Chapter 28: Repercussions
"What made you choose?" Joe asked me.
"I just chose."
Behind us, we heard a loud bashing noise, so Joe and I turned around to see Rilee shooting the console of the door, closing and locking the door as sparks flew out from the console.
"What the hell have you done?!" Joe shouted.
"You really think that guy's going to change after this? He'd hunt us down, guys like that are relentless." Rilee argued.
"Why would you do that, he said he'd stay in there!" I yelled.
"Good for us, then! Now we know for sure that would be the case! And besides, he has the food supply with him, so he-" Rilee stopped talking and realized what she said to us.
"All the food is gone now. Now we can't come back here!" I yelled.
"Not entirely." Ulysses said as he pulled out a bag of insta-mash and water.
"We could have given this away, or even use it for ourselves. Have you even thought about what you've done?!" I yelled.
"No." She said as she walked away.
"What's done is done, alright? Let's just hurry up and do that job if we still can." Lennie said to us.
"What's the time, Sarah?" Joe sighed angrily.
"It's 11:30." I told everyone.
"If we ever find a way out of this cave, it's going to take a miracle to make it to the train station." Lennie sighed.
"One miracle coming right up." Rilee said as she pulled out her grenade rifle.
"What are you planning to do with that?" Ulysses asked her.
"Go back the way we came." Rilee said as she aimed it at the giant mole rat.
"The rocks leading up to the entrance are gone if you have forgotten that it smashed them out of the way." Ulysses told her.
"Then let's just make the entrance go down to us." Rilee said.
"You're going to risk a cave-in for that?" Ulysses asked her.
"Yep." She said to him, burping inside her mouth afterward.
"No. You're not making any more bad decisions." Joe told her as he lowered her gun for her.
"There isn't a way out of here without it." Lennie said to him.
"Do what you people please, I'm just here to remind you of what would happen if you decide something." Ulysses said as he folded his arms up.
Everyone then looked at me simultaneously.
"I've got to decide, right?" I nodded angrily like I got the short end of the stick.
"What should we do?" Joe asked me.
"I don't see another way out of here, so we'll have to try blasting ourselves out, then." I announced.
"Good on ya'." Rilee smiled as she fired a grenade into the mole rat, blasting through the already made hole in the stomach and giving us an exit through its stomach.
"Let's go." She told us as she started walking.
"Through...there?" Joe asked, looking at the carcass.
"No. Just sit there with your hand up your ass until you die out." Rilee said angrily as she stepped into the blood.
"Ah, dammit." Joe sighed as he stepped into the pool of blood cautiously.
We walked through the bloody and broken bones of the rat quickly so we wouldn't get covered in blood, we then jogged through the rest of the cave, weary of any other mole rats that could come out and attack us. Eventually we made it to the beginning of the cave, and looked up at the entrance that we made.
"Alright, here goes nothing." Rilee said as she reloaded her grenade rifle and fired it just below the entrance.
The grenade burst into a large explosion, shaking the entire cave and collapsing rock nearby us. As Rilee kept firing, we looked around the cave quickly, silently rushing her to get us out of here. As small rocks fell, Ulysses looked up at the cave instinctively.
"The cave is collapsing. We need to leave now." Ulysses told us as the rock began to break apart in larger formations.
"Almost done, just one more." Rilee said as she reloaded the rifle, looking at the more open exit of the cave.
Off to Joe's side, a large jagged rock fell and broke apart, splattering rock all over us, making us cover our faces from the shards.
"Rilee hurry up!" I shouted at her.
"Shut up and stop rushing me!" She shouted back as she launched another grenade.
The rocks around the entrance collapsed at our feet, revealing some dirt incline to us.
"Start climbing." Ulysses shouted through the smashing rocks as we ran to the dirt hill and started climbing up it with our hands and feet as stone fell around us.
Above us, the sky became visible from the amount of rocks falling into the cave, making the inside shake and boom as we climbed up at the steep hill. I wretched my hands onto the dirt and kicked myself up the hill as I felt the tap of rocks falling onto my head. I looked up to the exit, where the sun shined at us, and a large batch of rocks fell, hitting against Lennie's head, and dropping him down the hill. I grabbed onto Lennie's arm with my left hand as my right one clenched the dirt of the surface. I looked down, grinding my teeth at Lennie's bleeding, concussed head as he looked weakly down the hill.
"Come on, Lennie! Pull yourself up!" I yelled as my hands and feet slowly dragged down the dirt back into the cave.
As my hands and feet scraped against the dirt, I closed my eyes and tried to drag myself up the hill desperately trying to get a hold on something static. As my arms and legs started to shake, my hands sweated up and I began to lose my grip on Lennie, and looked at him as his eyes closed.
"Lennie, come on!" I yelled as my grip on the dirt slipped for a moment.
"Sarah!" Joe yelled above me as the rock crashed down at my sides.
"Move." Ulysses said as he moved Joe out of the way and aimed his bow at me, and fired.
I closed my eyes for a moment, and opened them as I heard the impact of the shot. The knife landed next to me in the dirt, and settled on my shoulder. I looked down at Lennie and tried to pull him up to me as my leg gave out from a rock landing on it. I used all of my strength to pull him up to me, making me lose my last leg to a chuck of rock landing on it. As I started to slide down, I grabbed the knife and wrapped it around Lennie as Ulysses yanked him up. I flipped off of the dirt hill and rolled back into the cave as large chunks of rocks fell next to me.
"Sarah! Grab the knife!" Joe shouted to me as I lay on the shaking cave floor.
Ulysses fired his bow again as Joe and Rilee pulled Lennie in and it landed next to me, just as a rock landed on the wire and forced it to retract back to Ulysses again. As the quakes grew louder, I crawled on the ground and grabbed the knife with my hand, stabbing myself as Ulysses retracted it, flinging my body through rock as I flew up to his bow. The knife popped out of my hand, making me scream in pain as Joe pulled me away from the cave, and dragged me away as the dirt hill was blanketed in rock. Ulysses called over Dogmeat as we coughed and ran from the cave on, falling onto the dusty grass as the cave withered away behind us. Joe grunted and wheezed as he put me on the ground and fell down onto the dirt as we watched the cave collapse in front of us.
"And that's why I remind you of choosing things." Ulysses told me as we coughed and panted at the sight of the cave.
