Chapter 3: Escape Vault 111

Her pod had opened, and Skyler came tumbling out of it. She gasped for air, her whole body shaking from the cold. Her mind slowly began to recall the events from earlier; the mysterious people, Shaun being taken, her husband... dead.

Nate.

Standing up wobbly, Skyler looked up to see her husband still frozen in the pod. There has to be a release somewhere, she thought desperately. She might've have said it out loud as well. Her eyes darted everywhere in a crazed manner, not quite focusing on anything. Finally her eyes landed on a control panel with a lever. Skyler all but lunged at the lever, jerking it up. "Come on, come on, oh God..."

Nate's pod opened. Skyler let out a loud sob as she looked at him.

The bullet hole in his head was still there, but the ice had covered up the blood. Nate's eyes were closed, a slight frown etched upon his frozen face.

Skyler couldn't control her crying. She reached out and stroked his icy cold cheek. "I'm so sorry Nate," she whimpered, her voice breaking. Her hand wandered own to his, the tips of her fingers tugging off his wedding ring. If this was the only thing she had left of him then she wasn't gonna leave it behind. Skyler's face hardened as she tried to control herself. "I'm gonna find who did this," she vowed, "and I'll get our boy back. I promise."

She stumbled away from Nate's pod, not being able to bear seeing him in like that anymore. Why would Vault-Tec do this? she wondered, looking at the other pods. Everyone was frozen, and she concluded that they were dead. Making her way to the door, Skyler began to cough as she staggered down the hall to the exit. However when she got to the door, it didn't budge. A warning message blared out over the speakers; the emergency exit was malfunctioning. Skyler screamed and kicked at the door.

So she staggered down some stairs and down another hallway. Suddenly her vision began to blur and she swayed to the side, crashing into a wall. "Okay Sky, get a hold of yourself," she told herself. Breathing slowly through her nose and out her mouth, the dizziness faded slightly, and she continued down the halls of the Vault.

As she passed through one hallway, there was a window... and Skyler let out a loud shriek as a ginormous cockroach flew away from the glass. "Giant roaches... there's giant... roaches... What the hell?"

She entered the next room and what would be in there? Another large roach, the size of a small dog. Skyler briefly thought it was the size of a beagle. It's antennae twitched, and the giant roach lunged at her. Skyler squealed and dodged out the way in time. I need something to kill this thing with! Her eyes landed on a security baton. She vaulted towards it, grabbed the baton and readied herself. Just as the roach was about to lunge again, she struck it with the baton, killing it.

Skyler took a couple breaths before soldiering on. She rummaged around the room, finding a few neat items that would surely come in handy later. Then she began her journey out of the Vault. She killed a few more roaches and then entered another room; this one had a skeleton with a lab coat on the floor. "Am I really the only person left here?"

She had a look through the terminal sitting on the desk. By the looks of things, supplies were running low, and the surviving people had began a mutiny and wanted out the Vault.

She found some more goodies. Some Stimpaks, a very fancy gun locked away in a case that she'll have to come back for later, and a 10mm pistol. She didn't have much experience with guns. Nate had taken her to a shooting range once for a date so she knew how to handle a gun, but using it on a person...

Skyler shook her head, scanning through the terminal to find something to unlock the exit. After finding what she was looking for, she ventured down more hallways. One was infested with the giant roaches. Firing the gun was very exhilarating, Skyler noted. The noise, the recoil, it gave her a bit of an adrenaline rush.

After wandering down one more hallway she entered the final room. She remembered it from when she and her family entered the Vault for the first time. There were staff, it was clean and everything was functioning well. Now, it was decayed, with what looked like the Overseer's skeleton by the door's control panel. On the skeleton's wrist was a Pip-Boy. "Does this thing still work...?" she asked herself, picking it up and attaching it to her wrist. She wiped the screen as it began to power up. The little Vault Boy logo popped up; Skyler let out a sigh of relief that it still worked.

Skyler then turned her attention to Vault 111's door control panel. There appeared to be a type of plug on the panel that matched a cord on her Pip-Boy. Unwinding the cord, she plugged it it in. It synced to the control panel and she pressed the large button.

"Vault door cycling sequence initiated. Please stand back."

The door's mechanics slowly started to crank up. Lights lit up the small room. Skyler made her way to the gates of the ramp. The door rolled open, blinding white light hurting her eyes momentarily. She clambered onto the ramp, not bothering to wait and making her way across it and down the stairs. She waited for the platform, bouncing up and down anxiously as she did. I have to get home, she decided, I have to see if there's anything left.

The platform arrived, the mesh barring her way slowly lifting up. Skyler took a deep breath, looking back for a moment. She stretched for a second, her arms falling to her sides with a slap. All of a sudden she felt something brush her foot. Looking down, she felt a little bit of happiness as she picked up the photo that fell out her pocket. It was still in perfect condition. Shoving it back in, she stepped onto the platform, anxious of what awaited her on the surface as it began it's ascend.

"Enjoy your return to the surface. And thank you for choosing Vault-Tec!"