Just to let ya'll know that whenever I put brackets round someone's name in bold during a chapter, it represents a point of view change. Please review, thanks.

CHAPTER 3: A PLACE NAMED RIGHT

The first thing that hit me was the fact that this 'outside' place was unbelievably bright. The second I stepped out, I was blinded by a sheet of white and I thought I'd died. Obviously I hadn't, I had just been overwhelmed as, being born and raised in a vault, my eyes had never ever seen anything so intensely illuminated before.

"Mmm!" I moaned, "Yeah remember when I had corneas?" I complained to no one. I looked down at my Pip-Boy to check the time and it was only 7:30am. Why is this damn sun so bright then? After 5 minutes or so, my vision had returned to normal and I noticed a small sign that said 'scenic overlook' on it just in front of me. I was mesmerized by what I saw. The 'scene', so to speak, was, what can only be described as, 'WOW', if that can be used as a suitable adjective. I could see for miles and miles, all the way to the horizon and... well I was going to say beyond but that's impossible. I saw large landmarks in the distance, one of which I recognised as the Washington Monument from one of our vault's geography/history lessons. I was torn out of my trance by a shrilling scream that was unquestionably, inescapably my best friend's voice.

I quickly backtracked toward the wooden door that lead to the Vault's cave and u-turned to the left, skidding down a hill. I turned left at the bottom, in the direction that I heard the cry. As I ran down a concrete road, I neared a small village. Sprinting past houses at speeds I didn't know I could reach, a red mist came across my field of vision and any rational thoughts were erased from my mind. Just up ahead, a large, red rocket came into view and, underneath it, lay two figures that the noise seemed to be coming from. The person underneath, who I realised was Brogan, was trying to wriggle away, but the man on top had her held firm in place. Only now, as I was two hundred meters away, could I understand what she was screaming, "GET OFF ME! OWW THAT HURTS, YOU BASTARD! STOP IT!" The prick was raping Brogs, my friend! I accelerated toward them, even faster than before, narrowing the gap by at least nine or ten meters per second.

"Stop movin' bitch!" The stranger slapped her. I could almost feel her pain in my cheek as I neared them, "Yer only makin' it sorer for yersel'!" he laughed manically. There was something about the way he spoke – it was full of such evil and hate. As I approached, the man heard me and turned round. All he would have seen, before he was hit, was a size ten vault 101 boot flying towards his face at blistering pace. I full-force volleyed him in the the jaw with my good left foot, as if he were a football.

"Get the fuck away from my friend!" I roared at him with unbelievable rage that I did not know I was capable of. The stranger snapped backwards and rolled a bit before recovering from the attack and calmly standing. He slowly and methodically pulled up his trousers and faced me. Due to me being just under average height, he was almost a good head taller than me and the man seemed to take this to his advantage. He smiled, showing very few rancid looking teeth, and took two steps closer to me.

"Or w'at? You'll call yer Daddy on me?" he baited, "Your balls prolly ha'nt even dropped yet." I glanced at Brogan, to see if she was all right, hoping that she'd had sense to clear away from us; although, she kept the way she was, silently crying, with her hands covering her bleeding crotch.

"You're a fucking waste of space. You just raped her!?"

"Hahahaha, an' you enjoyed watchin', kid! C'mon let's settle this li' men!" He exclaimed, raising his fists and going in for the first punch. But I was ready; I dodged under and leaned to the right, where I punched the man full-force in the stomach. Mistake. It felt like I was hitting steel.

"Uhn!" I grunted, as most of my knuckles burst open. I took a look at his stomach and realised that I did, in fact, punch steel – he had plates of metal all over his body. Armour... figures. The man felt no pity for me, obviously, as he just laughed fiendishly and went to punch me again. I still hadn't dropped my guard, though, so I easily dodged again and connected the first decent punch of the fight: a left over-arm whack, that made him stumble back a few steps. This barely phased him, though, because he came back and fought just as hard as before, all the while shouting that I was a 'slippery bastard' because he still hadn't hit me yet. I jumped back swiftly to avoid another swing and just as quickly, sprung back to attack again and this time gave a left straight square on the mouth which really hurt him. He fell back, dazed, into the fence that surrounded the rocket on two sides. I was getting the beating of him now... me... actually going to beat a fully-grown adult in a fight! The boy who got bullied by a bunch of old-school wannabes who were trying to follow in their fathers' footsteps! Just as I began to get complacent, the stranger made his move. He began to punch with his left, so I quickly ducked down to dodge, which I realized was my first error. The man had only feigned with his left and, as I went to dodge, he used his right hand to uppercut me flat on the nose which had surely broken it. Blood squirted out in all directions, but there was no let-off from my attacker because, instantly after, he gave a agonising lucky-placed knee to my sore rib and a ferocious hook to the temple.

My vision swam and stars sprung into life in my vision. They chased each other around and danced about the place. I tried to follow them with my eyes but they kept disappearing. I fell back onto the concrete ground on my ass and hit my head on one of the rocket's leg-like supports. When my sight cleared, I realised the man was loading a large hunting rifle. He looked at me with a sadistic smile on his face and said, "You shoul' know kid, the wastelan' is a very dangerous place, speshly for li'l wannabe heroes like you. I shoul' jus' kill ya, but I wanna show ya me fuckin' yer li'l girlfrien' firs'. I'm gonna make 'er cry like a li'l baby, ya hear? Then I'll kill you in fron' of her. I think I'll take 'er back to the boys at the school, so they can have a shot of 'er too!" He explained cruelly with extreme malice in his eyes.

He moved over to Brogan and dragged her over to me so I could see everything that was going to happen. After a lot of struggling she managed to headbutt the evil man square between the eyes, which made him go mental. He grabbed his hunting rifle from his back and aimed it at her face as he floored her with a simple push and prepared to shoot. The world around me seemed to stop.

I remembered that feeling from on my tenth birthday when Freddie tried to punch me after I told him to go fuck himself as he said I got special treatment because I was the Overseer's son. Time seemed to stop at that moment; I easily leant back to dodge his punch and broke Freddie's nose with the bulletproof screen on my new Pip-Boy that my Mother gave me.

I pulled out the pistol I found in the clinic at an unbelievable speed and picked my target – his head. Before I knew what happened, I had fired all 12 shots in the magazine of the pistol in the space of a second. This caused my left arm to fly into the air because of the gun's recoil. One of the last bullets I had fired had gone up and ricocheted off of the rocket and rebounded back down toward me. It had embedded itself into my left leg. The force and shock of the bullet caused me to slump off the rocket leg that was keeping me upright. The man's head exploded as, at least, 4 bullets penetrated it, making him roll off of my friend. He flopped away on the ground with a weird 'sloshing' sound, completely lifeless. He was dead. I had killed him.

At that point, I didn't care that much about anything else. I have just killed a man. Taken a gun to his head and ended his life. Surely this man had family, and if not, friends. Friends that will miss and mourn him and cry for their loss. And it's entirely my fault. I would have stayed like that forever, sitting in a trance; completely disgusted at myself for what I had done, if it were not for Brogs coming over to hug and thank me for saving her. I was shaking uncontrollably and greatly resisting the urge to throw up. I was so deep in my own world that I never even noticed as she helped pick me up and let me put most of my weight on her as my shot leg meant I couldn't walk. She half-dragged me along a dirt path that opened up to a large, metal city which I recognised as Megaton from the pictures on my Mom's terminal. She then led me inside...

(Harden Simms)

Ah... more newcomers, I thought as I heard the gates of Megaton opened. When I reached the top of the main entrance hill, I noticed that it was a vault dweller, or, two, rather: one a boy, the other, a girl. Wow the first ones in 18 years... ever since... As I neared them, I noticed that they were completely torn up, particularly the boy. The girl, as far as I could see, had her jumpsuit ripped around the shoulder and lower arm area and had a large amount of drying blood between her thighs on her jeans. She had long, black hair that was meant to be tied up but had been messed about and had fallen down over her shoulders. She had bright, emerald green eyes that lit up her face and irradiated optimism. The boy was white as a sheet, as if he had seen a ghost. He had dirty blonde, spiked hair that was swept over to his right side and irradiant, electric-blue eyes. His physical state was completely messed up: he had obviously been in some kind of fight. More like series of fights. He had done something to his right arm, as he had it seemingly stuck to his chest. His face was massacred: his nose badly broken and bleeding; large cuts littered his cheeks and left eyebrow; and even had a black eye as well. He was a small boy, no bigger than five foot nine, which was only a little bigger than the girl holding him up.

(Callum)

I entered Megaton with Brogan holding me up so I didn't collapse. "I'll be damned, another newcomer. Or a pair of newcomers, I should say. Jesus, you two look like you've been through hell and back. I'm sorry, where are my manners, name's Harden Simms, Town Sheriff and my Father Lucas is the Mayor, when the need arises." The man said, appearing from a very steep hill just in front of us. I could tell from the way he spoke and held himself that he was an upbeat, happy-hearted man. "And you two are?" The guy was a very round faced man of African-American origin, who appeared to be in his mid twenties. He had a short, buzz-cut hairdo that was covered by a brown cowboy hat. I looked away from the man and vomited inside my own mouth. Knowing that there was nothing else I could do at that moment in time, I reluctantly swallowed the small load of stomach acid and partially digested vault food, which did not taste very good the second time around.

"B-Brogan Kendall." My friend replied, and when I said nothing added, "A-and this is Callum Almodovar. We're from Vault 101." She added.

"I think he needs to see the Doctor, but you best have a lot of money, you'll need it."

"Yeah, erm... thank you, sir. You said you were the Sheriff?" he nodded, "Well, some... man just raped me and almost killed us both."

"What! Do you know his name? I'll have him thrown right out of Megaton if he lives here!"

"No... erm... he's dead, but only because he tried to kill me... Callum shot him. But he had to!"

"Whoa, slow down, slow down. What did he look like?"

"Well he had a green mohawk and like, metal plates attached to his body."

"Raider... fuckers don't deserve to live!" After the Sheriff said that I perked up a bit. Yeah, he didn't deserve to live... he... he... he raped my friend! He got what was coming!

"Erm... would eight hundred dollars be enough to cover Callum's medical bill, do you think?"

"Dollars? What the hell girl, out here, the currency is caps?"

"What? You mean like bottle caps?"

"Yeah... well, you'd better go up to see Moira at craterside supply. She'll fix you up for free probably... but be careful she's... uh... different. But before you go... Callum was it? What age are you?"

"Ayy... Ayy... eighteen." I said, trying to sound manly, but it came out as no more than a stuttered squeak.

"You sure about that boy?"

"Y-ye... no... I'm only seventeen." I gave up, there was no point in lying as this man was clearly trying to help us.

"Well, like I said, Moira can patch you up for free... it's her rule, anyone under eighteen and she'll patch them up for free. Sure is making Megaton busy and full of families these days. How 'bout you missy? What are you, like sixteen or something?"

"I just turned eighteen." Brogs replied, looking away, ashamed.

"Well you might want to keep that on the down low and go as well... you know what I mean?"

"Yeah. Thanks."

"Just turn right here, then keep going and it's the second building on your right. Careful on the walkways though, they can be dangerous for people who aren't used to them. Do you need any help with this one?" he asked, gesturing at me as I obviously still couldn't walk myself due to my leg which was starting to become really, really hot, like it was burning. Without even standing on it, it throbbed painfully.

"Please Sir." She replied weakly.

"Oh dear Lord!" Squawked the lady called Moira when she saw us, "Now dears, I know it hurts but if you can hold on a second, I need to make some notes for my book that I'm writing before I patch you up. Now how do you feel? You first." She pointed over my shoulder.

"Well, I've probably been exiled from the only place I've called home in my full life, then I was taken advantage of by a disgusting man who's head exploded not a metre away from me. I think I'm covered in his blood."

"Oh... I see. I'm so sorry for you."

"We are in pain, please just help us now and then you can ask questions later!" Bee began to get angry, and snapped at Moira.

"Oh I know dear, of course. Okay, why don't you head upstairs while I tend to your friend here, those wounds could get infected if I wait any longer! And we wouldn't want that now would we?" Brogan gave a sad wave goodbye to me and trudged up a set of stairs in a back room. I saw her appear overhead on a walkway, where she sat down on a chair and began to rest her eyes. The room seemed to become less bright when her eyelids closed.

"And what happened to you, young man?" Moira chirped as she turned to face me. Her greasy and dirty vibrant red hair swinging to touch my face. The last person to call me 'young man' was Mom.

"I don't feel too great." I felt really light-headed and stumbled back two steps before a wall stopped me from falling. Moira led me over slowly to a large living room chair at the far end of the shop where she began her examination.

She injected me with four stimpaks in total: One for my rib (which had bruised up again); a couple, obviously for my leg for the gunshot; And one in the neck to fix my broken nose. Moira had to set my nose first, so the bone would heal properly. The sickening crack that my nose bones made when she did it was enough to make me cry out, never mind the sharp, burning agony that came with it. By the time she was done, my eyes were wet with tears. Last of all, she cleaned and covered up with bandages the cuts in my knuckles from the punching the Raider's armour. It was very painful having to take out the fragments of rust in the gashes as well.

"Why don't you go and sleep on my bed dear, God knows you've earned it." Moira said after cleaning the blood from my face. I was led upstairs and over to a large double bed that I flopped on to. I only noticed now, that my lack of sleep the night before had really caught up on me, as my eyelids became so heavy that I only had time to say a couple of words to Gogo before I fell asleep.

Hope ya'll liked the touch with the little bit in Harden's POV. It was just to give you an idea of what the characters looked like.