She was in hell.
That was the only explanation she could think of. She'd taken a bullet to the head, confused and dazed. Had she? There had been the well-dressed man, the shovel... the gun. She remembered falling, and then just... darkness. She was dead, and there was no way that heaven could look like the Hub office of the Mojave Express. She knew the dimly-lit building, with its damaged wooden floor, and a large window that had been boarded up just a few days before she'd left.
She moved throughout the empty room, not feeling the California heat, not hearing the creaking of the floorboard's beneath her boots. There was nothing at all - a perfect void, disguised as a familiar building. The large, circular desk at the middle of the room was empty, devoid of packages or couriers. A small trickle of dirt gently fell, like raindrops, through a hole in the ceiling, hitting the desk and bouncing out of sight. That wasn't right.
Nothing made sense. She gave the room another glance, thinking. She was here for a package. They'd told her to be here, to be on-time, showed her the form and the caps she could expect. She was lost, scared, confused. She looked at the old staircase near the far side of the room, the one that led up to... was it the storage room? She saw only empty space, with a large window letting in dim rays of afternoon sun. Had something been there?
A noise. She could hear something - slow, at first. Fading, before speeding up. Her own breath. Another sensation - followed by a shape moving just past her right eye. She looked down, seeing the brown floor, tainted with a flowing crimson-red colour. She had been shot. She had died. Why could she feel?
She stumbled back, trying to clutch onto the desk for support. It wasn't there. She fell onto the ground, her limbs refusing to obey. Her eyes were locked on the sight of the ground, the crimson puddle growing larger and larger, deeper and deeper. She felt herself sinking, desperately trying to breath as she went under. She couldn't hear her own breathing anymore, or her futile attempts to move, scraping against the wood and flailing in the blood - all was being drowned out by a horrific, rhythmic whirring noise. She sank endlessly, suffocating, before her mind brought her the mercy of simple darkness.
. . .
Light. Coming through a window, blinding her. Pain. A dull, almost rhythmic sensation in her head. As soon as she acknowledged these feelings, a hundred more came flooding in: her throat was parched, she felt warm... and she was laying on something soft. A bed? Her eyes began to adjust to the light as the seconds passed, feeling like hours. She could make out a small shape, moving in circles. A wooden ceiling fan, spinning slowly, cracked in a few places. A lamp, directly to the right of it, illuminating part of the room. She wasn't dead, but... she had no idea where she was, either.
She tried to move her fingers, flexing and extending them. They responded, if a bit shakily. She rubbed them against the palm of her hand, before gently digging a nail into it. The briefest sensation of discomfort - another one to add to the current list - meant that this wasn't a dream. She relaxed her hand, thinking. Her head hurt, but... it was less painful than... oh. Less painful than when she'd been shot. She tried to sit, using her elbows to push herself up slowly. A pain shot through her shoulder, and her vision blurred. She collapsed back, awkwardly laying her head between the comfortable pillow it had previously been on, and a poorly-maintained wooden wall.
The new angle gave her the tiniest bit of new insight into the way the room looked. Most of the light came from a large, chandelier-like lamp in the middle - one that contained a few busted lights, and seemed to sway ever so slightly. It stung to look at, but she wasn't going to get answers from just laying in bed. At the very least, she could see who'd saved her from whatever had actually happened. The only option was another attempt. With the courage of an NCR soldier - and with about the same amount of tactical planning - she tried sitting once more, using her hands instead of her elbows, this time. Her success was... partial. She managed to sit up, before her vision began to sway. Managing to catch herself, she propped her back against the wall, finally managing to get a good look at the room.
It was nothing special: the floor was a design of neatly arranged and utterly plain wooden planks, while the ceiling was crumbling ever-so-slightly. Posters completely covered the back wall - all advertising some different show or singer from centuries ago. Medical equipment that she couldn't exactly make sense of sat next to her, while a shelf held more medicine and stimpaks than she'd ever seen outside of the Hub hospitals. A strange machine with a joystick and text that she couldn't make out was laying on its side, a few lights flickering inside.
Just as she'd finished looking around the room, a new element presented itself. A man, somewhat tall, walked into the room, the sound of a door swinging shut soon following. He was dressed almost entirely in black, despite the heat. His head was completely bald and, as he turned to face her, she noticed both a grey moustache, and an expression of surprise. The man made his way over, his pace calm and steady as he approached the chair next to my bed, turning it around and sitting down. He opened his mouth, speaking.
"Woah, there. Easy, easy... just relax, wouldn't want ya to wither away from moving too quick 'fter all you been through."
The man's voice was gentle, soft. Barely above a whisper, really. She'd been to a few places, seen a few small towns, but the man's voice, combined with his appearance, placed him into a list as one of the few people she could immediately describe as "at least somewhat kind". She gave a slow nod in response, trying to recall what one would even say in this situation. Probably a "thank you for saving my life for, apparently, no reason".
The man gave a brief chuckle, offering the woman a small blue-and-yellow object. She took, shakily, in one hand, turning it over. A flask - a dark-blue flask, with a yellow "21" emblazoned on it. She looked back up at the man, who gave an encouraging nod. Unscrewing the lid, she pressed it to her lips, and began to drink. She had missed water. It was the first true comfort she'd felt since the start of this mess. The pillow could maybe partially count, as well. She took deep gulps, before managing to control herself. She put it down, placing the cap, and offering it back to the man. He chuckled once more, shaking his head.
"Keep it, by all means. Reckon you need it more than I do, that's for sure. Speaking o' which... you're already one lucky gal, to be walking around after two rounds to the head. Just take it slow, miss. Why don't you tell me your name, if you could?"
Two rounds to the head. The mention of it woke something inside the woman - the small, primal part of her mind that had been leading her in the encounter with the well-dressed man, when she'd been… when she'd been shot. Oh. She'd known, somewhere, of course. She remembered it: you didn't exactly forget such a thing. But… her own mind had been keeping the information away from her. Small dots and words, never the full picture,. She could tell why, now. The rising fear, the confusion. She reached a hand up to her forehead. The old man's gentle grip closed around her wrist, moving her hand downwards. He shook his head.
"Almost no marks, don't you worry. But… I reckon it probably ain't the wisest choice - may not be the best for your psyche, and… well, I doubt that pushing your luck is somethin' you'd wanna try after what you've been through."
He was right. She'd never considered herself "lucky" - sure, she won a few gambles every now and then, but she was never notorious for having the universe just hand things to her. Still, she couldn't really deny it, now. Most people went down with a bullet to the chest in a gunfight. Maybe a machete to the neck, a club to the head. Some took one to the head, but she… she'd been kneeling, helpless. At the man's mercy, marked for death, and she'd survived. A choking sound escaped her throat, similar to laughter, but not quite there. Almost no marks. As if that was a priority right now. She looked up at the older man, starting to speak. Rather, trying to start to speak. The sound that came out of her mouth was coughing. After it subsided, she cleared her throat, before starting anew.
"Maya... my name, that is. It's Maya. T...thank you."
She took another gulp from the blue canteen, feeling the water flow down her throat. It was... encouraging. She felt somewhat better - she wasn't about to refuse any more care, but the headache had subsided a bit, and her vision was sharper now. She sat herself up straighter against the wooden wall, placing the canteen into a pocket of the coat that she found herself wearing - not the one she'd been wearing, but she didn't want to see that thing ever again. This one, however, didn't have the scent of death. Just... sand and leather. It was comfortable enough. She tried moving her legs, turning flexing them. It invoked a smile from the man, who spoke again.
"Just take it easy, miss. Relax. Not many folks get up after what you've been through. You ain't competing with anyone."
That was one hell of a tempting offer. She could just relax, lay down, let her body heal. Take it easy. He was the expert, here, after all. The trustworthy authority. That wasn't the right path, though, was it? Trying to skirt around a problem, constantly thinking about it, but always putting it off. Small portions at a time. No. You could spend years working at small parts of a problem, always trying to find the safest path, or you could handle it in one try. One bloody, painful and dangerous try, but one try. She was going to do just that. She wanted answers. She wanted to find the man who had done this to her. She was going to do it her way. She moved her hands to the edge of the bed, fully swinging her legs over it, letting them touch the floor.
The man stood up from his seat, trying to move, to tell her to simply relax, to tell her that she wasn't ready. She moved first, standing on two legs as she climbed off the bed. It wasn't a pretty process: a sharp pain returned to the inside of her head, and she wobbled ever-so-slightly. Her vision was blurry, but only slightly so. Still, she was up. She took one step. Then another, carefully placing her foot after the other. Another. As the moved her right foot for the fourth step, the ground rippled and shifted. An invisible carpet was pulled out from under her. Her foot came down wrong, twisting slightly to the side. Her fragile sense of balance shattered. She fell, crumbling to her side, barely having time to think before her shoulder was quickly introduced to the floorboards. Consciousness only stayed with her for another few moments as she lay there, hearing the man hurry for some medicine. She had failed, but... it was only her first try. She'd survived the worst part. If two bullets to the skull couldn't keep her down, what could? It was only a matter of time...