Survival log, 21.8.2277.

Dad used to say "nothing is impossible".
Well, I never thought I'd be able to kill, and back in the Vault I killed two people. I witnessed four deaths. Is Mr. Kendall dead? that would make it five.

After the Vault occurrences, I've been barely conscious for three days. I assume from the combination of massive body trauma, blood loss, and combat stress. No entrance back to the Vault, which leaves me with two options: starve, or leave the Vault behind, possibly jumping into a quicker death.

The Vault is located in a desert. Everything I see is ruins. So many ruined buildings. When the nuclear bombs hit the entire globe, my ancestors were lucky enough to have a place reserved for them in a Vault, and manage to get there in time. From what I read, the vast majority of the human population weren't as lucky. It's not hard to imagine what happened to them. So much death. What a waste.

I have stumbled across a group of large humanoid robots, which gave me the general direction of a place called 'Megaton'.

I always knew that the Vault is small compared to the rest of the world. I could never imagine what an understatement it was.

(Laughter)

To say it was an understatement is an understatement. I have been walking for hours. I can't see the Vault anymore.

For comparison, walking inside the Vault from one end to another takes less than twenty minutes.

Imagine how embarrassing it would be if someone found me here dead, with only a single survival log entry.

(Bitter laughter)


Spectrum chapter 4 - Out Of The Blue, Pt.1: Megaton.

After a few hours of walking in the sun, Raph finally decided he was fed up. Once he grown accustomed to it, the sunlight made his vision sharper than it ever was in the Vault, being able to see the tiniest details of his destroyed surroundings. But it felt like walking inside an active stove.

Also, all he could see with his newfound vision was his destroyed surroundings.

The concrete road he was walking on was uneven, cracked, littered, and only portions of it were above the ground. Piles of broken cement and house skeletons were a common sight, along with vehicle corpses. The detailed rust, broken windshields and dented metalwork were a major contrast to the slick, colorful vehicles he seen in the Vault's libraries. He found it depressing.

It was getting on his nerves when he finally managed to catch the glimpse of a huge, sparkling object on the horizon, in the direction which the robot pointed him to. It was taking far longer than he presumed, as he still wasn't used to see that far, but the hope of finally finding a settlement with humans in it kept him going. It surprised him to find out how much he missed company.

Then, seemingly out of nowhere, something lunged at him, snarling madly, with the dweller pushing it back just enough to avoid having his face chewed on.

"Gah!" He fell on his back, pushing the creature off of him.

From the glimpse Raph caught he managed to see that it was about half his size, with large front teeth, and its skin had a sickish shade of pink.

He rolled to his side as the mutated animal lunged again. Using the momentum from the roll he rose to his feet and pulled out the laser pistol, firing once and mutilating the animal's rear leg.

The creature screeched, turning to him, and Raph shot it again, this time hitting its face.
It fell to the ground, screeching and squirming so fast that it was still a blur for the armed teen. But it didn't manage to stand up, giving Raph the opportunity to get rid of it without wasting ammunition.

So he whipped out his nightstick, and hit. And again. And again. The creature's screams were loud and nauseating, but after seeing Officer Mack choke on his own blood, he found the creature's sufferings… insignificant.

At the end of it he was exhausted, and the least clean he's been his entire life. He just noticed he lost his sense of smell.

Panting, he inspected the creature. It was pink, with hairless wrinkly skin, which was full of sunburns and other deformities. It had four palm sized teeth bulking out, two above its mouth and two beneath, giving the creature monstrous apparel. It reminded Raph of a molerat.

A giant, vicious, revoltingly deformed Molerat.

Raph sighed. He missed home, he missed having people around. He missed his dad, and he especially missed Paul and Amata. The loneliness was getting heavy.

After what seemed like an eternity, the Lone Wanderer reached the object he saw in the horizon. Numerous plates, which were barely recognizable as parts of cars, planes, and other objects he couldn't name were welded together to a metal dome, shielding god-knows-what.

Raph stared in awe. While at first glance the dome seemed to be randomly pieced together, he saw a work of art. Every piece, every welding was well thought through, as the plates were perfectly overlapping each other, taking advantage of every bit of material, with the only holes were ones created by rust.

Cautiously, he strolled down the hill, barely holding his grasp on the unconsolidated ground. Bits of earth and tiny stones were rolling down with every step as his combat boots sunk into the sand-like surface.

With boots full of earth, he approached the metal structure. It was enormous, completely filling his sight. Five, maybe six times his height, and wide enough to fit at least half of the Vault inside.

Laying his hand on the brown dotted surface, admiring the coarse metalwork, his sensitive touch picked up gentle vibrations.

Four days ago, he would kill to have someone like whoever built this dome in the Vault. And then he had to kill anyway. Go figure.

He put his ear to the plate, picking up chatter from inside. People. But there was no visible entrance. Quickly concluding no one from inside could hear him, he began surrounding the dome.

Until he reached the crossed airplane wings which he assumed were the entrance, the sun had already began to set.

The giant yellow star was now a brilliant shade of red, gradually dying the sky around it in bright red as well. Under normal circumstances, he would have stopped to admire the sight, if he wasn't so busy with trying to keep himself alive. And unnerved with the amount of killing he had to do lately.

At the entrance stood a robot Raph had only read about. A narrow, oval shaped torso, with thin limbs attached. Each joint was a bulky sphere, giving the faint sensation of a skeleton. The hands ended with three finger sized claws each, and its legs ended with sharp, tear - shaped feet.

The head was a transparent sphere, containing three camera lens, each facing a different direction.

The teen stared, shocked to see a machine this old in a perfect working order. He remembered reading about the Protectron model, but seeing one in real life is a whole other story.

He shook his head. Survival, remember? Focus.

The upper half of the machine turned ninety degrees to face him. Only the upper half. Raph felt somewhat nauseated by the sight before he reminded himself that it's a machine. "Welcome, to, mega-ton. The bomb, is, perfectly! safe." It spoke in a metallic voice, with a changing tone, stopping after almost every word.

A turbine which was placed above the crossed wings began spinning, and the wings rose, revealing two giant doors, also made from welded, rusty metal plates. "Have, a nice, Visit! Partner."

He pushed the two doors and stepped inside, letting the giant gate close behind him. Four days ago, the stench inside would have overwhelmed him. Sweat, rotting, sewers and things he didn't want to know filled the air.

The town was built around a giant crater, with houses made from metal leftovers placed in various parts of the crater, with numerous catwalks connecting between them. Since the crater was extremely steep, the only part that didn't have catwalks is the crater's bottom, about ten feet radios from a…

Raph's eyes widened. Suddenly 'Megaton' became a pretty fitting name.

A giant nuclear bomb was the center of the town. It was upside down, its tip stuck in the ground. And a pool of a green goo around it.

Uranium. Or plutonium. Definitely radioactive. And poisonous. He frowned. Should've paid more attention to that field.

He immediately pulled out his Pip-device, switching to the Geiger counter feature. To his surprise, there was no radiation found whatsoever.

Guess that bomb has been here for quite a while, then.

He was still uneasy with the concept, though.

The place reeked, and rust was all over, giving the town an overall shade of brown. But it seemed peaceful. People, although filthy and mostly wearing rags or torn clothes, seemed relaxed, going about their own businesses. He even heard laughter.

A dark skinned man, wearing relatively intact clothes, a duster and an odd, wide hat approached him. "I'll be damned, another newcomer!" He greeted, his baritone voice making his appearance even more masculine.

He was short, wide built and muscular. And for some reason, he made Raph feel threatened. "I'm Lucas Simms, the sheriff of the town,"

That explains the hat.

"Mayor, too, when the need arises." The sheriff smiled, a warm, fatherly smile. He shook the stunned teen's hand. "You look like you've been through hell."

Raph stared blankly, unable to speak. The last person with authority he encountered was Alphonse.

"The quiet type, huh? Fine, might keep you out of trouble. I just hope you're not a weirdo." The way he pronounced it sounded as if he was talking about something worse. "Got enough of those already." Lucas's smile has slowly died out. "Everything's alright there?"

When the Lone wanderer didn't answer, the Sheriff's smile completely vanished, turning into an expression the teen didn't recognize. "God, I hope you ain't one of those psychotic quiet types."

That shook him out of his thoughts. "No, no! It's a, uh..." He blinked. Smile, goddamit! "Nice to meet you, Sheriff." He forced himself to expose teeth.

The Sheriff seemed to be taken aback.

Raph quickly let his smile die out. Okay, don't smile. "I'm... looking for my father. He... has grey hair, wears a Vault suit..." He sighed. The words were tangling up in his head. "Have you-?"

"-I got enough fires to put out in this place that I don't have time to keep tabs on every visitor." Lucas answered sternly, but quickly softened upon seeing the bloodstained teen's despair. "But you should ask around town."

Raph nodded. "Thanks. Um... one more thing,"

"Sure thing, what is it?"

He lifted the helmet's shield. "Do you know where I can get water? A-And food?" Flustered, he lowered his eyes to the ground. Quit stuttering, will ya?

The Sheriff smiled, realizing what he's seeing is just a kid, lost and confused. "So you're a young one. If you have the caps, The brass Lantern Is a good place."

'Caps'?

"Good enough to keep you full, which is already better than most food you can find here in the wastes. If you don't have the caps, Moira's Craterside supply trades all kind of garbage for money." He pointed at a catwalk which started at the crater, near the bomb.

He stepped closer, his voice now barely a whisper. "Between you and me, you should keep that mouth of yours shut. No offence: to keep you out of trouble."

Raph nodded. "Thanks."

"Don't mention it." The sheriff turned his back and strolled down the hill, his duster lazily follows.

Raph walked down as well. Looking around, the craterside supply wasn't hard to locate, as giant letters spelling "CRATERSIDE SUPPLY" were spray-painted on the Shack's wall. It was placed relatively high, with the shortest path to it is a winding catwalk, which was partly constructed from the rooftop of a shack labeled 'infirmary'.

Raph climbed up the rusty ramp and opened the door. A bell ringed as he entered the room.

It was less rusty than what he saw so far, but rusty nonetheless. A counter was placed to the right, near the entrance. Many shelves were installed on the wall behind the counter, packed with numerous miscellaneous items, from ammo boxes and food to unrecognizable parts and wooden baseball bats.

Further from the entrance was a workbench with numerous tiny parts scattered all over it, a table with chemistry set near a bulky-looking computer, three lockers, and a few metal boxes.

To the left closer to the entrance was a small division, which created a small side room with stairs which led up. On the division leaned a muscular man with a rough appearance, wearing a shirt made from thick leather, and holding an assault rifle of a model Raph didn't recognize.

"I'll be with you in a second!" A female voice called from upstairs, followed by fiddling and footsteps. A young woman came down the stairs.

Well, she was certainly older than him, but relatively young.

She had flaming red hair, pulled back in a ponytail, greasy and full of knots, and had probably seen better days. Her eyes were light brown, almost yellowish, and her face were relatively clean, surprisingly pale and slightly freckled, and with a happy - go - lucky smile that seemed to fit perfectly on her features. She was wearing a light blue factory worker jumpsuit, with 'Robco INC' labeled above her shirt's pocket.

"Welcome to Crater-side supply! How can I help- oh." her smile vanished, replaced with a look of surprise, then pity, and Raph had trouble keeping up. "Rough day out there?" She asked.

Raphael looked to the right, where the counter was placed. There was a mirror behind the counter, and Raph studied his reflection. He still wore the bullet proof vest and the security helmet. But it was sullied with dried blood, the helmet was battered and dusty, his jumpsuit was almost torn to shreds, and the multiple bandages on his limbs were downright filthy, almost black.

But what caught his attention was his face. His eyes had a troubled, somewhat scarred look, his features became coarse, and his face seemed to have aged at least ten years. For a moment, he could swear that the reflection that stared back at him was his father.

And yet, the sheriff still called me 'young one'.

He mumbled, then swallowed, trying to get some feeling back to his sand-like throat.

"I-I need money for food, and was told... Told that you are the one t-to trade with... I have some items..." Raph sighed, deciding to show her what he meant instead of talking, which was getting harder with every word. He pulled out three pistols from his improvised bag. "How much...?"

She took the pistols by hand, giving them nothing more than a brief scan. "Quality guns!" She exclaimed, then set them down on the counter. "Let's say… about one hundred and forty, each." Her face suddenly lit up. "Wait, you're that stray from the Vault! Haven't seen one of you in years!"

"How do y-" "It's so good to meet you!" she took his hand with both of hers, shaking it enthusiastically. "As you probably know, I run the Craterside supply. But what I really do is mostly tinkering and research."

"T-that's-"

"-Say, I'm working about a book about the wasteland - it'd be great to have the foreword by a vault dweller. Help me out, would you?" Her voice went half a pitch higher at the end, pleading. She finally let go of his hand.

Raph blinked. "O-oka-"

"-Great! Just tell me what's it's like to live underground, or to come outside for the first time, or whatever strikes you fancy!"

Raph gulped. Setting foot in the wasteland for the first time? "The sun hurts."

"Fascinating!" she whipped out a clipboard, seemingly out of nowhere, writing it down.

"Is…" He cleared his throat, trying to get back to the original subject. "Are one hundred caps enough?"

"Oh, sure!" She cheered. Then she stopped writing, raising her head from the clipboard. "Wait, enough for what?"

He frowned. "Is it enough for... How much does food cost here? Water, somewhere to sleep?"

"Ooh! Jenny sells squirrel stew! It's... filling. If you need a place to sleep, you can rent a room at Moriarty's for one hundred caps, or sleep at the common house - that's where all town's visitors sleep, although it's dark in there, and…" she grimaced. "Kinda smells. As for water..." She pouted at him, "You'll need to drink irradiated water, or purify them by yourself."

His eyes scattered across the room, trying to process all if the new information.

"Ya know, Sounds to me like you need a job." She looked at him hopefully.

He kept staring at the floor. "Yeah, I figured that out by now."

She raised an eyebrow before giggling when she understood what type of character he was. "I mean I can offer you a job. Wanna help me with the research? I can pay you, and it'll be fun!"

His gaze met hers. "Research what?"

"Well, it's a dangerous place out there in the wastes, right? People could really use a compilation of good advice, like a wasteland survival guide." The redhead woman gasped. "Brilliant!" She cheered, writing it down. "The Wasteland Survival Guide." She raised her gaze back to him. "Anyway, I need an assistant to help test my theories. I wouldn't want anyone to get hurt because of a mistake. Nobody's ever happy when that happens." She grimaced, looking at the floor. "No, they just yell a lot. At me." She frowned, looking back at him. "With mean, mean words!"

Raph blinked, trying to study the eccentric person in front of him. "Um… sounds good."

Her face lit up, the frown vanished as if never existed. "Alright then! Now, I think the first chapter will have to be about surviving day-to-day dangers. Things like where it is and isn't safe to find food, the dangers of radiation, and how to avoid and even profit from dangerous landmines! Sounds like fun, doesn't it?"

Why is she so ecstatic about it?

He nodded. "Okay... sounds good." You've said that already. "What's the pay?"

"I can pay you with caps, meds, chems, and maybe even a few of my unique inventions, if you do a good job. Interested?"

Do some work, earn enough to sustain me for a while, then go after Dad. That should work.

What are Chems?

He nodded. "Sounds… yes."

"So. Radiation, food, landmines. Which one do you want to do first?"

"Radiation?" After two hundred years, didn't most of it dissipate by now?

"Well, I know about it from books, but I never seem to get a live example. Not for long anyway."

'Not for long'?

"So…" She smiled apologetically. "I need you to get a bit of radiation poisoning, so I can study its effects. Oh, not a deadly dose, of course!" She hurried to explain when his usually blank expression visibly turned into horror. "I can fix you up before that!"

"Before... what?"

"Before it turns deadly."

He blinked. "Um… Let's go with food?"

"Food and medicine, everyone needs those every once in a while, right? There's an old pre-war 'Super-duper' mart not far from town. I need to know if a place like that still has food or medicine left in it." She wrote down some more, flipping the page.

After two hundred years? If there's anything left, I doubt it's still recognizable as food.

He nodded. "That… o-okay. I'll do that."

"Oh!" she stopped chewing on the pen, pointing it at him. "See if you can get medicine too. And if there's nothing to find, then just come back in one piece, okay?" She then frowned, looking at his hand. "Where's your Pip-boy?"

He went on the defensive. "Why?"

"To show you the way, of course! How were you planning to get there?"

What does the PB has to do with it?

He took out the flat, rectangular device, hesitatingly handing it over. He didn't like having other people messing with his items, especially ones he carefully calibrated to suit his taste.

She fiddled with it, searching through the functions, making him cringe. "Ugh, what did you do to the poor thing? Ah, there!" The screen showed a crude topographic sketch of the area surrounding them. She put one marker on the map.

Always wondered about the GPS function. He frowned. Too bad I didn't include the antenna...

She marked the location. "That's Megaton…" She expertly scrolled with the buttons east, marking another spot. "And that's where the Mart should be." She handed the device back to him.

"I need supplies."

"Here," She motioned to behind the counter, where a Vault suit was sitting on a hanger. "Take the armored suit. It won't help feed you, but it should keep you from being food to anything else. Or anyone else." She smirked.

He studied the suit, his eyes recognizing the hardened fiber. It was definitely going to help. But…

He sighed. "I still need water." This was going to be difficult. "It's great that… that you gave me a job. But I can't… It's impossible to focus on it when I still need to worry for my basic survival. I need supplies, and I need them now. Food, water, and somewhere to…" He watered his lips. The amount of concentration it required was exhausting. "To store my stuff."

You're asking a bit too much.

"Let's see… You can leave whatever you don't need here." She pointed at a box in the back of the room. "As for supplies, see what you can get for four hundred caps." She handed him a small pouch. He felt numerous tiny objects inside it. Bottle caps.

So 'caps' actually means… caps. Huh.

"So… how did you know?"

"Hmm?"

"That I was from the Vault?"

"Oh, psh!"

He frowned. "I don't understand."

She gave him an odd look. "Really?"

He stated at her. "What?"

"Wait, your'e from a Vault!" She hit her forehead with the base of her palm. "No wonder you don't know." She explained the redundant statement with yet another redundant statement. "It was on the radio."

He blinked. "What?"

"There's a working radio station, GNR, with news from all over the wastes. You should listen to it."

"What… what w-was on the radio?"

She gave him another odd look. "That someone emerged from a Vault."

He realized he wasn't going to get any more useful information from her. So he nodded, murmuring "thank you." And went out the door.

It was nearly dark, and stars begun showing up in the dark horizon. Raph let himself gaze upon the sight, as more and more shiny dots became visible upon the night sky.
He had money, and knew where to use it. Survival was no longer such an urgent issue.

He took in the sight, smiling for the first time in what felt like years.


A/N: Thank you for reading!

Don't forget to review. Nothing keeps me going more than actually hearing from you, and to know what you're thinking!

Also, the description of what he did to his Pip-Boy wasn't so clear, so let me just explain: The new device looks like a smartphone, only without cameras and such. It's a perfect, flat rectangle with a screen on one side, and buttons on the narrow sides (Err, the parts where the power and volume buttons are on smartphones.)
To conceal the fact he wasn't using a Pip-Boy anymore, he made a shackle that exactly resembled the outer part of the PB, with a room for the new device. Imagine something like the PB Gadget Bethesta sold, with a room to slide in a smarphone.

As always, I would thank anyone for pointing out mistakes in grammar, punctuation, spelling, and so on. Also, thanks to MysticMerlin for pointing out a tiny, yet significant mistake of having Raph make an entry log with the wrong date.

vampwalker, you're aWESOME FOR BEING MY MOST DEDICATED REVIEWER.

I just noticed I had capslock on. Meh

StarFalls, making a fanfiction account will make answering to you much easier.

Huge thank-you to my sister for proofreading my fic although its gory parts, And the biggest thank you is for those who take the time and effort to review. You people really keep me going.

Peace.