Fellwood

Chapter 1

"Looks decent, too much TMI though, near the end there, don't you think?" The large white rabbit asked, handing Arthur back the leather-bound journal. The Aardvark had found it in one of the school lockers; the few pages of it that were used were now unreadable anyway.

"Molly didn't mind, and I thought it should be recorded." Arthur replied nonchalantly, getting some dirt out of his ear.

"You didn't say anything about…" Buster started, but Arthur stopped him before he could continue.

"I don't think anyone should read about children crying themselves to sleep, and then crying themselves away from nightmares. I don't think someone needs to know about how you can't fall asleep unless exhaustion takes you." He spoke slowly, deliberately, "We're all suffering from deep trauma, but these aren't memories I want to keep. Knowing what happened is one thing, remembering how I felt… that's another."

Buster's ears drooped almost comically, despite all of his physical changes, he was still the same, good old Buster, and Arthur could hardly resist, he took two threatening steps forwards, causing the rabbit to shy backwards a bit, unsure, before giving him a strong-armed bear hug. "Hey! What's the big idea?" The rabbit called out.

"Nothing, nothing, you're just awesome, that's all." The aardvark answered, chuckling, and let go of his friend, turning back around to look at the old map of Elwood City. For several days now they've been performing scouts of the surrounding areas, trying to find more ammunition, equipment and food. After finishing half of their supply of clean water (including bottled water they found in various houses), they finally resigned to the idea of eating irradiated food. But they intended to do so only if, or rather when their food and water supply ran out.

"So we got Brain, Slink and Rattles out now, right? Then we have you, me and Molly out towards the hospital?" Arthur went back over the scout plans.

"Yeah, Brain said he was going to try and get some walkie-talkies from the mall when they…" But before Buster could finish, said person stepped into the room, looking rather stressed.

"Speak of the devil." Arthur commented, surprised that Alan's scout ended so quickly.

"Arthur," the bear said hastily, "There are raiders in the mall, a large number of them. Looks like that random raid yesterday wasn't so random. They were trying to see why no one from here came to contact them."

"Crap!" Arthur called out, "How many?" he asked after quickly regaining his composure, he had to remain focused; the last thing he wanted now was to show signs of weakness, to inspire fear into his group. The back of his mind bugged him about not spending enough time with D.W. these past two days, but he pushed it out quickly.

"We counted ten, but we couldn't get inside, so I don't have any specific number. We do know they've started taking inventory of ammo, we saw them counting magazines out front." The Brain then pulled out a sheet of paper from Arthur's desk (he had located himself in the principal's office) and began to draw a rough schematic of the mall.

"Look, south and east are no go." He said, crossing those areas out, "Open terrain, we'll be dead in minutes if we were to attack from there. But up north, there's the swamp, if we can somehow sneak in from there, preferably at night, we can take them by surprise. There's a back entrance for merchandise. It's better guarded than the front, but if we can get open up the parking doors for suppliers, that'll give us a good foothold, especially if we can close it behind us so they can't circle around."

Arthur looked at the schematics, "We can't hole up there and wait, they probably have explosives, they'll get in eventually, and once in the mall itself there's no decent cover and they'll be packing both levels probably. If they're taking inventory, it means they're planning to attack us."

"Exactly why we should take them before they can make an organized attack, with the kids here, I don't know how defendable we can make this school." Again the back of Arthur's mind bugged him about his sister.

"Brain, there's cooking gas at your house, and at Marina's right?" He asked, referring to Brain's earlier reports for possible places to cook food.

Brain nodded, not quite seeing where this was going, Arthur nodded to himself.

"Okay, I need you to go over to the library with your team, get the exact schematics for the mall. You said you cleared out those giant bugs there, right?" Brain nodded, "Good, get those schematics and those of the school too. We need an enlightened view on this before we can make a real decision. Make it quick." Brain nodded and left hastily, passing Molly wordlessly as he exited.

"What are Brain and the others doing here?" She asked, "Aren't they on scout duty?"

"There are raiders at the mall. We're trying to figure out what to do." Buster answered slightly condescendingly, as if she should've already known that. She gave a confused look at his attitude and then turned to Arthur, remembering still her promise.

"Look, Arthur, regardless of that, I think you should talk to your sister." There we go again, the annoying voice in the back of Arthur's head from now will always carry Molly's voice unless he went and did as she said.

"You've been avoiding her, she needs you now. I know how you're feeling; I lost my family there too. But it's not her fault; you need to talk to her." She said tenderly, Buster excused himself from the room silently, stumbling on something loud outside and swearing.

The rabbit girl looked at her leader, pushing her bangs away from her eyes so he could see the seriousness in her eyes. "Please Arthur?" She asked, one hand moved to his cheek. "If James is any indication… she desperately needs you to talk to her." Her eyes watered up, "I could barely do it myself, but I know James feels better now… Our family… I won't let this break us. Don't let it break your family Arthur. You're all D.W. has left."

Arthur was silent this whole time, he sighed, taking Molly's hand off of his cheek and holding it gently with both of his hands. "Thanks for being strong Molly." He said, "I'll talk to her, I think I should talk to Sue-Ellen too. She hasn't said a word since we left the Vault." Molly nodded. "Call me when Brain gets back."

D.W. was alone inside of one of the old classrooms. She was reading an old children's book. The way she was holding it was strange; as though she wasn't really reading, but just wanted something to hide her face.

"Hey." Arthur cooed softly, sitting down in front of her. Her hands trembled but she didn't lower the book.

"Did Molly send you? I already told her, I'm fine." She replied weakly.

"We should talk." He wasn't sure how to go about this, so he left the sentence hanging.

"No." Came the sharp, yet shaky reply.

"D.W. I was there too… I saw what happened to Mom and Dad." He said. "It's okay to be sad, okay to be scared too." Arthur was surprised at how much she was trembling, and was sure Molly's talk with her aggravated her.

"No!" She yelled, throwing the book hard at Arthur, who took it in the arm. His sister's face was scrunched up in pent up tears and anger, and she charged screaming at him, pounding him with her fists. "No, no, no, no, no, no!" She screamed at him, finally stopping as her strength left her. Arthur wasn't sure whether to hug her or not, so he just let her cry on his shoulder.

"It's not fair! It's not fair… why did they have to die? Stupid Mr. Armstrong! Why did he let them open the door…." Her voice broke, and she continued sobbing into her brother's shoulder. "Arthur, please… please tell me, please…" She cried, not really managing to say what it was she wanted him to tell her.

He hugged her then, finally. "It's fine, D.W. it's fine, we're safe, and we'll make mom and dad and Kate proud." D.W. sobbed more, "It won't be fine… Arthur, look at us, we'll die out here, we're all alone. There's hardly any food, and I can't sleep… I can't sleep Arthur, because when I sleep mom and dad are alive, and it hurts so much when I wake up that I just don't want to wake up anymore." She broke from Arthur.

"It's like that with me too, D.W. but you still have me, and you still have Buster, and Molly and Brain and Emily, we're all one big family now. I swear I'll never let you be alone."

She undid her ponytail, still sniffling and crying, and gave her rubber hair-band to Arthur. "Take this, take this and promise, promise you'll always show it to me every day forever."

Arthur's eyes widened, he knew what she meant, he had to come and show her the hair-band every day, he had to stay alive every day so he could show it to her, if he died, and failed to show it to her from then on, he'd be breaking his promise to her. Though D.W. was fifteen, and much more eloquent than that, he wasn't surprised at her childish demeanor.

"I promise." He said, "Cross my heart and…." He probably should not have said that, he left the rest blank.

D.W. walked quietly out of the room, "If you break your promise, I will hate you for all time." She threatened quietly, a bit hopelessly and most of all fatigued. She was probably going to sleep; Arthur did not feel the need to go after her. He had another person to talk to anyway.

"Sue-Ellen?" He asked, going up to the school roof, 'You shouldn't be out here, if a sniper comes along…" He stopped as he saw her face. It seemed almost pulled back, gaunt looking.

He realized she must've stopped eating the day they left the vault. That would be almost five days without eating, he thought it was the moonlight at first, but it quickly became apparent that she was pale as well. Some patches of fur were missing from her face, ripped out, it seemed.

"Sue-Ellen…" Arthur put his hand around her.

"I'm sorry…" She said weakly, "I know I'm stupid, I know I should eat… I know I'm just setting us back."

"What's this all about? Yeah, you should eat, but you're not setting us back. We need you Sue-Ellen, and you're worrying us, worrying me." Arthur wondered since when he was such a talker, but disregarded that thought.

"I… I'm sorry…" Sue Ellen repeated, "What?" She asked suddenly, not Arthur, but someone else.

Arthur followed her gaze, she was looking into thin air.

"I'm sorry, no, yeah… I… I should eat, I know." Sue-Ellen repeated again. Was this shock? Or post-traumatic-stress?

"Sue-Ellen, stay with me." Arthur said, snapping his fingers, a bad move. In Sue-Ellen's mind, the echoing snap was the loud click of a locking mechanism, a huge one, rolling open the vault doors.

She held her hands to her eyes, "If I don't look, maybe they won't come." She stated blankly. Arthur looked at her, completely unsure as to how to handle this… situation. He waited too long, he failed. She was obviously barking. No, thinking that would make him truly fail her.

"I want to see a Dolio-chagi." He said, she uncovered her eyes slowly to look at him. Their gazes locked for several moments.

"Dolio-chagi? Roundhouse? We always start with Ahp-chagi." She said, "You've not come to my training lessons often, so you wouldn't know." She accused.

"I'm sorry, I should've, but I was lazy." Arthur took her accusation as a sign she was returning to some semblance of reason.

"What's it going to help now? Everyone's dead, it's all because of us." Her head sunk, she hugged her knees. "We decided to open that damn door. We couldn't just wait; we couldn't just hope the noises would go away." The cat stared ahead miserably; there was no way one talk could pull her out of this.

"Hey, I have an idea." The aardvark said, lifting his glasses up on his nose a bit. Sue-Ellen raised an eyebrow, still looking ahead with melancholy, but listening.

"The little kids need something to distract them from all of the bad stuff. I admit I haven't had much of a chance to see how they're doing. How about you teach them some Tae-Kwon-Do?" He was sure he mispronounced him, but he saw an odd smile creep on his compatriot's expression.

"Yeah, find my focus again, help them find theirs. Meditation, I also studied yoga, maybe I can integrate it too. Not that crap I did back at the vault." She muttered dreamily.

She still had issues, she wasn't quite sane, that was sure. Mood swings, shifting perception of reality, unfixed attention span, which could mean trouble.

But with letting her do something with herself, Arthur hoped to buy some time, at least until they established a safe base of operations. He sighed and turned to look at the broken cityscape.

Though sympathetic, Arthur felt detached from the others. It was like he spoke without emotion, he knew he had to bottle things up for now; he had to be the strong, unbreakable leader figure.

He had to be strong for them, but it made him feel as though he is drawing away from his friends, his family. Even Molly, whom he loved, yes, loved. He wasn't even ashamed to think it; he was in love with her beautifully creepy red eyes, with her roundish ears, her cheeky smile and badass attitude.

But he felt his role as leader was putting him on another level, pulling him apart from them.

He sighed again and scratched his head, about to say something, when his love interjected, putting her hand on his shoulder, "Brain's back."

"This is it." Brain said, showing Arthur the small crater, filled with some sort of disgusting muck like grey substance. "I took another route to the library this time, to see if it would be a likely place for the raiders to approach and I found this. Pay attention now." He said, pulling out a small, mutated rat and throwing him in. Instantly the rat began to alter, becoming bloated, changing body color, losing hair, squeaking horrifically, and eventually turning into a small stain of reddish yellow on the grey. The process was excruciatingly slow, and painful to watch, as the rat struggled against the air, begging for life, fighting hard against an enemy he could not see; his own body reaction.

Buster winced, hand over his nose, "Ugh, the smell, what is that, acid?"

"It's a bio-genetic altering agent Baxter, possibly used in the war; this explains those weird creatures in Puffer's Pond and the reservoir." Brain was referring to very aggressive, rather large crablike monsters, humanoid in most regards, but armored with a powerful exoskeleton, making them hardly vulnerable to small arms fire.

"It doesn't explain those monsters in the Vault." Arthur said sharply, "But who knows what else is hanging around."

Molly, standing back with Rattles and Slink couldn't help but cover her nose as well, "This is disgusting." She said, "What do you want us here for?"

"If we could scout out the hospital, and maybe find some of the right equipment there, I can analyze this; maybe find a way to make it useful, or even to turn it into a weapon, or some sort of defense." Brain explained, he was the intern scientist\doctor back in the vault, so Arthur didn't doubt his ability.

"How come it hasn't filtered into the soil, or dried up?" Arthur asked, though he could suspect the answer.

"It seems that animals that fall in are absorbed into it, just like that rat. I can only assume that the unnatural migrations of animals searching for a resource rich environment are feeding this thing, keeping it alive so to speak. If you look at the ground you can determine how large this small puddle used to be, like a pool. It's only gotten down to this now, though."

Arthur sighed, "Look, let's go back and review those schematics, I don't feel comfortable leaving the school unattended while the raiders are out there. When we've dealt with them, we can take a look at this."

"Do you have any ideas?" Asked Brain, Arthur smiled back at him, nodding.

"Oh, I already know what I want to do, heh, I just needed those schematics to make sure it will work."

They did not have a lot of time left, for by next morning, the bulk of the raider forces began mobilizing, determined to root out whatever took over the school. A dozen, maybe two, were heading towards the school building, some intentionally going through the ball field to attract fire, others circling around from beneath, others coming on from above.

Marina held James and Emily close to them, while Sue-Ellen was with Mei-Lin and D.W. Marina whispered silently for everyone to be quiet, and try to be still, and then all put their hands over their ears.

"Are you ready?" Arthur asked; himself, Slink, Rattles, Buster, Brain and Molly checking their weapons. They weren't professional, they didn't really know the ins and outs of their weapon, and the only know-how they had was from old instruction videos Brain used to watch in the Vault. But they were good enough, they hoped, for the task at hand.

They had to make sure the raiders wouldn't bother them again, and being outgunned and outnumbered, didn't help.

Author's notes: Yes, I apparently confused Brain with a field mouse in one of the prologue chapters, sorry about that. My mistake!

Anyway, I hope you're enjoying the fanfic so far. Please leave a review and let me know what you think! (Especially if you find any grammar \ English mistakes.)

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