyes emitted a glare that made my head throb in pain.

He walked towards me in his spanking shiny new shoes, his white, clean skin reflecting the shining sun that popped out in between toxic filled clouds in the atmosphere. He took a pair of sunglasses, and put them over his eyes, all while smiling at me, without blinking.

"Are you an angel" I asked.

No. He shot me a wry smile.

"Then who are you?"

Why do you want to know? He looked at me, with a pensive expression in his face.

"I just do."

Hmm.

"Are you sure you're not an angel?"

Angels wouldn't survive in the Pitt.

"Then who are you?"

I'm but a man of wealth and taste.

"Why did you save me?"

What's really bothering you is the nature of my game.

He winked at me.

At that moment I woke up.