Darkness.

This was Dette's world for her weeks of imprisonment. Or what she assumed were weeks. There was no way for her to tell how much time had really passed, this coupled with her disorientation attributed to her warped sense of time. She spent most of her time straining her ears, listening for the distinct clank of boots hitting the metallic floor of the metro station, flinching as she heard the sounds of Rad Roaches skittering curiously around her. She also cried.

She slept shallowly and fitfully. The Dreams of the clawed monsters were unrelenting. They approached her, eyes bright and feral, mouths growling as foam dripped out onto the floor. She was cornered in her claustrophobic room in the vault, trembling uncontrollably with sheer terror. They lumbered towards her slowly, but hungrily. Just before their jaws closed around her slender neck, she started awake. The first sensation she felt was relief, it was just a dream after all. Then despair washed over her. She was alive, but her conditions were unfavorable, in fact they were just downright awful. She curled into a tight ball and cried bitter tears.

Many men visited her, if you could even call them men. They seemed like scared boys when they timidly unbuckled the belts that were the only thing keeping their tattered shorts on their scrawny waists. One was her first abuser, the burly man whose breath smelled of a rotten carcass. Sometimes he caressed her like a lover, other times he spat on her and slapped her as he had his way with her. Another man visited her sometime after. He was in his late teens, though his face looked much older. His eyes sunk in and his face was adorned with an array of scars of varying ages. He walked in, barely glancing at Dette's naked form as he set down his lamp and settled on the ground. He stared blankly at the ceiling and idly wrung his fingers as he spoke about his brother, the bombs, and death, So much death. He talked about his brother, Rat, who was ripped apart by Deathclaws. And the more he talked about his brother, the more strained his voice became and the redder his face until he was on the ground sobbing his late brother's name. Dette began to relax just then, obviously this poor boy wasn't here to hurt her, he was in as much pain as she. But as soon as she relaxed her tense muscles and let out the breath she hadn't even known she'd been holding, his eyes shot up at her. His face was angry and cold, his eyes dark with rage. He mounted her savagely and began to beat her with his bandaged fist.

The abuse went on for many minutes, until he finally receded and strode out of the metro station, his fist clenched tightly. he hung his head down, panting, as sweat dripped down his forehead. Soon after, Dette's eyes swelled shut, and all she could see was the darkness, and all she felt was the darkness.

What Dette assumed as the next day after she was brutally beaten by the boy with the dead brother, She heard footsteps again. The footsteps were softer, and slower. By now Dette was able to tell who was coming to visit her prison by the character of their steps. She was unfamiliar with these, but she had no energy to ponder their origins.

When she heard the familiar screeching of the metro doors, she shrunk back and hid her face in her shoulder. She saw the light shift behind her closed lids as the figure of the stranger walked towards her, blocking the light. They stood over her for quite some time, unsure. Dette attempted to open her less beaten eye. She succeeded in opening her eye to barely more than a slit, and she stared at the figure while her vision tried to focus. She saw the dark figure of a slender woman, but because of the back light she was unable to make out more of her features. She groaned has the light penetrated her mostly closed lid and caused her bruised and bloody head to throb. She shoved her face back into the her shoulder, to hide them from the hurtful light. She wanted the darkness.

She felt the woman's cold hands prodding at her ribs. Dette recoiled at the sudden burst of pain in her torso and whimpered pathetically. "Oh my god." The woman breathed. "What have they done to you? Poor girl." Dette's whimpers turned into pitiful sobs of agony and despair. The woman said nothing more. Dette heard her shifting around and then felt a cold wet hand on her face. She jumped back, her sobs became hysterical. The mystery woman used her knee to brace Dette's shoulder to the ground and her hand for the other. Dette struggled but the woman did not budge, she was strong. Or maybe Dette was just weak. So she stopped struggling, they normally hurt her worse when she struggled. On top of that it amused the men who straddled her violently when she spat and swore. They would smile down at her powerless form as they took her dignity, the victory they felt evident in the sick glow in their eyes. Instead, she found it helped if left her physical form and lost herself in the memories of her bitter sweet childhood, before the bombs decimated any semblance of a future.

She closed her eye, and the pain disappeared. When she attempted to open her eyes, the bright summer light immediately shut them again. She felt a rush of sticky heat and felt the roar of a crowd as much as she heard it. She opened one eye, fluttering still at the sudden and intense brightness and spied a baseball diamond and a large crowd that enclosed the vibrant green grass on all sides. The pitcher was peering into the crowd, triumph written on his face in the way of a smug grin. The batter up was pawing at the ground irritably with his cleats, the wooden bat hanging loosely at his side. Baseball was never Dette's forte, but she recognized the Batter as one of the star players of the year, hitting more homeruns than any player in the last fifty years. She heard a gruff voice next to her swear, and turned curiously towards the semi familiar voice. Her eyes widened, next to her sat her father, leaning forward irritably with a cigar in his mouth. He was unshaven, his haggard face drooping haughtily. He wore a stained and scuffed suit, that looked like it had seem many better days. He was bouncing Little Walter on his knee, a bit too roughly. Walter's head bobbed back and forth. He was barely able to sit up on his own. He wore a girlish looking white sunhat with only a shirt that read "Momma's boy," and a very stylish denim looking diaper. Walter regarded her with a dribbly grin and reached a chubby hand towards her. Dette pushed his hand aware irritably and noticed her hand wasn't much bigger than his. She turned to her other side and looked in the direction of a more familiar voice. This voice was light and angelic; it caressed her earlobe softly and filled her with warmth and comfort. Her mother sat next to her clad in a shining orange sun dress with a matching floppy sunhat. She was conversing lightly with a Mr. Handy, who was dishing out hotdogs, smothered in mustard and relish. Dette felt her mouth water as she stared up longingly at the hotdogs. As her mother disengaged from conversation and was getting ready to distribute the dogs, something caught her attention and her head snapped past Dette to the hulking man holding a small baby roughly in his giant, hairy hands.

"What do you think you're doing, Phillip?" Her words were piercing and cold as ice, accompanied fittingly by the icy glare from her blue eyes, Dette felt a chill in the summer air. Her father turned toward her mother, eyebrows scrunched in confusion and irritation, cigar still hanging loosely to the corner of his mouth. When he spoke, the mixed smell of lingering alcohol and cigar smoke made Dette gag.

"What is it Jan? I'm trying to watch the ballgame!" He spat, furiously. Little Walter looked up at him, his eyes suddenly wide and frightened.

"I told you not to smoke that crap around our baby!" She said, she sounded disgusted. She reached over Dette and snatched her baby from his indifferent father. Walter squealed and began to wail at his mother's rough grasp. Dette sunk into her chair, uncomfortable with the squabble that was going on around her. But it had the air of familiarity around it, this had been happening quite often recently.

"He's fine Jan, just leave it." He said, shouting over the crowd which had suddenly erupted into cheers. His face snapped back to the baseball diamond and focused his attention on what all the other spectators were seeing. The young star was making his way around the diamond, in a slow jog with his fists in the air. Another homerun for the young up and comer, his future looked bright. But maybe that was just the nuclear blasts that destined to end his life in a few short months.

Her father stood up and threw his fedora on the ground and swore. He gave Dette's mother one last disdainful look, and then waded through the crowd towards the exits. Little Walter continued to wail morosely. Janette loosed her grip and put his over her shoulder, rocking him and patting his back, whispering comforting coos. She mainly did this to shield herself from Dette, so she didn't see her tears. But Dette knew, she saw the subtle shakiness as her chest rose and fell and heard her quiet gasps. Dette was going to reach out and comfort her mother, but a sudden and intense pain came over her. She fell back into her wooden stadium chair, groaning. Her head felt like it was on fire. The burning sensation was beginning to spread down her forehead.

Dette opened her swollen eye. She tried to look around, the sudden change of surroundings disorienting. She was back in the metro station. The woman was still over her, pressing some type of cloth with an undisclosed poultice on her forehead.

"I told you this would hurt, please don't fight me, I'm trying to help you." The woman spoke in an earnest voice. Dette relaxed, the burning sensation subsiding. "You're covered in abrasions; in these conditions you could easily get an infection. Please hold still, Girl." Dette had shifted slightly to a more comfortable position. She watched this girl as she worked on her own naked body. Now that she had closed the metro door and the woman's lamp had been placed nearby, Dette could more easily see the details of her caretaker. The girl was probably around her age, early twenties. She had long flowing black hair, and dark eyes to match it. Her skin was deathly pale, most likely from an inconsistent diet that at the moment consisted of cornflakes and a few scattered wild grasses. She wore a tattered leather vest with a dirty white shirt underneath. Around her waist a large belt anchored her flowing leather pants to her skinny waist. On one hip she had a holster in which a pistol was snugly resting.

Dette regarded this, none of her other visitors had brought their weapons in her vicinity, probably because you don't bring weapons around prisoners. If Dette were able to shimmy her way out of the improvised handcuffs, that gun would provide a convenient escape. She looked back at the woman's face. She had stopped working on Dette's broken body and was staring into her eyes. The woman's hand had moved to her pistol and she gripped it with white knuckles.

"Don't get any ideas," She said, her tone suddenly cold. "I'm the only one out in the wastes that gives a shit about if you live or die, and if you turn on me there will be no one." Dette looked up into the woman's eyes, unblinking. The woman's stare was so fierce that Dette felt her gaze dropping to the floor. And it stayed there as the woman continued to work on her wrecked body. The unnamed caretaker cleaned her wounds gently with the closest thing to a clean garment since Dette escaped the vault. Her eyebrows furrowed as she slipped into deep concentration. She injected Dette with a large needle, slowly seeping the liquid into her quadriceps. Dette felt intense relief wash over his as the drug began to take effect, numbing her pain. Lastly, she applied her healing dressings to her wounds, and leaned back, admiring her handiwork. "You'll live." She said. And then she pulled out a bowie knife that had been holstered in a calf strap. Dette gasped and scooted backwards but didn't make much progress, considering her tightly tied feet. The woman approached and sighed, "I'm not going to hurt you just, sit still or something." Dette obeyed but kept her puffy eyes closed tight. Dette felt the woman steady her tied wrist and felt the release of the taught rope on her wrists. Dette rubbed the flaking dried blood on her wrist and looked up at the woman, pondering her next move.

The woman shiethed her blade, and reached into the back pocket of her leather pants and unveiled something that made Dette's eyes widen. She brought out a few biscuits wrapped in a bandanna Dette stared at the biscuits, the first item of food she had laid her eyes on since her imprisonment. "We found a couple mirelurks the other day, already dead. This is the last of the meat we have, in these cakes, they should make you feel better." She put the biscuits on the ground and picked up her oil lamp. As she was leaving, she stopped and turned her had to the side, addressing Dette again. "Make sure when you hear someone coming, wrap the rope around your hands again, loosely of course. You're too weak right now. If you try anything you'll die. Plain and simple." She paused, seemingly pondering something as she stared at the grated floor. "Just rest, eat, and I'll be back for you." The metro door slammed shut.