Sunny days ahead here in post-apocalyptic Boston, golden rays shimmering through the dotted clouds creating a prismatic glow across the mountainous line. I almost trip on the corpse of some poor splattered animal just to stare at it, taking care not to look down too intently. Instead I'm immersing myself in the horizon, drilling thoughts of reuniting with Shaun in my head until I'm convinced it will happen.

My eyes draw to the Red Rocket monument, the thing I used to cringe at every time I drove past to the grocery store. I check that my gun is still holstered and sway my pipe midair, toiling around the idea of a worst case scenario, racking my memory for some techniques I learned at the shooting range.

I blink at a strange sound blooming from the parking lot. Its an excitable bark coming from the cargo bay behind the building. I spot the cause shortly after; a brown mangy ball of fur trotting towards me.

A dog? Out here? I draw a thousand conclusions, one being that if a dog can manage to survive out here then I sure as hell can.

Hes panting happily, no crazed glaring or wild jutting fangs to speak of. I feel a silly sort of giddiness catch in my chest, like I'm welcoming an old friend.

"Hey boy!" My voice sounds coarse. Throat's a bit parched but I hardly notice. My heart thaws the moment the dog approaches me, re-gifting me with moments from my childhood without so much as a hint of doom 'n gloom. Maybe my luck was turning after all. "You belong to anyone?" I ask and immediately shake my head. Even as I'm checking for a tag I know I won't find one. There were too many things I needed to know about this fossil of our world.

He flourishes and bucks around with the preserved friendliness of a domestic pet. If I didn't know any better I'd say he had a generous owner. I scan the Red Rocket and it's surroundings for any movement but I see nobody near. If he had an owner hes either long gone, or dead. There were signs of abandonment all over him.

"What do you say? Wanna partner up?" I am pretty damn chirpy, that's for sure. I wonder for a split second if I'm attracting attention to myself. "Dogmeat?" I find that I'm easily grinning as I'm trying out his new name, and he responds with a cheery bark.

"Good deal then. Lets go." I march down the path and follow it to the still flashing Red Rocket.

The Red Rocket. Of all the places in the world these had to be the ones still standing. Guess it was too much to hope that they would build more vaults around this place. Maybe they did for all I knew.

I watch the dog charge towards a pile of greasy boxes near the gas pumps."Won't find anything here. Was true even when it operated." Glowering at the service sign I check under the overturned crates and the one lone medkit resting against the gas stop. They're mostly filled with worthless debris. Maybe there was something inside the main building, but even with my new doggy companion the thought of being ambushed in a dark and cramped gas station has me seriously thinking of cowering back to Sanctuary.

I'd swear I felt the slightest tremor underneath my feet the moment I stepped past the sign, and it hasn't stopped since then. I feel the prickling oppression of being trapped in a maze with no exit, turning my head at any distant noises or dust clouds brewing nearby. Gun primed and fixed into my untried fingers, I swivel around in search of Dogmeat. Hes digging up a mound of red dirt, whimpering and slinging clumps of oily crud behind his dancing tail.

"What's wrong boy?" I call out to him, which very abruptly stops the tremoring.

It becomes an outright earthquake erupting from deep down under, and I react just a second too late. A push of wind against my ankle and a panicked breath lumps painfully in my throat. I feel myself moan and stagger, dropping my gun and pipe in one lame motion, feeling numbness course through my limbs.

I'm blindly stumbling backwards until my head slants down and I view the source.

"What the hell..." I sputter hazily, blinking rapidly as the blurriness clears, trying to make out the foreign shape on my leg.

My blood curdles. A bald and sickly creature is clamping hard on it, it's tall yellow teeth sending me reeling in a dark spiral of sheer hysteria. I shriek and topple backwards, breath hitching sharply with every panicked eyeshot into it's beady eyes. It's wrenched stubbornly into place, it's jowls rippling hungrily, rasping it's viscous acidic tongue against my calf until my mind snaps into a frenzy. I kick and tug but with each attempt it clamps harder, breaking through the leather pads and penetrating through my suit.

It stings like a thousand bees and spreads my eyelids wide open. I see my blood drip from it's maw and twitch angrily, digging my nails into the cold hardened earth. The carnal want of seeing this thing crunched into a gob of bone springs me off the ground in furious haste.

I snarl and roar at it's beady dots for eyes, picking up my pipe and aiming it at the top of it's crown. It's forehead skin wrinkles savagely, it's growling becomes an alarming call to arms. More of them spurt out from the red soil and sprint in synergistic circles around me. I ignore them for now, gliding my pipe in an wide arch across the mole rat's head until I feel the bony knock of the hit. I bring it down again and again and again until it's teeth loosens off me, bracing myself for another attack.

It doesn't come. I open my eyes and see it limply roll on it's side, a pool of tar like fluid staining the earth from the base of it's skull. My eyes run in clutching search for Dogmeat but I can't find the beast anywhere.

The two creatures which sprung end their circling and burrow into the ground. I try to follow the depressions giving away their trajectory, but it sinks deeper than I can see, and I take some hobbling steps behind me, my heart racing faster than I can think.

Focus. Focus. Focus. God, focus. Swing at anything that moves.

I finally hear barking from what sounds like a few feet away. I turn to see Dogmeat battling it out with his own circle of mole rats, the beefiest among the vicious curs bolting aggressively towards him.

I dash and close distance, using my running momentum I successfully fracture one of their heads with a blindsiding whip from it's side. It slows down it's onslaught and my temper cools, a freed second to think on what to do next. I pump it again for an impaling stab through it's spine, releasing it only when it stops howling and gnashing it's teeth. It convulses at my feet, spiting tiny speckles of black ooze on my suit. I wince and I put it out of it's misery, stomping it's head into a gory paste, briefly witnessing Dogmeat's kill from the corner of my eye.

Is it over? Please tell me it is.

Spinning around in adrenaline fueled suspense I see no signs of more of them and internally cheer for victory, laughing hysterically through my ragged breathing.

This wasn't so bad. I tell myself. I can do this.

I shake my head and instantly change my mind, my momentary triumph crucified by my own thoughts. Yeah, it was bad. It could've been much worst, and it'll only keep getting worst if I don't learn to pay attention.

I lean forward on my knees and come close to a fall, queasy and more than a little rattled. Dogmeat spits out the remains of a rat with a pitiful whine and his tail downcast. I react and kneel over to him, examining him for any cuts or gashes, taking a pithy of comfort with each stroke of his grimy fur.

Hes fine, I bask in the relief I feel for the dog I came to depend on just a few minutes ago. ...just hungry. Guess he doesn't want to eat these things. My eyes linger over the smarting presence of their corpses, my mind shrinking into their blighted eyes.

Things are only going to get worst from here on out.

I feel faint.

I teeter on my toes like a partially uprooted tree. I try to endure it but I feel a disturbing sensation of ice water splashing against my cranium. I groan and fall, knees deep in the dirt, craning my neck upwards in response to the pain shooting through my chest and eyes.

The very air feels like its vibrating. My eyeballs burn with swirling rings of seedy yellow liquid.

Help m-

The sky stretches away from me, the world is yanked impossibly backward reduced to an expanded hallway at infinite view, the ground shattering from miles around like an pickax taken to ice. Smoldering holes of pallid smoke crack open the skies, spilling cold fog over the Red Rocket gas pumps, veiling Dogmeat's puzzled and tilting head.

He shrivels and prones to my knees, and he is covered by the fog before I can reach him. I give into my weakness, dazed and wretchedly nauseous, my world shrinking further and further into the tunnel of the mole rat's lifeless eyes.

And then I'm plunged into a pit of darkness. Something's watching me, taunting me, eroding me from the inside out, it's poisonous glands rupturing my skin and filling me with the broken mirrors of future's past. Excruciating dreams of what will never be fulfilled veer into a looping carnival ride of hope and despair, with no end to it in sight.

Nate. Shaun. My world.

Our world.

And I see the masks. The flesh seared into our backs, cooked into the crux of our homes and bedrock, and we will never be able to purge them. And I cry for what seems like forever, mourning it until the sun eclipses above me in blessed condemnation.

I slip off the edge of the cliff. I am falling through an elevator shaft, tumbling down the coiling staircase, drowning into the dim slimy undertow of the salty pacific, body dragged to the floor and pressed through a grate, my eyes washed by ovals of crusted iron, unimaginable pain wracking me as I'm torn apart and remade into his exacting image-

Into the man with the valley across his face.

No.

NO!

I'm lying in the dirt, facing a warping steel ceiling and a smog-less lilac sky. Dogmeat pokes his cold wet nose against my cheek and I gasp, stiffening upwards as if I woke up from dreaming.

"Hey boy." I whisper groggily. "How long was I out?"

He rises up and scratches the back of his ear.

I stand with him and swipe at my eyes, avoiding an intimate glimpse of the rat thing genocide which has now progressively rotted for what was probably at least an hour under the blazing heat. All that matters is that they're dead, and somehow nothing happened while I had that nightmare or vision or... just thinking about it is giving me a headache. I cup my feverish forehead into my palm. I didn't lose much time, and if I hoofed it quicker from now on I'd get to Concord before sundown at least.

I take a tour around the mound of dead bald things before leaving, and realize that Dogmeat had taken care of most of them, all while I struggled with just one.

I can't help but feel stripped of my usefulness. I give the dog a gentle pat on the head and bring my fists to my hips. "I don't know what happened... but I'm glad you stuck around." I wipe the cold sweat off my temple, relieved that my wound was still too small to care, overlooking the carnage for a sprig of shiny metal. None of this would have been nearly as difficult if I had just used that damnable thing.

"Just need to learn how to-"

I find my gun and take it up in my trembling hands. I stabilize them before I take my weapon back fully, fixating my eyes on the trigger.

This thing. Have to press it, and mean it.

A foul smell assaults my nostrils. I squint my teary eyes. "Fucking hell they reek." Guess I'm probably not much better though. I inch my eyes over myself, suddenly aware of how disgusting I was. God what I wouldn't give-

I take a closer look at the three toothy bite marks on my leg. It occurs to me, I fainted shortly after it bit my leg.

Was I poisoned? I cross my arm against my stomach, feeling decidedly vulnerable. Did that thing poison me?

I grunt loudly and punt one across their grave pit, cursing under my breath for the lost daylight. Figures this is how I'd start this off... on the wrong fucking foot every time.

Dogmeat is already set at the edge of the hill, tail wagging against the apocalyptic backdrop. I need to be faster at this... or else the next time I get pinched I might not have my doggy rescuer. I hitch my pipe to my belt and walk gingerly toward the descending sun, assigning blame to anything but the world around me.

The dog is jumping and barking, but he calms the closer I get to him. I sigh and nod apprehensively, gratefully accepting the new leader of this merry adventurous duo. Heck if I know what I'm doing, better to trust the pup who was born into it.

"You're right, we should go." I hike up the small hill and look down at him scaling the rocks below. He isn't heading in the right direction, but I can't tell if I care where we go at this point. I'm rolling the dice and I'm getting danger no matter what, it only matters how high the numbers get.

"Yeah, sure. Over there looks fine." I shake my head as I realize that I'm imposing sarcasm on a dog. Poor thing didn't deserve it after guarding my useless hide.

I stand rigidly against the sudden gust of wind and inhale a gulp of prickly air, never wishing for a proper mask as much as I do now. I take some cautious steps down the rocky slope, thinking a compass could have been useful too. Oh, and maybe a bar of soap, a radio or some books to lose myself in. I'm already wishing for these things back and I barely have my boot out the door. I take a few more leaps down, carefully balancing myself on a hollowed tree trunk. Something tells me I'll never know these luxuries again within my lifetime, and the thought of it hinders me more than it probably should.

We make it down the steep jagged hillside. Looking up I still can't believe how much was remade from the landscape it was before.

I holster my gun and analyze the laid out paths before me, weary of any sense of choice.

"I'll just follow you."

"So this is where you wanted to go." I set my gun on a bed of thick grass. "Good thinking..." I mumble weakly. The dog doesn't hesitate in taking a few licks of the murky current. It looks to be slightly better than any other I've seen. The shimmering top layer has never looked so mesmerizing.

We've been searching from wreckage to ruin for several hours now with not much luck finding anything useful, save for some materials and some very few bullets of ammo. Dogmeat has become the habitual lifesaver, and I tend to be his anchor in most of our fighting scenes.

I just need to drink something. The dimming thought has me leaning forward, nearly diving with how barely tenable my knees are. I'll be better if I can just get a drink.

Dogmeat lets out a high pitched whine. I jerkily stumble away from the water, wondering why I did in the first place.

You need this. Just drink quickly and move on. Don't think about how dirty it looks.

I brace my fall with my branches for arms, easing out a gruff sigh with the impact that comes with it. I'm trying to figure out what was nagging me. I'm hot, I'm exhausted and I'm thirsty and my head is throbbing. I'm sulking in the weight of the day as I bowl my hands through the swampy water.

"Here goes nothing..."

Bubbles rise from about a foot away from my face. I throw my hands up and narrowly dodge the blurred figure that snapped from seemingly nowhere.

I freeze, thoughts interrupted by the blank frailty of my existence.

A ghoulish collection of disease ridden flesh shutters from where I once stood, upper body sticking out from the mud of the edge of the water, it's screech diffusing the air of all pretense of fairness.

I can't move. I am fixed into it's blistered slits where eyes should be, it's holes weeping streaks of milky ichor over it's facial rims, pooling in the black waters below. Orbs of swamp spill out of it's mouth as it gurgles and thrashes against it's tether, gradually ripping out of it's unraveling snare trap. It lunges and I do the minimum to stay alive, shuffling backward at every jab into the air, still dragging an empty, dumbstruck mind. I'm stunted by it's heavy stench, Dogmeat barking madly in my periphery.

It's peeling itself out of the mud romping around like an infant, and when it stands on it's legs I finally snap.

My gun. My gun...!

Nerves ignited, my hand strains for the gun. Too slow. I'm reflexively blocking it's tackle with my pipe, the force of two ton cement blocks crashing down on me thrusting air out of my lungs. It shrieks putrid lesions into my face. I give it one hard push but it keeps grabbing after me.

My eyes scurry for an advantage.

There's nothing to help me. Nobody's here to help me.

I scream in blood-curdled anguish, pushing over and over without any gain. It responds by driving it's mandible past the pipe and bringing it's teeth sinking into my arm.

I cry out. It's eyes pop out hungrily. It welds it's jaw even tighter, blasting me with unbelievable pain.

This thing is going to kill me.

I hear Dogmeat bellowing right next to my ear. He chomps down on the thing's hand and fingers, shredding it's arm out with one clean jerk. I instinctively push to one side. We roll down the risen mud with Dogmeat howling after us.

We're back in the water, and I'm kneeling topside, making me instantly realize how shallow it was. I see it's gaunt face from the black bottom of the stream still lashing out at me, and I feel nothing but rage.

I knock into it's head with the bud of my pipe. It outstretches its one last arm, flailing it blindly while I'm mashing it's head into the water. I beat it's skull in until it crumbles, exploding like a cherry within the moving water, scattering in rows of crimson mist.

I hunch over it when I know it's dead, swaying over it's dug in skeletal body, sharing in the peace that was brought to us both.

Sunlight beams over the drowned crater. I receive it's warmth before I slump out of the stream.

I'm grunting between sobs, crawling to my gun. Gravity has never felt so pressing as I tow my drenched self to a nearby tree foot.

"God..." I whisper through the cooling day, the sun retreating further with every minute that passes. "God."

I take up my arm, examining it for anything other than what I saw happen to me.

"I need to... lay down or something."

The sun flares it's last light and falls beneath the mountainous line. I can't contain it anymore. The tide bursts from within, the writhing beginning in slow tandem, face tangled inside my palm with forlorn tears wedged between them.

"There's no way." I sob and whimper. "I won't find Shaun, not like this. How am I going to-"

I hear distant gunfire, and a pair of voices from the thicket across the field. I jolt up, leaning openly against the tree.

I don't have time for this.

I bottle it up as quickly as it came. Dogmeat is sitting at my heel, eyes alerted but keeping quiet. I feel his fur gristle against my exposed calf. I calmly pet him, meeting his weary gaze with a learned clarity.

You tried to warn me.

"I'll be better." My head wavers drunkenly at the vacant sky. "It's that or die, right boy?"