Jericho blew a cloud of smoke into the air. "This is a waste of time, kid."

I didn't bother to look up from the mess of wires and switches in front of me. Was a lot more complicated than I thought it would be, and the heavy radiation suit I had leased from Moira was making the already hot day a hell of a lot worse. Not to mention, the glove parts were all stiff and thick, making it hard to get the switches and buttons just right.

"I mean, shit, there must be fifty people livin' here who don't know how to work the thing..."

I made a few careful snips, wincing whenever a wire would take more than the usual amount of force to snap. Making a path for my hand, I reached into the wire jungle, felt around for it...

"Look at Cromwell, shit, if bombs had dicks he'd be sucking this one. And- are you even listening to me?"

I shoved the small dial in Jericho's face, and he stepped back, blinking in surprise.

"Thirty three to go," I said with a smirk, the radiation suit distorting my voice.

Back in the vault, the Overseer would go on and on about productivity. That must've been his favorite word, next to efficiency, effectiveness, usefulness, and... just about any words like that. So he'd separate the days as he saw them, calling them either 'good days' or 'bad days'. I always found that kind of pointless. Living in a vault, almost everything we did was backed up by computerized failsafes anyway, so if the klaxons weren't going off, really now, I thought a one percent dip in productivity would be okay.

I had finally figured out what a bad day was.

It had been six hours since the shadow raiders had appeared out of the dust and killed the gray-eyed girl, taken all our guns and supplies, taken my knife. For six hours, I stumbled after them, following their massive footprints like my life depended on it. My life did depend on it. Even with the sun passed noon, it was fucking hot, and I licked at whatever sweat formed on my hands or forehead to keep the inside of my mouth from cracking. It hurt to swallow, and my tongue was stuck to the top of my mouth.

Dammit.

When I wasn't staring at those footprints, I was staring at my Pip-Boy. Funny, I had gotten used to it just hanging off of my arm like a cancerous growth, just like the Overseer had said. While it came with a map- a surprisingly detailed one, with color and elevation and all that- it didn't help me at all. It was nice knowing that there was a hundred-foot-deep canyon about ten miles to the north if I ever felt like putting myself out of my misery, but it didn't show settlements or recent human activity or anything like that. Oh, I could tune into Galaxy News Radio- news, yeah right- or the Enclave's wonderful propaganda service, but having a radio station blaring across the wastes was a great way to call attention to yourself.

Everything felt heavy. I looked myself over, looking for anything I could get rid of, but nope- the shadow raiders had taken everything. In a fit of stupidity I chucked my combat helmet away and watched it roll down a hill into a rocky ravine. I then noticed that it was a whole lot hotter with the sun right on my head.

With a sigh, I scrambled down to get it, my leg spasming in protest the entire time.

Shit. The girl. I would always see her face whenever a splotch of red showed up along the footprints. The bastards, the bastards. Fucking bastard cannibals. Had Jericho been a cannibal? I didn't want to believe it, but too easily I could see him hunched over a fellow raider's corpse, digging into the organs without a care in the world. Shit. His teeth always did have a red tint to them.

I kept walking, combat helmet securely on my head. My beard itched like hell, and I could feel the mutant fleas moving around in there. I wished I had a bobby pin to scratch them out. When you used your fingers to try and scratch them out, they'd bite, and mutant flea bites get infected so fast you barely have time to amputate. Dammit my shoulder itched. I picked at the stitches through the duster, but that only made my shoulder lock up with pain. So itchiness or pain. I settled for itchiness.

So damn tired. At least the footprints were there, and I knew I was going west. What was west, though? Had to be better than this, or those raiders wouldn't be going there. I hoped so, anyway. I was hoping for a lot just about then.

I had to hunch over to push away the hunger pains. I tried eating dirt, chewing on irradiated grass, but that would only make the pain become repetitive stabs as opposed to a knife twisting in my belly. Oh, what I would've done for... anything remotely edible. I mean, aside from other people. No way, no cannibalism for me. No way.

After a while I sort of gave up. Not on living, but on finding anything, or getting anywhere. My eyes blurred and saw nothing. My breathing grew more ragged. What's the point of going on? I wasn't going to find anything.

A few bloatflies flicked past. I tried to go towards them, hoping that the venom in their stingers would wake me up a little, but just like that, they were gone over the next hill. Damn.

I stopped for a second, looked around. Maybe if I found one of those mutated scorpions, what did they call them- radical stingmachines? Something idiotic like that, I didn't know- I could drink its venom, eat its insides. That would keep me going! And they usually were around at this time! So in that half-insane stupor, I wandered around, looking into cracks in cliffsides and down holes for a mutated scorpion. Dehydration does things to you.

A little ways away, cave was nearby, stuck in the nearby hillside like a forgotten hiding place. Perfect, I thought to myself. I made a running start towards it- and tripping on a rock, tumbling down a long hill,
hitting my head a few times, getting spun around so much I had no idea which way was up.

I didn't remember rolling to a stop. I was on my back, staring at a dark blue and purple sky with dusty clouds scuttling past. The clouds were tinted with orange and pink.

We didn't have clouds in the vault. I guess... this is a nice change.

I got to my feet, vomited dirt and grass, fell to my knees in pain, vomited again, and realized I had no trail of footprints to follow.

Okay, that was it. That was the breaking point. Watching someone die, getting held up and mugged, and getting left to die in the middle of fucking nowhere in not bad day material. It's way beyond that. It's who-the-fuck-would-live-this-day-out material. Shit.

So I just walked. Just plain walked. East, west, north, south, I didn't know or really care. I just hoped there was something nearby that could kill me. Fast, slow, painfully, painlessly, I didn't care.

My heart was beating like crazy and I felt like I could throw up again any second. Jericho said something about this- when you're on your last legs, when your body has eaten most of its own fat to stay alive,
some gland dumps all the adrenaline you've got into your blood to keep you going. A few minutes, a few hours. Enough time to die.

It was just a blur from that point onward, of more dirt and sand and rock and brittle brown grass that crackled when you walked on it and poked your hands if you touched it. Tumbleweeds would roll past me and I'd think that's me, I'm just a dried out shell rolling along for no good reason all I have to do is follow the wind and the other tumbleweeds and everything will be okay and maybe we'll get snagged on some rocks but that's okay because the wind will show up and free us because the wind would never abandon us never abandon us just like dear old Dad-

Yelling. Meaningless yelling.

I wonder what's going on, who's yelling, and why. I then realize it's me. I'm yelling, I'm screaming my head off. What, was I doing my death rattle early to save time?

No... wait. I'm yelling at someone. Someone in the distance. They're coming towards me. They're yelling too, but I can't hear or maybe I can it makes no sense to me. Or maybe its just the echo of my own hollering.

They're only across the next hill. I'm so happy, I could jump for joy if my malnourished legs didn't resemble those of someone with polio. I stumble forward with a grin on my face as this wonderful stranger comes to meet me-

And I feel cold, choking metal snap around my neck.

Like I said. There are bad days, and there are... bad days.