"Wake up, Jericho! Wake up!" I opened my eyes and there she was. Amata. She's so damn beautiful, I thought to myself.

"Hey gorgeous, I was just dreaming about you," I said. Her face was so stern.

"Stop playing around, this is serious," she hissed. "Jonas is dead and now they're looking for you!"

I must have shut down – emotionally and physically. I don't remember what exactly went through my mind at that moment, but I felt my heart stop beating. I remember seeing blood on her shirt. Was it true? Everything seemed to have gone black, and the next thing I knew Amata was shaking me.

"Jericho! Snap out of it! You've got to hurry!"

"What do you mean, dead?"

Amata sighed and tears welled up in her eyes. "I'm sorry. It was my father and his men. They just beat him, and beat him until he stopped moving." Her hands shook as she demonstrated the unrighteous punishment Jonas recieved. "But that doesn't matter now, you have to hurry!"

"W-why? What did he ever do?" I looked down at my hands, they were shaking too. I felt my face get hot; my hairs were standing on end. I felt a wave of vengeance wash over me. "NO! I'll make them all pay, the bastards!"

"No, Jericho, you can't. You couldn't possibly stand up to even one of them. They're all highly trained. And they have GUNS!"

"But it's their fault!" I retorted, perhaps a bit too harshly. Amata jumped back, seemingly startled by the menacing tone to my voice. And the way she was looking at me. I hated myself for it.

"Jericho…" she hesitated.

"What else has happened?" Fear and doubt began to crowd my mind. Did they murder my father too?

"It's your father's…"

"No… it can't be."

"He's escaped."

I was taken aback. He wasn't dead? He lived? But… what did she mean, he escaped? "What are talking about?"

"He escaped the vault. He's left and now my father's in an outrage. He thinks you helped him, and he's hell-bent on getting to you because of it."

I don't know what hurt more, Jonas's death or my father leaving me here without so much as a goodbye. How, though? "I-I don't… how? The vault doors are sealed."

"He found a way. And so have I. But you've got to hurry. Here, take this. I snuck it from my father's quarters." She handed me a pistol, but gave me a look of extreme caution. I knew she trusted me not to do anything rash, but just in case I needed it…

"You found a way?"

She shook her head then shrugged her shoulders. "Kinda. Your father hacked into the mainframe of my father's computer and revealed a secret escape route. It links directly to the main tunnel. He hacked that, and now he's left. It isn't guarded as heavily."

"How do you know?"

"Because Jonas told me as he was dying that your father had sealed it up again. No one knows but us now." The blood on her shirt was Jonas's. She then handed me the key to her father's office and told me to escape the vault. She'd try to meet me at the vault, but not to wait up for her.

I wanted to stop her right there and hold her. Kiss her even. But she darted away through my door. And I was left there with a pistol in my hand.

I can't say that the thought of suicide hadn't crossed my mind, because it did. But I figured that would be the easy way out. No, I was going to leave this place. I was going to escape the vault.

Immediately I grabbed my belongings: my baseball bat and lucky red baseball cap that Stanley gave me for my tenth birthday, and of course my BB gun that Jonas and Dad gave me on my tenth, too. So, I was ready. My stomach may have churned, my head may have been spinning, but I was ready to leave. I tucked the pistol into the back of my pants, slung the BB gun by its strap across my shoulders, and slid silently out into the hallway.

I snuck along the passages until I came to a flashing red light. A guard stood at the end of the hall with a police baton in hand. There was only one way out of here and that was through him. I gathered up the needed strength and dashed for him with my bat at the ready.

Honestly, I don't know how I did it, but as he swung his baton at me I saw everything as if it were in slow motion. I ducked the blow and brought up my bat with a sickeningly powerful blow that broke the guard's jaw, sending him sprawling a few feet away. I was shaking, my pulse pounding in my ears. The guard didn't move again. I'd killed a man.

I'd like to say I could stomach the action. Nope. A wave of nausea washed over me as the adrenaline died and I threw up off to the side. I couldn't believe myself. My initial thought was I'm a monster. But I quickly ruled that out, seeing as how I've never been exposed to any amount of radiation, save the kind that's emitted from the vault's reactor.

I had to get away. I dashed into the bathrooms to my left, just wanting to be anywhere else than where a man's corpse lay. Once on the other side of the bathrooms, however, I felt my bad luck had turned for the worse. My childhood menace rounded the corner screaming about radroaches.

Butch stopped in front of me with a look of horror streaked across his face. "Please, Jericho, my mother… my mother…" What the hell was he babbling about? Didn't he hear I was in deep crap here?

"What the hell, Butch. Get outta my way!" I tried to push past him, but he held me there for some weird reason.

Gulping, and apparently catching his breath, Butch managed to make out what he was trying to say. "My mom's being eaten by radroaches. Ya gotta help me!"

Now if there was never such a thing as irony in any other circumstance this would definitely be it. The one who always tried to beat me up… the big bad Butch, here… asking ME for help. I think I voiced that to him there, too. If only I'd known better.

"I know, I know. I'm sorry for being an ass to you all those times, but please!" Butch got down on his knees. Oh! That was priceless! Butch was begging me for help… but why wasn't I hurrying? I should've been.

"Dammit Butch, all right! I'll help you. Just get up off the floor and c'mon. Here." I handed him my BB gun. I think I left it there with him… I was in a rush, could you blame me?

Well, we took care of the overgrown insects and I made a rush for it before Butch could conjure up some other lame excuse to keep me waiting. I really didn't feel like helping him anymore. After all, I was only doing it for his mom. She was pretty nice to me. I just don't know how she managed to raise such an ass. Whatever.

Making my way out in the main foyer, I was headed for the security hall, and from there to the Overseer's office where, supposedly, the escape lay. Tom and Mary Holden were there in the foyer arguing about escaping the vault. And it wasn't until Tom mentioned that they were going to follow in my father's footsteps and escape the vault that I realized that this really was going on. I shrank back into the shadows. Mary screamed and ran after Tom. A second later, gunshots. Another second, a scream. And then silence.

Two guards waltzed out of the hallway that Tom and Mary ran into, each with blood splattered on their black Kevlar vests. They joked about the innocent bloodshed and it made me angry.

I felt another rush for vengeance: the same feeling that came over me when I slew the first guard. I dodged out from my cover as they neared it and bashed in both of the guard's knees with my bat. They screamed in agony and tried to get a hold of their pistols. I knocked the weapons aside, possibly breaking one of their hands, and pointed my own pistol at them. The look of horror on their faces I'll probably never forget. They're humans too, even though they don't deserve life. I probably should have killed them, but something stayed my trigger finger. Regardless, I darted away towards the security office's hall. I was becoming something more… gruesome. But it didn't matter then, I just needed to escape.

I was almost there – the Overseer's office was just around the next corner – when I heard Amata's sweet voice pleading for her father's forgiveness.

"Please, Father. No! You can't!"

I crouched outside underneath the security office's window and peered in from the corner. Amata's father backslapped her, blood and spit flinging from her mouth. I cringed as I saw her whimpering.

"Teach her a lesson in respect, Officer Mack," the Overseer ordered his guardsman. Mack raised his baton and began to whack Amata with it. Before I knew it I was inside the office pummeling Mack with my bat. Amata managed to escape, but I stayed.

In one quick movement before the Overseer could retrieve Mack's pistol from the nearby desk, I revealed my own pistol (formerly his) and aimed it at his head.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you," I said, and forced him back into the corner. I retrieved the ammo and unloaded his pistol, stuffing the extra clips into my pants pockets for future reasons, all while holding him at gunpoint.

"You'll never escape the vault alive, young man," the Overseer hissed. "Turn yourself in and I promise no harm will come to you."

He did not just go there, I thought. "Like you didn't kill Jonas, you bastard," I growled.

"Jonas was compromised. But you… I see great things in your future. Your father…"

"Shut up," I yelled.

He continued, "He left the vault. He left you."

"Shut up, I said," I yelled even louder, my hand shaking as my finger hovered over the trigger.

"I'm escaping this vault and there'll be nothing you can do about it."

"What makes you say that?" He inquired.

I smiled at him and stepped away from the holding cell, protected by an encrypted lock and shoved him inside. "Because I'm the better programmer. You killed Jonas and the only means for your escape from this cell is now leaving. At least for a few days until someone manages to break the code."

"I know the code, you fool!" He barked.

"Not anymore," I said as I unplugged my modified Pipboy from the padded lock. His eyes widened in disbelief.

"And one more thing," I added, before shutting the cell door. "Don't ever touch Amata again." I could faintly hear him yelling for guards as I rounded the corner to his office, Jonas's prone, lifeless body was just laying there. I felt both fear and anger try to take hold of me. Something was clutched in his hand. A holotape labeled "Explanation". I tucked it in a pocket for later listening. Right then I didn't have time to listen. Though I stood there for a moment regardless, trying to get a handle on everything happening. What broke me from my stupor was a faint sniffling. I turned around and headded into the Overseer's quarters.

Amata was huddled off to one side of her father's bedroom, tears staining her cheeks red. She jumped up and into my arms as I entered the room. It felt so right and yet so wrong to be here right now.

"Thank you," she whispered, her tears dampening my vault-suit.

I pressed my nose into her hair and inhaled deeply. "Don't mention it."

She wiped her eyes and dragged me along behind her, making her way into her father's office. She plopped down in her father's chair and decoded the terminal.

A whirring sound emanated from the Overseer's desk and the base slowly rotated, exposing four notches around its circumference. The whole thing began to lift and a set of mechanical doors slid apart revealing a flight of stairs leading downward.

"Come on," she said with that graceful smile of hers. I followed her down into the tunnel, and eventually we found ourselves at a massive cog-shaped door. The door to Vault 101. The door to my freedom.

I walked over to the control panel to operate the door, finding the right combination of buttons to press, and disengaged the lock. A loud thud resounded in the entrance chamber, followed by a cranking and grating sound. The vault door was opening. Shouts and hollers startled me, coming from the door behind Amata and I. I nearly forgot there was a door there leading back into the vault (the door proper).

In a hurry, Amata and I jammed the door with a metal bar through the compression locks.

That should've held them for a while.

Amata grabbed me by the face and kissed me. I was stunned, and again I felt like melting… but more intensely. She backed off a bit.

"I'm sorry," she said. "I shouldn't have done that."

"Why not?" I asked.

"Because…" her eyes watered up.

I walked over to her and placed a hand on her cheek and caressed it, working my way up into her brunette locks. She closed her eyes and put her hands over mine.

I leaned down to her and whispered in her ear, "Come with me."

I didn't know why she reacted the way she did, but she immediately backed off, looking at me with a painstaking glance as if she were confronted with the most difficult decision of her life. She shook her head.

"Amata…"

"I can't. You've made it this far. No, just go."

"But Amata… c'mon. You can't just stay here. Your father's crazy. He'll probably end up hurting you… or worse. I can't live with that."

"I know he's… difficult right now. But he's my father. If anyone can calm him down it's me. My place is here beside him, helping the vault. But you, you're meant to go out there."

"Amata…"

"Go!" She turned away and ran, and just in time too. The bar busted as the compression locks snapped open. I turned to run away through the opened vault door. They had pistols.

All I can say is I was screwed. They shot me in the thigh and the shoulder, and if you've never been shot before – trust me don't try it – it hurts like hell. I can't quite say what it resembles, but I think if Butch's punch felt like a brick hitting me in the gut, then maybe getting shot feels like taking something really sharp and jamming it into your body, and leaving it there while your blood flows freely. Hell. Yeah… hurts like hell.

But I had too much adrenaline to just not do something. I spun on my heel to confront the guards and that same sense of everything moving slowly BUT me happened again. I whipped out my pistol and unleashed a full clip in their direction. Dead. Both of them. And I killed them. Nausea didn't overtake me again, though that might have been because I wasn't so close to their corpses to see the crimson liquid flowing from their wounds because of me.

And after that I really don't know what happened. I remember walking to the end of the tunnel leading out of the vault and seeing a wooden door. I must have opened it because from there on I only saw an incredibly bright light. I now know that it was the sun, but I wasn't sure at that moment. From there on it's a bit fuzzy.

I don't know if I walked somewhere, or if it happened right after. To say in the least, I fainted from exhaustion, most likely. And so began my life in the Capital Wasteland. My miserable life out here in this god forsaken deserted place.

Barren doesn't quite describe it. Imagine a land with nothing civil for miles around. Now imagine that land filled with monsters, raiders (these psycho people who shoot on sight no matter what), and giant insects bigger than our freaking radroaches – two or three or even FOUR times bigger. And all because I got an improper eviction notice.

Now I'm stuck out here. Me, my pistol, and this crazy ass shadow who saved my life.