Welcome to the Jungle

So, there I was, standing alone in a dark tunnel outside of the only place I had ever known in my life. I mean, sure, I had learned about the surrounding area in school. But, I had never left the vault. Nobody had. Well, that's what we were told, at least. I remembered the files I had found about the scouting party being sent out. Some people in the vault had been outside before. And we were never told about it.

I shook my head a bit. That was something I could worry about later. First things first. It was really, really dark in this tunnel. I flipped a switch on my Pip-Boy to turn on the flashlight built into it. And then immediately jumped and shouted in surprise.

Lying on the ground, near the entrance to the vault, were several human skeletons.

I quickly backed up to the wall, my hand on my chest as I felt my heart race. Totally wasn't expecting that. I stared at them in shock for a moment before my curiosity got to me and I moved closer to inspect them. Among the skeletons were several handmade signs, all beginning for the vault to be opened. Which means that these skeletons had been here since the bombs fell. I shuddered a bit at that thought. What a horrible way to go. Death and destruction behind you, and only a steel door in front of you keeping you from safety.

I took a couple breaths to steady myself, then looked down the tunnel away from the vault. The tunnel wasn't very long, and went slightly uphill before ending at what seemed to be a shoddy wooden wall. I made my way towards it, being cautious of any unknown elements. I mean, I knew the odds were good that nothing was going to happen when I opened the door in the wall. But, after nineteen years of having the fear of the outside drilled into my head, I couldn't help but be cautious. I stopped right before the door, hesitating a moment. I knew that when the vault door closed, it was too late for me to turn back. But this is when I actually got that feeling. When it actually hit me that whatever my future held, it was out there. Beyond this door. I gripped my pistol tightly, took a deep breath and opened the door.

The very first thing I noticed was that the sunlight was way brighter than I had thought. I mean, damn. That was bright. I had not been able to imagine anything that bright before. None of the lights in the vault even came close to it. I had to bring my free hand up to my eyes to help block out what my eyelids couldn't. That was gonna take some getting used to.

The next thing I notice was the smell. In the vault, the air was constantly being circulated and run through purifiers. It was clean, but it wasn't fresh. It was the same air that had been down there since the door was sealed two hundred years ago. But this air...it was new. It was...different. Not better. Not worse. Just different.

After a couple moments, I brought my hand away from my face and looked down, letting my eyes adjust to the light on the ground. It took a few minutes, but eventually I could stand to look around. And man...the view around me...it's hard to describe, exactly. I had grown up in enclosed spaces my whole life. Walls, ceilings, floors, all made of steel. All clearly planned out and designed to meet a standard. Clearly man made. But what I saw now? It was...chaotic. Random. There was no rhyme or reason to it. It just...was. And the sky...it actually took me a long time to get used to not having anything above my head.

Once the initial shock of it wore off, I started to actually pay attention to my surroundings. I was on a ledge that was overlooking a road. Abandoned hunks of metal that used to be cars lined both sides of the road. The road went to my left and into the remnants of a small town. Skeletons of houses followed the road. I pulled up an old map on my Pip-Boy, and it said that the collections of buildings was a small town called Springvale. The bombs and time had both did a number on it. It didn't seem like anybody lived there anymore.

Directly in front of me, in the distance, I could make out what looked kind of like a giant, steel teepee. I checked the notes from the scouting report and figured out that it was the settlement of Megaton. Odd name for a settlement, but, hey, this was pretty much a new society. Might be an average name now. Checking the notes from the report against the old world map, I figured that I could get to Megaton by following the road in front of me into Springvale, then going south east a little ways. I double checked that I still had everything with me before climbing down to the road.

There were a few reasons I decided to head to Megaton. There first was proximity. It seemed to be the closest places with signs of other people. The second was that, according to the reports, the people of Megaton were mostly friendly. And last was that both of those reason probably meant that my dad headed there as well. So, as good of a place to start the search as any.

I reached the road and started heading for the town. The pavement was all sorts of torn and cracked, with gaping holes often found in it. Pretty sure it classified as rough terrain. Once I reached the first ruined house, I noticed movement ahead of me. There was a sphere floating above the road. A metal sphere, with a grill on the front and several thin metal antennae coming off of it. It lazily floated around, blaring some patriotic sounding music as it went. I watched it for a moment, then quickly darted into the broken house. I had no idea if it was hostile or not, but why take chances? I figured I'd wait until it went away before moving on. So, I leaned out a bit to watch it.

Just as the song ended, a loud bang rang out from the distance, and the sphere rocked to one side, now sparking from a small hole that suddenly appeared. Now, I really only had any experience with the pistol in my hand, but I was pretty sure that was a gunshot. I didn't have much time to ponder that, though, as there was a shout from another house. A shirtless man leaped out of the building and swung a crowbar at the sphere, denting its body with a loud thunk. The sphere spun to face him, and a red beam of light shot out from its front, hitting the man right in the face. He barely had time to scream in pain before he turned into a pile of ash on the ground. There were a couple more gunshots from the distance, and a few more holes appeared in the sphere. That damage was more than it could handle, and it fell to the ground, still emitting sparks from the holes.

I stood frozen in place as I watched two people approach the sphere. Both were dirty, scarred looking men, wearing an odd assortment of cloth, leather, and metal. One had goggles on and was bald. The other had on a welder's mask, and had long, shaggy hair. They kicked the sphere a couple of times, probably making sure it was dead.

"Alright! Got some scrap metal!" The one with the goggles bent down and started trying to tear pieces off of the sphere.

The masked man glanced at the ash pile. "Why the fuck did Hans run at the eyebot like that? Fucking idiot."

The guy with the goggles shrugged, not looking up from his work. "No idea. Asshole was probably hopped up on Psycho or something."

The mask guy kicked the ashes a bit, then looked around a little. He looked in my direction, but I must have been hidden well enough, because he didn't notice me. "Eh, fuckhead deserved it. Any idea where Blue went?"

Goggles shook his head. "Nope. Probably not too far, though."

That was when I heard the footstep behind me. I spun around just in time to see a woman wearing pants made in a similar fashion as the two men, a pseudo-bra made of what might have been small hubcaps, and sporting a tall, blue mohawk. Then I saw her fist flying towards my face. She connected with the right side of my jaw, which sent me down to the ground. My security helmet came off when I landed, and the shock of the impact made me drop my gun, too. I barely had time to register this before she had grabbed a handful of my brown hair and pulled me up to my feet. I started to struggle, but I felt the sharp touch of a blade against my throat. I immediately froze.

The two men heard all this and watched for a moment before coming over. I couldn't see the expression of the masked guy, but it probably matched that of the goggles guy. One of hunger and opportunity.

"Well, well, well," I heard a voice behind me. That of the woman, who I was guessing was Blue. "Lookie what we got here, boys. Some fresh meat." The two men chuckled a bit.

"Lookit what she's wearing. Think she came from that vault?" Goggles was pointing at my security armor.

Mask nodded. "Yeah, probably. She must've just walked out. Which means she knows how to get in, too."

I grunted a bit as Blue pulled my hair more, tilting my head back so she could look into my eyes. "I'd say that's a safe bet. So how bout it, girlie? Gonna tell us how to get in? Or are we gonna have to convince you?"

I may have just walked out into this world. I may have had no idea who these people were. But I had a pretty good idea how they would "convince" me. And while quite a few people in the vault had recently pissed me off, I wasn't going to subject them to whatever these people would do to them.

So, I looked Blue right in the eyes and snarled my response to her. "Go to hell, bitch." Then I spat in her face. For emphasis. Probably not the smartest move right there, but oh well.

Blue recoiled a bit from the spit, then yanked my hair back hard, sending me to the ground again. As she wiped her face off, I glanced around and found my gun. Then I started crawling for it. I didn't get far, though, before Blue saw me. "Where do you think you're going, bitch!" She quickly walked to me and aimed a kick, hitting me just below the ribs. I cried out and curled up, struggling to breath.

"Fucking bitch!" She turned me onto my back, straddled me, and punched me across the jaw again. Luckily, she seemed to have dropped her knife when I spit on her. Which was fine by me.

"Think you're fucking tough, huh?" Another punch. "You ain't shit, you stupid fucking Vaultie!" Another punch. I tried blocking her hits. But she was stronger and faster than me. There wasn't much I could do. The two men just stood by and watched as Blue continued punching me. I think they were enjoying the show, actually.

Then, just as she was pulling her arm back to slam her fist into my nose, a gunshot rang out. She twitched as the front of her head exploded out. She went stiff and fell forward onto me, dead. I shrieked in fear and surprise, quickly trying to shove the corpse off of me. I heard two more shots, and once I was clear of the dead woman, I saw that both of the men were also dead.

I took a couple of panicked breaths, then darted more my gun, ignoring the pains in my face and side. Once I had the weapon, I franticly searched my surroundings, trying to see who shot them. I was almost hyperventilating in fear, expecting a horde of people to suddenly appear and rush me.

Instead, there was just one man who appeared from another abandoned house. Almost instantly, my gun was pointed at him "Who are you!?" I shouted at him.

He came to a stop and held his hands out. I could see the stock of a rifle peeking up over his shoulder, but he didn't have anything in his hands. He wore some nicer looking clothes than the other men, a pair of half gloves, a bandana around his head, and a black patch over one eye. "Hey, hey, it's okay! I ain't gonna hurt ya." His voice was definitely nicer than the other guys, too.

"Yeah? That so? Why should I believe you?" I kept my gun aimed at him.

"Besides the fact that I killed them?" He smirked a bit. "I guess you're just gonna have to trust me."

I stayed silent for a moment, weighing my options. I could just shoot him right there and move on. Not worry about it. But, he did save me. And he did seem like he wanted to help. And I really, really didn't want to kill people that weren't attacking me.

So, with a sigh, I lowered my gun. Didn't put it away, though. The man took the hint and slowly came over, making sure not to make any sudden moves. Which I liked. I was twitchy enough that I might have done something stupid.

"Well, thanks for not shooting me, miss. Name's Billy. Billy Creel." He offered his hand to shake. I returned the gesture, noticing how shaky my hand was. Adrenaline must have been wearing off. This was also shown by how much more my face and side was hurting.

"Molly. Molly Brown." I let go off his hand and ran my hand through my hair, still processing all that happened.

"Well, Molly, glad I found ya when I did. No telling what those raiders might've done to ya." He crouched down next to one of the men and started going through his belongings, probably looking for anything useful.

I nodded a bit. And quickly regretted doing that. The pounding in my head quickly got worse, and I scrunched up my eyes and sucked in a breath from the pain. Billy noticed and glanced at me.

"Aw, hell, here I am lootin' when you need attention. Come on, I'll take ya back to Megaton with me. Doc Church can check you out."

So Billy was from Megaton. Awesome. I had no idea who Doc Church was, but he was in Megaton. Good enough for me.

"Okay. Thanks," I muttered. I looked around a bit before I found my helmet. I went to it, wincing as I bent over to grab it. I also spotted the knife Blue had. I hesitated a moment, then decided to take it as well. Bitch was dead. She wouldn't be needing it.

So, with my gun still in my hand, I followed Billy to the settlement of Megaton.

Welcome to the Jungle – Guns 'n' Roses