Don dreamt of how the earth shook under the cataclysm of the nuclear bombs, a hellfire that burned everything into char and a windstorm that tossed it about into forgotten ash, the air siren that sounded overhead like a distant echo was not the usual military classification as he would expect, but a hard alarm like a malfunction. When his body jerked back into consciousness, his eyes snapping open in a blurry haze, he found himself unable to catch his breath. He shivers violently from the total encapsulating chill, fingers trembling as he reaches up with numb and aching limbs to brace himself on the edges of his cot. Instead of touching the canvas wrapped and metal framed military bunk like he expected, his hands hit the hard metal and plastic of something so unexpected it jerks him from his post nightmare haze to the stark reality of his situation with immediate recollection.
His chest heaves with no relief as he twists himself around to survey his confinements in alarm; the panic of his situation begins to set in; whatever this was supposed to be, from what he remembered being told upon his entry into the pod, it had been a lie. Decontamination, depressurization, he should have known, he'd been frozen.
The nagging question of why and for how long isn't on the top of his list of immediate concerns considering he can't breathe. Life support must have failed, or maybe there was a loss of power, he could have been breathing recycled air for hours now, if he doesn't find a way out right now, he'll suffocate before finding any answers.
With limbs still tingling and numb from the cold, Don elects to press his hands against the pod door and push, testing the give. Gaining no result, he then starts to kick at it with his legs still stiff. The adrenaline kick-starts his system like the roar of a fine motor, his brain begins to work in overtime, settling into the familiar stressed environment just like it had back when he'd been enlisted. He begins measuring options, considering actions, figuring out how to escape before he passes out from asphyxiation.
From what he recalled seeing before being frozen, the pod opened from the bottom and lifted up on a pivot above his head, he just needs the right application of pressure and it should give way if only enough for oxygen to enter. All he needs are those precious extra seconds.
Don slides down the plush cushions that had been supporting his back, folding himself like a lawn chair to sit on the bottom of the pod where his feet had been, pressing the boots of his Vault suit against the door frame, and pushing out with the pressure of his body constricting in the tiny space. His head starts to swell and a headache pierces through his temples in harsh protest, but still he keeps pushing, alternating between hard kicks and full body pressure until black spots begin to cloud his vision. He doesn't feel the door give a single inch and in seconds, his fight starts to redirect to terror.
His sharp grunts hiss through his teeth, come on. COME ON!
One well placed kick on the bottom left hand corner rewards him with an audible crunch, one that steals his attention as either the crack of ice, or of plastic. Either way it's progress. He quickly shifts 45o and kicks both feet at the corner, shoving his boots on the door like he were trying to bounce on a tiny trampoline at the carnival. Once, twice, and CRACK; on the third strike, another snap of ice is followed by the hiss of air flooding into his compartment.
Don arches down in victory and overwhelming relief to drink the small intake of oxygen like he was dying of thirst, what tastes and feels like warm honey. Technically he had been dying, of oxygen thirst, but whatever. Metaphors.
He doesn't take more than a few seconds to enjoy it, however, his lungs rejecting any deep breath he tries to take, so instead he takes a mouthful and leans back to brace against the pod cushion and continue kicking against the weak point.
With the breach already ensured, the door begins to slowly give way, inch by inch. The ice crusted around the seal snaps and crumbles under his continuous blows until he kicks enough space to slip through. His lean body steps down and he slides sideways out of the crack, keeping his head down and peaking around the slightly protruding door to glance both ways down the hall. If anyone was around, they would have heard him, and would be here soon enough. After five minutes of tense silence, he carefully steps out into the hall of pods, his feet slapping against half inch deep puddles of water gathered around the floor and at the base of the pods, dripping from the pipes overhead, and ice cold to the touch.
Don takes a moment to slowly take deeper breaths, allowing his lungs to recover from the trauma, allowing himself to recover too, and to stop trembling with the last bits of adrenaline because he came really damn close to suffocating in his would-be coffin. In fact, he'd been so relieved to breathe again, that he hadn't noticed how stale and metallic the air really tasted until he realizes its sitting like blood on his tongue. Old machine with the tang of burnt electrical wire, not at all something stasis pods should smell like, it sits like rot in his gut that jerks with the sudden awareness of the machines at his sides not making much sound at all, they should be humming with life, or making some kind of sound to indicate they were functioning at all.
It's so silent that Don can hear his every laboured exhale.
Suddenly an alarm blares overhead, scaring the crap out of him like a cheesy horror movie jump scare. It's the same one that woke him from his dream only moments ago, Critical failure in Cryogenic Array. All Vault residents must vacate immediately.
Cryogenic, yep, if the frost melting off of the ends of his crisp locks of hair weren't indicators enough; his nose hairs are all still stuck together. That wasn't much of a surprise; he figured that out pretty quickly.
Though, now that he wasn't in the immediate danger of suffocation, he has the opportunity to ponder WHY IN THE HELL VAULT-TEC WOULD FREEZE EVERYONE! If they wanted to preserve everyone for the long haul, then why the hell would they lie about it? God knows how long everyone's been out, this could end up being some kind of freaky sci-fi where everyone wakes up in a dead zone and there are monsters in the Vault trying to kill them all. Some post-apocalyptic mutation turning everyone into zombies, good lord, and he could be the only left to fight them off!
He looks down the row of pods as they sit silent and dark, the first semi-horrifying thought of mutation and zombies is replaced by the sudden realization that if he woke up due to the error and had to kick his way out to survive, then everyone else could be going through the same thing. They could all be dying right now and he's thinking about sci-fi bullshit.
Swinging around, he goes to the first pod to his left, glass fogged with ice, and tries to open the door with the red handle switch. Flipping it up, it makes an error sound denying the command. Don curses aloud and goes to the next pod, the windows frosted over to hide the faces of their occupants, and it also denies him access.
Don spots the wall terminal at the end of the hall and begins to stumble-jog as fast as his legs will let him with their slowly returning strength. If he can hack the terminal, he can open all pod doors at once. He quickly logs in with his credentials, technically he had been an employee if only to do maintenance on the Vault door, and he checks the status of every individual pod. What he finds, much to his dismay, is that they all proved to be already totally offline, their occupants deceased for who knows how long.
Somehow, he'd been the only one to survive the ordeal. Somehow...
The system malfunction must have left his life support on for a little longer, leaving the rest to die from suffocation while he had the opportunity to escape. It was his training that saved him, and it was probably his training that alerted him to the system malfunction that woke him up. His brains triggered alarm system that woke him up at exactly 0600 every morning, and the same one that usually didn't allow him a good night's sleep. So maybe he's not so thankful for the PTSD, but if it hadn't been for that, he could be dead right now, hell, maybe he is and his consciousness is just the ghost of his dead suffocated body.
Neither thought gave him any kind of extended comfort.
Don leans against the terminal keyboard for support, trying to slow his racing heart beat. He knew these people by name, his neighbours; they weren't nameless casualties like those from the war. This was Vault-Tec's fault, all of it. He just can't fathom why they would go through with something like this in times of war, but really, if you consider it objectively, this would be the perfect time to lure a group of innocent people into a trap when they're fleeing from danger into what they think is total safety.
He turns and quickly limps back down the hall, pausing at his forced open pod and kicking the door shut with a violent snap, it's still humming with life barely sustained, his coffin. He continues forward and through the door out of the pod room, there were more people in here somewhere, maybe they were still alive, being on a separate electrical grid. If he were any kind of lucky, which he assumes at this point he is, there would be more people alive and he wouldn't have to face this nightmare alone.
To his right, turning down the hall towards the second door closed beside glass windows revealing another room full of Pods, even more than the previous, he quickly enters and stops to listen for any sign of life. What he spots immediately is a single pod near the end with an overhead light, a low hum of machinery just like his. The rest of the pods are as dark and lifeless as the others. His hope soars, quickly racing to the pod door and peering in to see who'd been lucky enough to survive.
Inside, through the light frost of ice, he sees a blonde woman he immediately recognizes as Carolyn Robertson, his neighbour and Nora's best friend. She looks to be defrosting, but still unconscious. If the air runs out while she's still in there, she could have a seriously rude wake up call.
Suddenly it hits him like a rock hard punch to the gut, it freezes him on the spot with horror, and his eyes jolt to the terminal sitting at the end of the hall blinking with idle life.
Nora.
Eyes set on the screen; he hobbles up the few stairs and trips, almost smacking his face on the keyboard when he grips it for support, not quite recovering from the fall before he starts to frantically log in his credentials, failing once and then twice with a curse, third time's the charm as the terminal pings pleasantly.
Quickly he checks Carolyn's pod first, making sure he has time, and notes that while she is still alive, her oxygen is going to run out in another half an hour maybe, he needs to get her out of there as soon as he knows it's safe, because honestly, who knows what kind of shit is running around in the empty Vault halls, if they're even empty, mutated zombies and all.
Next he checks the list of names all assigned to the Cryo pods, one by one his anticipation spikes until he reads the final name and his hope crashes, sending numbness straight to his knees that threaten his total collapse.
Nora didn't even make it into the Vault.
"Fuck," His voice is hoarse, and feels foreign in the pod hall. His hand comes up to press against his face, a cool hand bringing relief to his scolding eyes, burning with tears.
She must have stayed back to make sure the Robertson's made it into the Vault with her, something with her verification must have stopped her at the gate. Technically neither of them filled out the Vault residence sheet, but because of his maintenance service, they were going to be let in as a VIP class like the security. With all the chaos of everything happening all at once, when the Military showed up at his front door to take him in, he thought it was routine, maybe even an evacuation test like a fire alarm. He had no idea that the bombs were going to fall later that very morning.
Critical failure in Cryogenic Array. All Vault residents must vacate immediately.
Don jerks himself up at the alarm again, pulled back into reality from his grief. He inhales quickly and shoves his sorrow aside for the moment, giving himself a shake and wiping his face of a mixture of sweat and water. No use breaking down now, Donny boy, the day is just getting started. You can break down after code FUBAR.
He runs through the terminal again with a clearer head, noting that everyone except Carolyn had died at some point of the critical failure, even her husband. Don stares at his name for a few minutes, not quite ushering a glare, but narrowing his eyes in mild non-committal contempt. He never liked him, as much as he tried, Nate didn't give him much of a chance in the first place, forget about trying to win his favour back after the fight they had. He's not sure how Carolyn is going to take it; he's totally unprepared to aid her in her grief when he doesn't even want to bring his own back to surface.
Logging out of the terminal, he decides to first make some rounds to ensure that the Vault is safe to bring a civilian into. He pats her pod as he walks by and readies himself for anything, mutated zombies being the worst case scenario.
Turns out, it only takes him about fifteen minutes. Don is relatively surprised at how incredibly small the entire Vault is, there's not much around excluding a reactor room, a kitchen, and a bunk room for about maybe a dozen people. Those dozen people being only skeletal remnants of being dead for a LONG TIME, Don continues to find bodies lying in different areas and positions of fight, still wearing the tattered clothes of their occupation, a lot of doctors, and security. And everything has been ransacked for supplies; nothing but coffee cups and beer bottles are left.
During his rounds, he doesn't see any signs of there being a deeper end of the Vault like he'd been told. There's no room for anyone to live, Vault-Tec wasn't going to let anyone out at any point of the freezing. What the hell is this?!
The only living things that he could find were the pug sized cockroaches he had to crack open with an old police baton he'd found in the bunk room, lucky for him bugs didn't make him squeamish. Though, to see bugs that size made him worry about the surface, cockroaches didn't get that big because they drank their milk. There may be a small radiation leak somewhere near the entrance that he needs to worry about.
When he reaches the Overseers office, he notes that the only supplies worth having seem to be in this very room. That and his skeleton sitting on the chair, thrown back onto the ground with his arms spread eagle, harbours a large gaping bullet hole in the forehead of his bald skull. Don decides that there's nothing much else to do besides scavenge, which shouldn't take long considering this overseer apparently hoarded anything useful.
He piles his loot on the desk to take inventory. Two 10mm pistols, three cartridges of matching bullets, three Stimpacks, two police batons, a Pip-boy wrist computer, and a large intimidating freeze ray gun of some kind that he can't break out of his container in the weapons gate, he'll try for that again later.
Initializing the Pip-boy, he gets an immediate show of his vitals and a local map that really brings to view the compactness of the Vault. He brings his attention to the built in Geiger counter, which he could use to test if there's any leaking radiation around. Bringing a loaded pistol with him, he does another set of rounds, holding the computer up to the piping, checking the seals in the walls, and then the bodies of the dead roaches. Nothing seems to be giving off any radiation at all save for the miniscule bits of non-lethal amounts coming off the roaches, that's what worries him though, if there's enough radiation to effect these bugs to such a degree, then there may be too much radiation on the surface to survive. They would need to stay underground for a long time, maybe even refreeze themselves for the long haul if Don could fix the pods.
Because even though the plumbing still works pretty well, he doubts the nutritional value of giant roasted cockroaches.
He wanders back to the overseer's office; during his investigation he found three more cartridges of 10mm ammunition, more than enough to supply the both of them in case they needed to defend themselves. It's when he gets back that he looks to the terminal sitting on the desk still blinking with power.
Don steps over the corpse and begins his hacking attempt to break into the computer, confident that it would hold answer's he'd need to make an executive decision. What he finds confirms his fears of experimentation, according to the logs, the Vault was never supposed to be used as any kind of second sanctuary or safe haven for those lucky enough to survive the bomb drop. The Vault was built and supplied by Vault-Tec to research the long term effects of Cryogenic stasis.
Don runs a hand over his forehead and pushes his inky bags from his face, plastered with sweat and still damp from the freeze. He remembers being called by Vault-Tec, requested to work for them temporarily being that he was the only engineer in the immediate vicinity of the Vault, it seemed like a good way to make a little extra money before he could file out into the working world like a good little monotonous labourer drone. He had considered working local, fixing up anything robotic for his neighbours, maybe buying the garage in Red Rocket to open his own little workshop. His dreams for a quiet life surrounded by machinery can apparently go suck a big one thanks to Vault-Tec, maybe even thanks to him. They might not have been able to fix the Vault door without him, then where would everyone be?
Only difference that would have made is two more casualties.
Don shakes away the guilty contempt and continues to read, it looks like the mandatory two hundred day shelter period had passed when the overseer stopped logging in. Even before that he speaks of locking himself away, of possible mutiny, selfishness breeds selfishness after all. Though the end of his logs would give Don a good starting point to figuring out how long they've been under here, assuming that's when everyone started dying.
So, either everyone killed each other in a psychotic frenzy, or everyone starved to death. Either way, it's only a few weeks difference. That is if no one resorted to cannibalism. Even so, a few months more for the last person standing, which definitely isn't the gentleman sprawled out at his feet? He considers how all the bodies seem to be at the same stage of decomposition, that being, that they're all void of any skin tissue, organs, hair, or muscle. Even the bones look dry, and have turned into a dingy grey color. Total decomposition was achieved without being exposed to any of the outside elements, no sun, no rain, no animals (aside from the cockroaches, though he doubts they're carnivorous).
Generally, a fully clothed body buried in a coffin takes about eight to twelve years to decompose, that is if no bugs get in to help the process along, and judging from the cryo array malfunction, what looked to be brand new machinery, Don estimates that it's taken at least twenty years for everything to break down naturally with no one around to perform routine maintenance. If that's true, then the relative danger of immediate radiation poisoning and/or death wouldn't be a problem. Well, shouldn't. Who knows what else they dropped in those bombs.
Now that he's fairly certain the Vault is safe for his single fellow survivor, he leaves his loot on the desk and goes back to the first Cryo chamber to let Carolyn out of stasis. On the way there, he tries to think of how exactly he's going to go about explaining the situation to her, on top of her husband being dead, she's in the same boat he is. So far he thinks he's doing alright all things considered, but he's a soldier, he's been through similar situations of stress and danger (not that being frozen is on his list of SNAFU). She's a civilian, and she'll most likely be crying. He's no good when women cry.
The first rays of sun that beam through the topside entrance as it splits open are so powerful that Don has to shield his eyes, his retina aching deep behind his clasped eyelids in total protest. He fears those few adjusting seconds of total blindness, can't see if their surroundings are hostile, or even liveable. Instead, his ear trains hard on his Pip-boy, waiting to hear the Geiger counter go off, but even as the platform comes to a shuttering halt under their feet, he hears nothing but the howl of wind streaming through trees.
Blinking into the full brunt of their new world, Don first see's the grass lining the edges of the platform, the color green looking so bright in contrast to the stained and rusted metal that he can't believe his eyes. He looks up and out to the distance, gazing into the familiar view of the lookout point overhanging Sanctuary. His initial fears of seeing nothing but a wasteland are overruled by the sea of spring green sprouting from the ground as far as he can see. There are plants growing without restriction against the hidden buildings of the suburban streets, the houses almost totally hidden from view, even as he cranes his neck to see what remains of their old neighbourhood. Another light gust of wind billows trees at his right, he turns to see the forest as it sits with charred old wood that's collapsed and grown over with new life, leaves scant but viable across branches that are gnarled and twisted. A product of radiation growth, almost nightmarish in appearance, which holds hope for the world they left behind.
"Oh my god," Carolyn gasps in astonishment.
What should be total relief only worsens Don's anxiety, considering all the re-growth; his initial idea of a few decades spent underground might have been totally underestimated. If the earth has recovered to this extent, how long could they have been frozen? It's entirely possible that it's longer than the two of them would think possible.
He decides not to share his thoughts with Carolyn, allowing her to appreciate the quiet moment of respite, and to process her own thoughts on the matter. He turns to check out the rest of the area but then freezes on the spot at what he sees in the field behind the platform towards the downward slope.
There are half a dozen of them that he can count, littered about in the midst of construction equipment and poised in varied positions of agony, jaws laying open in silent screams, arms curled into obscure shapes. Some taken over by small plants, growing through the eyeless sockets and hollow ribcages like a greenhouse, the ground rising to cover the first half dozen inches of old rot, trying to swallow it. The charred and decayed bodies of everyone that had been left behind, soldiers, not barren skeletons like those in the vault, but those who've been partially mummified by the combination of dry blast heat and initial douse of radiation, giving their features graphic depictions of their very last expressions.
Through his peripherals, he sees Carolyn turn to follow his gaze. With a jolt, he reaches out and grabs her, pressing the palm of his hand on her large square glasses to shield her eyes. She yelps with surprise and immediately tries to squirm away from him, "Don, what're you doing?!"
He retains his grip and quickly leans over to speak in a low tone, as if anything louder would betray his own horror, "You really don't want to see this."
Carolyn hesitantly stops fighting his grip, and swallows thickly. Her shoulders begin trembling with anticipatory fear though her voice comes out even, "Is it bad?"
"Bodies," He answers truthfully, "Not like the ones in the Vault, these ones are... explicit. We need to go through them to get to the gate; I'm going to lead you through, okay?"
She opens her mouth, maybe in a protest lost to fear. Don considers letting her see them, because there could be something else is around that's so much worse. This could be the least terrifying thing the new world has to offer.
Finally she nods briskly in agreement, "Okay," and Don begins to pull her down towards the path at the far end of the field.
It's a slow pace, allowing him to take a good look around their perimeter as they progress. He steers around the bodies with a good foot and a half clearing to avoid each one with room to spare, expecting the stench of rot to hit them at any moment, but all he can smell is nature and petrichor on the breeze. The toes of his boots wet from the grass, he observes that it had rained not half an hour ago, across the tips of the tree's he spots the slow retreat of bluish popcorn clouds. He'd rather look at literally anything else at this point, and nature is doing a good job of providing him with a distraction.
"Is it okay to look yet?" Carolyn asks quietly.
Don peers over to the field as they finish crossing it, dipping behind the slope of the hill to shield the horror from their immediate view. He'd noticed a few cargo boxes and sheds that could be worth looking at for any kind of extra supplies. He's thinking in terms of making a ground camp somewhere, a place to shelter them while they get their bearings. With all of the construction equipment abandoned too, he's sure he could fashion something useful to help them settle in.
Ahead of them is the checkpoint gate set up by the military to feed people through one at a time, sitting underneath the large billboard once picturing a Vault-Tec advertisement for hospitality much different from what they received, the rusty chain link fence is now briskly overgrown with weeds and undergrowth, through it, he can see the pathway continue down into the forest on the way back into Sanctuary.
"Yeah," Don lets her go, "It should be okay now."
Carolyn peers over to him with hesitation, uncertainty. Stepping away and taking a few steps ahead to clean her glasses (smeared with a massive palm print) without him being in her immediate personal bubble. He doesn't blame her; he gives her the distance and takes his attention to the blue shed at their immediate left, vines growing up the sides and through the windows like deep red human veins trying to make the metal hulk a new piece of nature.
The wind howls and sounds something far too close to a human moan as it pushes through the cracks in the walls; Don takes several steps back in uneasiness. When his arm brushes against a red leaved bush on the opposite end of the path, he almost jumps out of his skin, the water still pooling on the leaves splatter onto his shoulder and down his arm, and several small droplets fall onto the screen of his Pip-boy. He practically leaps away and shakes himself off for being so jumpy.
Suddenly, his Pip-boy produces a small whine followed by the clicking of the built in Geiger counter, he wipes the screen clear in alarm to figure out what set it off, however as soon as he does, it goes silent again.
Don looks at his hand slightly dampened, rubbing his fingers together with a frown, and then bends down to press the heel of the computer against the damp toe of his boot. After a second or two, the Geiger counter starts to click once again, the dial hovering unsteadily around +1 Radiation a second. He checks the damped grass in the shade of the hill and receives a similar reading.
"Uh," He calls over to Carolyn, "We might have a problem here."
When he doesn't get an answer, he looks up to where she'd walked ahead a few meters, standing at the mouth of the chain link gate totally motionless. He leaps to his feet, wiping the rain from his shoulder and arm as it soaks into his suit, approaching with haste, "Hey, my counter got some readings from the rain left on the grass, I think-"
Don's feet come to such a sudden halt that his upper body almost teeters over; his hand outstretches to catch himself on the rusty fence with nothing but muscle memory. His gut wrenches a second, far more severe time in total unmitigated horror. Sitting just on the other side of the underbrush claiming the first third of the fence, are more bodies sitting melted in piles, more than a dozen of them all clumped together in three groups of unrecognizable humanoid shapes fused together by the heat of the bomb.
But nothing is as immediate as both Don and Carolyn recognizing a single body lying separate from the piles, a twisted figure curled back and over as though the spine where a wringed cloth, face jutting up and directly at them with leathery features they both recognize. The expression is one of slack jawed agony, the jaw stretched and torn at the corners giving the appearance of something barely human, the black hollow eyes are charred wide and intense with the exterior of her final moments.
And across her shoulders, fused to her leathery skin, are the remnants of the old fabric of a blue wool sweater.
Don makes no move to catch Carolyn as she collapses to her knees with a piercing wail.