April 19th, 2021
Hope you enjoy!
:)
| Vestiture |
[THE HUMBLE DWELLER]
Piper Wright meets Atsuko "Blue" Spritz, and call it the vest's charisma, she decides to travel with the vault-dweller. While they traverse the wasted landscape, they manage to rebuild settlements along the way—and Piper finds rather quickly that she quite likes Blue, more than expected. Again, maybe it's the vest.
Light works in different ways from a vault than it does on the surface.
She doesn't know why or how, or if it's always been that way. Nevertheless, it's true. In the eyes of every vault she's visited, there is no difference between the glow of the sun and the white light of bulbs. It's all the same. Equally as blinding, and merciless, and unrelenting.
The first time she ever visited a vault was back in 2061. As a wide-eyed, fresh recruit for the Marine Corps. Back when law school didn't pan out like she'd hoped. A kid, really. Fresh out of high school, but even with a rifle slung over her back, and a long knife at her calf, she couldn't sip a beer legally.
So assign that wannabe-lawyer kid to oversee one of Vault-Tec's construction sites to, well, namely to guard the entrance while the higher-ups oversaw the handiwork. All with the promise that, one day, when the bombs fell regardless of the United States' victory, she would be allowed to live comfortably in one of those vaults. And while she stood, watch as the rookie become overly perplexed by how the sunlight melded with the white glow behind her.
In short, a very odd experience.
The next was 2070, when she was no longer employed by the United States' finest, last line of defense but instead its law, and she was the hired eyes to supervise a contract between Vault-Tec and other coordinators. The vault felt sterile and bright, though unlike any doctor's office, there wasn't any blinking away the spots in her vision. Each and every bulb of the lamps were little suns, and there wasn't a chance to bat them away.
Every now and then, during the contract's seal of agreement, she'd try to loosen her blouse's collar—just to release the tension of the light that breathed down her neck. She didn't understand how the Vault-Tec official could sit there as comfortable as he was. His lab coat, though, said enough: it was just as sterile and persistently blinding as the light. Therefore, so was he. Safe to say, she heaved a relaxed breath once she stepped out of the vault, after the several minutes of blocking the sun with her sleeve.
And then…
2077.
Married to an old childhood friend that, by chance, wound up enlisted like she had. Though, instead of keeping to his dream of being this engineer, Nate found a purpose and climbed the ranks. Fought and served like every other husband. Then had a son, too, who would be lucky enough to have his father home just in time to watch him kick his way out into the world; Shaun was even born a month late, which only cemented her suspicion that he was waiting for the war to end, and Nate to come back. So…not truly lucky but rather a son who knew, even in the womb, what he wanted.
And what a life Shaun knew he wanted. A mom and a dad, both at home, with a lovely house and a hard-working Mister Handy. Perfectly kept together. Every lampshade dawning their home with gentle hues of oranges and yellows. It was the dream.
A dream that, she supposed, wasn't meant to be.
The blinding, merciless light of the local vault called for the registered families indoors—for the neighborhood's inhabitants to be swallowed whole within its metal jowls. When she left her home with Nate and Shaun in tow, they found themselves clustered together at the height of the vault.
The gateway sunk them down to safety with a spattering number of their neighbors, and the atomic blast roared even through the heavy door that closed the vault's mouth tight. She tried to blink away the sun's light at the base of the vault's elevator, but of course, it was no use.
The white light of the lamps, which illuminated the lab coats of Vault-Tec officials, wouldn't let her.
Within minutes, her wifely blouse and kakis were replaced by the vibrant blue of the vault's designated jumpsuit, and the neighbors were herded into frigid rooms. Their vault really was going to eat them whole, wasn't it? That was the only thought she could muster. What other reason would there be for room-sized refrigerators, if not to chill food?
Another minute where those in the lab coats begrudgingly gave her the time to assure her little Shaun that everything was alright in his father's arms, and then her to peck Nate on the cheek. And it was those two—Nate and Shaun—that consumed her thoughts as she stepped into the frozen pod, all aside from that last moment.
When the frost crept up her neck, tightening her skeleton to rigidity, all she could think was to blink the blinding light away…
And then…she awoke.
The cryogenic pod gave way, and she plummeted on all fours to the chilled metal of the floor, coughing through her shivers. She quickly found that she was all alone in that room. Each pod marked their inhabitants dead, and Nate—
Oh God, Nate.
Shot dead, without her baby in his arms.
With his ring safely tucked into her pocket, and after a muddled whisper of devastation, she managed to crawl out of the vault. Grief-stricken, she barely processed the giant, mutated roaches that hissed and squirmed in her way. Jumbled through the keys and buttons of the terminals. Unlatched the mouth of the vault.
And the sun greeted her. Bright and a white-hot yellow, its light kept her arm over her eyes as spots riddled her vision. Though, even if light within Vault-Tec's playground never treated her well, it wasn't enough to blind her from how strange the air felt as it clipped into her lungs. It wasn't fresh. It felt heavier, and acidic. Too crisp and sharp. Even if the sun scalded her vision in that oh so familiar way, each new breath of the world was what burned her.
So when she was finally able to gaze upon the horizon, Atsuko Spritz almost wished the light kept her blind. It was too much to take in.
And now?
Now Atsuko sits at the cliffside, right at the foot of the vault's entrance. Her eyes adjust to the last of the sun's blinding light, and all she sees is another world. The vault dweller—if she could even call herself that—just stares. She can pick up a few silhouettes of familiar landmarks, off in the distance, though it's all still alien. And radiated. Unnatural, even.
Once the last of the frost melts into her blue jumpsuit, Atsuko gets to her feet and slowly meanders her way to the neighborhood she remembers so clearly. As if it was only yesterday that the vault closed itself off, right as the atomic blast corroded the wasteland.
Maybe it was yesterday. Or perhaps it was a lifetime ago.
Either way, the vault dweller can't tell the difference. She just roams around the trees that grew alongside the trail, whittled down to just the branches, and side-steps around skeletons that litters the path. Atsuko only roams, wide-eyed.
She feels very much like that new recruit—the kid that didn't quite belong in the blinding light.
Hello!
Yes, so um, trying my hand at a longer Fallout 4 fic. And naturally, it's going to be based off of a play-through. That said, I do tweak the story a bit. For one, I don't have Atsuko Spritz (…Nora, but what kind of name is that? Pfft) wake up as Kellogg snatches her baby. So you know, that changes things.
Anyway, first thing's first, I am going to be taking this story slow. I do plan on sticking to a schedule for each arc (every Monday), though this one will probably be different since I published this chapter before finishing the rest of the arc. Just testing the waters, you know? But yeah. So once an arc is done, just assume I've taken a wee break in playing through the game with this character, and therefore writing the fic itself. Taking it slow. We can work at a stroll. xD
With all that said and done, I hope you enjoyed, and will enjoy this story! I do plan on publishing the next chapter before Monday, just so that there's more to read if it takes a little bit longer to write the rest of the arc than anticipated.
:D