Drip. Drip. Drip. Water dropped off the ceiling and landed on my face. Drip. Drip. I slowly started to move my limbs. One at a time. And then I remembered.
BANG. My husband is dead. BANG. Shaun is gone. BANG. I'm trapped inside this vault.
¨CRYOGENIC PROCESS DISENGAGED. OPENING POD C7.¨
A metal lock on the side of the pod hissed and the door slowly swung open with a puff of white vapor. Shivering and shaking, I collapsed on the floor panting. I looked up and saw the pod right in front of me. Nate's pod.
¨Oh God, please. Open...open!¨ I smacked my fist on the control panel and his pod's door unlocked. Dead. Cold. Frozen in time by this damned ice. I gave a dry sob and held Nate's frigid hand. Something gleamed on his fingers; something gold. Our wedding ring. I slowly slid off the ring from his fingers and put it on next to my own ring.
¨I will find whoever did this...¨ I shut the pod and looked around. The others were still in the pods. I walked to each pod and peered through the glass. Everyone was still sleeping...or maybe they were dead. I hit several control panels next to all of the pods.
¨CRYOGENIC ARRAY: OFFLINE. PREMATURE TERMINATION RESULTING IN SYSTEM FAILURE. ISOLATED MANUAL AND REMOTE OVERRIDES DETECTED. CONTROLS DISABLED. OCCUPANT STATUS: DECEASED. CAUSE OF DEATH: ASPHYXIATION DUE TO LIFE SUPPORT FAILURE.¨
They were dead. All of them. I was the only one left. Oh God, what was I going to do. I took a ragged breath. Keep going I told myself. I stood up and faced the doorway. Find Shaun.
Eerie was what the vault looked like. The walls were no longer new like when we had first walked inside. They were turning brown with rust and the floors looked scuffed with dirt and dust. I didn't look like anyone had been here in a long time. I passed down the hallways and came to a room with a huge desk. This was probably the overseer's office. Sure enough, a skeleton with a white lab coat was lying on the floor. Dead. For a long time. What was going on? Where is everybody?
On the desk was a pistol, a 10mm, I found some ammo lying on the nearby shelves. Next to the gun was a terminal. Answers. I booted up the computer and brushed away the dust on the screen.
CONFIDENTIAL CONFIDENTIAL CONFIDENTIAL
OVERSEER EYES ONLY | VIOLATION VTP-01011
Vault 111 is designed to test the long-term effects of suspended animation on unaware, human subjects. Your staff will be on short-term assignment to monitor basic cardiopulmonary and cognitive functions. Long-term monitoring will be handled remotely by Vault-Tec technicians.
Under no circumstance is suspension to be disrupted. This includes the administration of live-saving measures. Your staff is also considered expendable. Insubordination or attempts to evacuate prematurely are capital violations. Unused cryogenic pods are the preferred method for cadaver disposal.
Those bastards. They locked away innocent people just trying to escape the apocalypse and froze them up for their ¨experiments¨. I looked through the rest of the terminal and found some of the overseer's personal logs.
Preparations
The final staff orientation is complete, all but a few of the residents down in Sanctuary Hills have been enrolled, and several from Concord as well. Vault-Tec supervisors came up this week to do a technical review with me. This Vault is ready to open.
I can only imagine what wonders our residents will get to witness. The notion of leaping forward in time - I almost wish I could join them and see the promise of our future realized.
October 23It's happened. We were lucky that most of the staff was nearby when the early warning came through. We had less notice than expected, but only Nordhagen was missing when we sealed the entrance.
Resident Admittance went smoothly. Everyone made it, even the family that waited till the last minute. I was worried there would be more suspicion, but things happened so fast for these people. They must have been too overwhelmed to question the cryogenic pods.
System MalfunctionStrange issue today with pod C3. Subject appeared to be having heart palpitations. Nothing life-threatening, but unusual. We realized almost too late that the pod was malfunctioning. The cryogenic array almost started thawing her out.
We're not sure, but I suspect a hiccup in Vault-Tec's remote override systems may have sent an errant signal. We'll have to keep an eye out. I only hope their systems are reliable once we evacuate the staff.
Supplies Running LowThere's been no All-Clear Signal yet, even though we're nearing the end of the 180 day mandatory Shelter Period. Supplies were never intended to last much more than that, and despite my best efforts, people are beginning to question what we're doing down here.
If people think we can just leave when the 180 days are up, they're insane. The radioactive exposure would still be potent enough to fry everyone if the Vault seals are breached that early. The whole point of the All-Clear was to receive additional instructions from the main office.
I don't know what to do. I can't open the Vault. I can't expect our supplies to last forever. I just have to keep everything under control until the All-Clear...
MutinyA faction led by the security personnel have turned on me, demanding they be allowed to leave the vault. Idiots. I will not open the door to be irradiated to death out there.
I'm consolidating the remaining supplies, putting the staff on lockdown. We're going to have to start prioritizing who deserves what little food we have left. I've been too damn generous with the rations.
If people don't like it, well, that's fewer mouths to feed...
Awful. It was awful. These people made me sick. First, they lied to innocent residents, then they killed them, following that, they denied their own crew to survive and left them to starve to death. I shut down the terminal and walked along the hall to the main entrance of the vault. SCRATCH. SCUTTLE.
I paused.
A minute passed.
I continued around the corridor, creeping cautiously now. When I turned the corner, I nearly screamed. A giant roach. A disgusting, giant, roach, feeding off of a skeleton. I whipped out my 10mm and shot the thing dead. Panting, I sprinted towards the door, wanting more than anything to get out of here. The door opened and I was in the cavern when I had first arrived in the vault. Another skeleton was on the floor with something dusty perched on his arm. A pip-boy. Essentially, the pip-boy looked like a small wrist held computer. I slipped it on and plugged it into the console that lay above the skeleton. A clear lid flipped open. Inside lay a big red button. Taking a deep breath, I pushed it. I could hear grinding metal as the giant gear rolled aside and the platform I was standing on rolled forward. Climbing through the hole, I spotted the elevator that all of us had rode down here. That most of us had ridden to ours deaths.
All except me.
I stepped on the elevator and it began to rise. As I neared the top, another door opened overhead. It let in a blinding light. I stood on the elevator, in the same place I was, right before the bombs fell. The sun was still blinding my eyes and my vision was foggy.
As I squinted, I realized one thing.
I was alone.
I was the Sole Survivor.
