Hi all. Apologies for the late and short chapter, I had to travel somewhere to do something really important to me :D

My eternal thanks to all who favorited and story alerted :D It made me very happy :D


" 'I can forgive, but I cannot forget' " is only another way of saying, 'I will not forgive.'
Forgiveness ought to be like a cancelled note-torn in two and burned up so that it never can be shown against one."

-Paul Boese


Holotape dated: October 18, 2277, 2:07 AM, The Capital Wasteland

Nathaniel

It's been a little over two months since I've left Vault 101 to look for Dad. Two months, and yet it feels like several decades have passed since then. Aside from traveling to the GNR where Moriarty said my Dad said is going, I have explored the Wastelands to hear, see, touch, and do all the things I had only dreamed of before leaving the Vault. In doing so, met, talked, sometimes even fought, with individuals with various beliefs and temperaments. I have done things that I couldn't even imagine myself doing. I saved Megaton from a psychopathic man who nearly blew the town off the map, rescued two people, Red and Shorty, from Super Mutants and escorted them home, and became an emissary of sorts to the people of Arefu so to reach a peaceful solution with the Family. I reminded Ian of his sister's love. Helped an old woman named Agatha find something precious to her heart. I helped Moira, the storekeeper at Craterside Supply, create a book that could save countless lives, and yet... after doing all that... I have also killed.

I have killed men and women to defend those helpless to protect themselves. To prevent evil, twisted, people from taking advantage of men, women-sometimes even children- in the most inhumane ways possible. I have killed to protect myself. "It was in self-defence," I say at night, when the nightmares haunt my dreams, their screams of pain never leaving my ears. "It's either you or them." But...it doesn't change the fact that I have killed people. Living, breathing, human beings, the same as you and me. I have sent...I don't know how many to the void. Some of these beings, by some unfortunate hand of fate, have no choice but to kill others to earn their keep. These same beings who were brought up to think that the only way to live another day, is to end someone else's. To kill or be killed...

That's something I understand better now.

But... I found that even in the midst of all this bloodshed, there is hope for humanity. There are people willing to put down their lives to protect those important to them. People who live by their morals. People that have a code of honour. Who won't kill just because it pleases them. People who, no matter how bad things get, will try to make the most of it, without killing, stealing, betraying, or depriving someone of something cherished. People who try to make the world a better place. Even a world that may have no hope of returning to its former grandeur has a chance to make this Wasteland even better than the America that came before it...

...and I found that there are things that not even a nuclear apocalypse can change.

The stars that twinkle above the midnight sky. The moon that shines gently on the ravaged Earth below. I remember reading from a book once before that even the darkest night will end when the sun will rise. It is the promise of a new day that shows that, even with if the world as we knew it two hundred years ago has ended, there is hope. Hope that this broken world can change for the better, that there would be no need for endless tears and killing. A world that echoes with the laughter of children. A world with clean, pure water. A world without radiation. A world without Raiders. A world that doesn't need Vaults to protect and keep those inside ignorant of the things that make life worth living. A world with food that doesn't make my stomach roll (laughs). But most of all...

I want a world where me and my Dad can live together again. Preferably with no one trying to kill us. (scoffs) Like that's going to happen, right? I don't even know if he's still alive... Even after all that he's done to me, I miss him, and I hope he's okay...

Holotape ended on: September 18, 2277, 2:56 AM, The Capital Wasteland


Hope you enjoyed the chapter. By the way, kudos to anyone who knows where I got the metaphor about hope :D