Begin recording
Pick up from where I left off? All right.
It was the light I remember. I'd been in the vault for two days… two hundred years… and the light streaming in as the vault's seal cracked open blinded me. When I could see again I was looking down at my neighborhood, now blasted and empty. The sunlight reflected from bare rock and earth, the leafless trees didn't cast any shade. The ruined world shone and its silence filled my ears.
I turned away, eventually, and stumbled off the platform, past the rusty trucks and skeletons of soldiers. I could almost remember their faces; it was only yesterday that they'd herded my neighbors up here, and kept everyone who wasn't on the list out. Did they know we were going to be frozen? Did they know they would be shut out of the vault to die?
A sharp sound distracted me. Two birds flapped and cawed in one of the bare trees. Crows, but the first sign of ordinary life so I was glad to see it. I checked my pip-boy: no radiation above normal background levels. The crows and I weren't being poisoned.
I had the presence of mind to go through the wooden crates at the scene and grab a few bullets and some radaway. One of the crates held a giant claw, a huge scaly hand. Now I know it came off a deathclaw, but at the time I'm not sure what I thought the rotting thing was.
I made my way down the hill and down to the stream. My pip-boy did not like the water at all; I knew I'd have to get my drinks and showers in the vault. Which we did, by the way, for months while we hunted for parts for Sturges to make the first purifier.
And there was Sanctuary Hills. Houses blasted down, or full of holes—I'm sure you've seen towns that haven't been touched since the bombs fell. I saw no one, and heard no signs of life.
Then—a familiar hiss and whir. It was Cogsworth, our Mr. Handy! He greeted me with delight. I don't think he knew what had happened, and I still wasn't quite myself. I remember him telling me I was two hundred years late for dinner and wailing about dusting a house with the roof torn open. Having no one to serve is not ideal for a robot programmed to be of service.
Then he asked, "Where is your better half?"
And I said without really thinking, "He's in a better place."
Cogsworth didn't seem able to process that, or really understand about my son being kidnapped, so we set out to search Sanctuary Falls for them. What a pair, both of us rattled and not firing on all cylinders, and desperate for something familiar.
I'd gotten a bit behind when I heard Cogsworth say, "Fancy a bit of fisticuffs?" which meant he was ready to fight.
"Cogsworth!" I yelled and ran after him. He was inside one of the houses, slicing up a giant fly with his trimming blade. That was my first bloatfly, thankfully dead before I got to it. Hate those things.
"My sensors are picking up movement in another house! Follow me!"
"Cogsworth, wait! What are—how many of those things-" But he was off. We charged in and I whacked some bloatflies with my vault security baton.
I was busy with the flies and when I looked up I was in a baby's room. Mrs. Sumner was expecting a child. The sight of the crib, faded and filthy from the elements, hit me hard and I gasped and dropped my weapon.
"Miss Emily!"
"I'm all right Cogsworth, just...'
"They aren't here are they? The master and young Shaun, they aren't anywhere!"
That's what I was feeling too but I said, "We tried. Thank you. I'll have to keep looking."
Cogsworth's limbs perked up and he suggested going to Concord where they'd 'only shot at him a few times.'
"Shot at you? Who did?"
"I did not get their names, Ma'am. Unpleasant sorts, very rough customers."
So humanity had survived, and so had ammunition. "All right, I'll go there soon. First let's see what we can do here."
So I went into my house.
And everything was still there.
Shaun's bottle by the sink, the grocery list on the fridge, the Grognak comic Nate was reading that last day. I picked up the trifold flag and put it back on its shelf, next to the framed paper that had been my law degree before two hundred years had bleached every word from the paper. Everything was dusty, splintery, faded. Leaves carpeted the floor inches deep.
Shaun's room was almost too much. I was fading again, wondering if this was a dream. No. I had to pay attention, because this was shelter and if I didn't want to go back to the vault every night I needed to make some kind of camp here.
Our bedroom was facing the blast and its lovely picture windows had blown out leaving the room open to the air. No sleeping here. In the end I decided the bathroom was the most sheltered room and piled sofa cushions in the shower for a bed.
I spent the rest of the day exploring the other houses for anything useful. Ancient canned food, clothes and fabric for warmth. I found a terminal that worked—and found out one of my neighbors was a drug dealer! That was a surprise.
By the end of the day I'd collected a stash of food and clean water and had no strength left for anything else. I kept slipping and seeing my neighborhood like it had been yesterday. Dinner was another can of pork'n'beans and I went to bed when it was barely dark. I'd asked Cogsworth to keep watch but still, it was a long night. I jumped at every noise, even knowing we'd cleared all the giant bugs out of Sanctuary.
