It was unlike her own, but it wasn't all that different, either. A brief moment was given to simply stand there in that empty hallway under those buzzing fluorescents, the pasty glow now unsettling after the bright kiss of the sun. Her fingertips brushed down the metal walls, the cold steel withdrawing her warm touch. It had been months since she had left her home for the absolute shithole that was the wasteland above…but she could not find it within herself to reminisce for it, any longer.
She thought she'd cry—maybe puke—but she had surprised her own self by placing one foot in front of the other, daring on ahead through those cold hallways like the intestines of some metal monster. She can now see herself down on her knees, sobbing and begging for mercy from a wavering Officer Gomez, the butt-end of his baton just shaking in the air above her skull as she pleads forgiveness for a crime she had not committed.
Please don't kill me! I didn't do anything! I don't want to leave!
The door had been opened, and she had passed through. She had thought she had wanted to find her father, but the moment she had, sitting there so still and blank in that pod, she realized she didn't even want to be here, but she had to…for him.
"Please proceed to your assigned Tranquility lounger."
Evelyn looked up from the ruddy face of bubbling snot and ugly eyes to the Robobrain, and she exhaled a sigh as she wiped her damp hands down the thighs of her suit. "Yeah, I know."
The ghoul that had kept her sanity stitched together (whilst simultaneously tearing it apart with his teeth) was missing upon her return to the main atrium. She tripped over her foot at the sight of the closed pod, stumbling forward a few feet before she finally crashed on her hands and knees.
"Charon!" she squawked, scrabbling close to smush her face and palms to the glass.
The ghoul was motionless aside from the repeated curling of his hands into loose fists, his eyes blinking and breathing slow. She banged on the pod, but it elicited no reaction from him.
"Charon!" she repeated, and then snapped her head to the dog. "How could you let him do this?!"
Dogmeat cocked his ears to the side and whined.
"I can't fucking believe you!" she growled, stomping over to the terminal to overlook his vitals.
Charon may not have been the sharpest tool in the shed at times, but he was certainly the most dangerous. A man of his nature, braving a threat she had no face to, and somewhere along the lines encountering her father…
Charon would have come with her from 101, so now, she would follow him all the way inside 112.
There was another empty pod, but the dome wouldn't release after it buzzed angrily at her attempts.
She snapped a finger at the nearest Robobrain and ordered, "Fix this. I need to get inside!"
It stopped and waved a mechanical claw around. "Please proceed to your assigned—"
"Ugh!" she shouted with a throw of her hands in the air, stomping off to retrieve her gear. "Fine! I'll fix it myself!"
Twenty minutes in and she was knelt beside the malfunctioning pod, her tongue out to the side as she continued troubleshooting the problem. Dogmeat whined, and she glanced up to blow a stray hair from her face.
"If I can disable an atomic bomb, I'm sure I can fix this," she confidently assured the mutt(herself). "I mean, how hard can it really be?"
The world was as it was before…when…(he couldn't remember). Everything was lost of its color. A small, cookie-cutter suburb. White picket fences, lush trees, trimmed grass, and neat pavement—a perfect reminiscence of Pre-War times.
He was aware that he was seated on a bench, and he looked down at himself after feeling a hint of a breeze between his thighs. A monochrome dress with frills. Black buckle shoes and white knee-high socks. Charon stood and turned to catch sight of himself from a window, his fingers coming up to his patchy head to investigate the tiny butterfly clips on some wisps of hair.
He was dressed like a little girl.
"Hey there, sport." A man wearing clean, ironed clothes approached him down the sidewalk. "Beautiful day, isn't it?"
The smoothskin wasn't screaming, or at the very least repulsed by his presence. It was as though he saw him as a child, but it made no difference as he got straight to business. "Where is James?"
"James? Why, don't think I've heard of him!" The smoothskin waved him off with a cheery smile. "You go run along and play now!"
Charon narrowed his eyes slightly before looking around at the others milling about and marched off to the next person closest—a young boy manning a lemonade stand.
"James," Charon rasped, hard. "Where?"
The boy just smiled and held over a cup. "Want some lemonade? Maybe we can play together!"
Charon's mouth downturned into a deeper-than-usual frown. Was Evelyn's father perhaps in a different simulation than his own? The ghoul made the rounds, questioning each and every person, and he was met with the same answer each time.
James? Never heard of him, but don't worry, he's probably around here somewhere!
The ghoul grumbled sourly to himself as he turned his attention to the middle of the cul-de-sac and the remaining person he had yet to speak with. He passed a large dog that came a bit too close for his liking, and he growled with a warning of, "Stay away from me."
The little girl in the center turned to him as he stepped up, and before he could ask her the only question that mattered, she impeded with, "Oh! Someone new to play with!" She squinted her eyes and thinned her lips. "Strange. It appears your unit is faulty."
Charon crossed his arms in his trademark intimidating stance—a slight widening of the legs with their stockings, a stiffening of the spine that overly stretched the dress, and a murderous glare on his nightmare of a face…with a butterfly clip drooping slightly to the side.
"James," he rasped with finality. "Where is he?"
"James," she repeated with a little lilt to her voice, a strange light brightening her eyes. "You're here for him? Oh, we're going to have so much fun!"
Charon growled, "Tell me, now."
"Yeah, or what?" she smirked. Charon raised a fist, but the little girl chided with a waggle of her finger, "Nuh-uh, I don't think so. Do that, and I may be tempted to keep James… Forever."
Charon's fist slowly lowered, and the petulant brat's smile grew. He did not know where James was, and risking him would make Evelyn gravely upset. He had to be patient…for now.
"It seems at least some of the program is still intact, oh, how marvelous this will be!" she giggled, pointing to the first child he had spoken with earlier. "Make Timmy Neusbaum cry."
Charon raised a brow muscle, but relented with a gravelly sigh as he spun on his heel and marched straight to the boy, who graced him with a shy smile and another offering of some lemonade.
"Here! Are you ready to play now?" he jovially asked.
Charon smacked the cup out of his hand, splashing lemonade all over the sidewalk. The boy gasped and looked at him as though he could finally see the monster beneath the delicate lace...no tears, though. He'd have to take it another step further…
(What made Evelyn cry?)
"Your father hates you," he bluntly rasped.
The boy was stunned, but he could see the quiver of his lower lip. "…what?"
Charon continued, firing off like a cannonball, "He wishes you were dead."
"No!" the child sobbed, dashing from his stall. "Mommy! Dad!"
(Good enough)
He returned to the little girl. She was highly amused with that stupid smile on her face, and she clapped her hands. Her voice then suddenly took a completely fucking 180, and Charon's brows shot up and disappeared under the folds of his wrinkly forehead as an older man with a German accent used the girl's skin suit like a medium.
"That was, rudimentary, at best," the little girl (man?) congratulated. She crossed her arms. "I shall let you answer one question, so think carefully."
"James," Charon growled, his hands curling into fists. "Where?"
"James, James, James," the (whatever the fuck he was) sighed a bored lament. "I suppose that was predictable. He is here, and he is safe. Now, as for the next game…"
"I don't care for your stupid fucking games," the big fucking ghoul snarled as he took a threatening step forward.
"If you wish to see James, then you most certainly will," the little girl chimed again, her voice back to its original state. She picked up a watering can at her side, dousing a pair of tulips at her feet. "Break the Rockwell's marriage apart, without killing them."
Charon burned his best glare at the girl, hoping it would incinerate her to straight ash as he stalked off.
"Oh, Roger and Janet? Yes, sweetie, they live just over there," a woman answered after he had demanded their whereabouts.
Charon invited himself into their home, taking a moment to look around the house and its pristine state. Evelyn would have liked it.
A woman came over at the sound of his entrance through the front door. "Why, hello there. Are you lost, dearie?"
Charon looked away from a table lamp, thinking hard for a few seconds about what to say.
"End your marriage," he demanded.
"Oh, now why on earth would you suggest such a thing?" the woman laughed, albeit without any humor. "My, my…"
Charon trudged back to the park, unsuccessful with his strategy.
The child was regarding him with curious intent upon his arrival. "I don't hear any happy marriages falling apart yet…"
The ghoul said plainly, "I have tried."
She giggled and shook her head. "How boring! You're going to have to think of something!"
The ghoul dumbly stood in the middle of the road, eyeing the residents who meandered around without a single fucking care in the world while the cogs in his brain were shifting and grinding ever-so-slowly until a little girl ran up to him with wide eyes and a trembling lower lip.
"Oh my God, Charon," her little voice said.
He cocked his head to the side. "You know me?" he rasped, somewhat surprised.
The little girl hid her widening smile behind one hand—unsuccessfully—before she burst into side-splitting laughter. "You look ridiculous!" she wheezed.
Charon raised a hand to pelt the brat in the face when she immediately flew her hands up and wildly waved them around.
"It's me, big guy, it's Evelyn!" she squeaked.
"Evelyn…" he repeated slowly, and then he snarled, "What the fuck are you doing here?!"
"I could say the same thing to you, you big idiot!" she snapped with her comically small voice. She crossed her arms over the identical dress he wore, tapping her shiny little black shoes. "I got the other pod working and came after you!"
He blinked. Her resourcefulness was troubling, at best, during the worst of times.
Tiny Evelyn was looking around, apparently already satisfied with their conversation. "Where's my...?"
"I do not know," he said, not bothering to hide his grumpiness. "I have been searching."
Her eyes rounded back on him. "Why are you wearing that?"
He crossed his arms. "I did not have a choice. Why are you a child?"
"I didn't have one either." She shrugged.
Charon grunted and pulled her around by the wrist to the back of a house, granting them some semblance of privacy from the perverted girl-man-child and her beady little eyes.
"Are you safe?" he asked straightforwardly. When she only glanced down at herself with a frown, he irritably sighed, "Outside."
"Oh, yeah. I gave Dogmeat directions just in case neither of us woke up from this thing after three days."
He looked at her skeptically, his tone flatter than the wasteland Midwestern plains. "The dog?"
"Well, you fucking left me before forming any sort of plan, so I worked with what I had!" she snapped, her voice shrill. "I told him to bring Moira a letter I wrote that explains everything. She'll know what to do...I hope."
Charon pinched what remained of the bridge of his nose. They had to find James, and quickly...or risk eternity in this state.
Child-Evelyn was fascinated with the bark on a tree, attempting to peel the thing clean off while he crossed his arms and tapped his finger on his bicep.
"The child at the playground is not what she appears to be," he rasped, watching her crouch down to pull at some grass. "It has been toying with me and avoiding my questions pertaining to your father."
His pint-sized employer inspected a pinecone she had picked up. "Betty? Some of the adults kept telling me she wanted to play." Evelyn looked back up to him. "What does she want?"
Charon quickly explained his fruitless endeavors, and she tossed the pinecone over her shoulder before waving at him to follow.
"Let's go back to Betty."
The girl kept her back turned, continually whistling a tune until Evelyn stopped a few feet away and loudly cleared her throat.
"Okay, Betty," she huffed, her thin arms crossed to mirror his stance behind her. "No more games. You know why we're here, and we're not leaving until you give me my dad."
The devil prodigy was only staring at him with a tilt of her head and a curious quirk on her lips. It ignored Evelyn like a mule would a gnat. "My earlier assumption was incorrect," the German accent returned with keen interest. "You are the one who is faulty."
Evelyn stamped her foot. "Look pal—"
"I had only heard rumors of the initial testing during my time spent on the G.E.C.K., but, I did not think it had been finished. It is truly a wonder any of you had survived the war…"
Evelyn was now staring at him, too.
"Curious," the child mused. "Is she the reason you are here?"
Charon said nothing; Evelyn just looked at him with innocently wide eyes, black where there used to be blue.
The child's smile grew to a frightening degree. "If I were to kill her, what do you imagine it would do?"
The BOMB
There's a whistle. First, it is quiet, fading in from the reaches beyond his consciousness, but then it begins to grow louder, and louder, and it grows to be so loud he tries to clamp his hands over his ears, and suddenly, a light, so bright that he rapidly blinks, trying to make sense of it all. The gates of Hell open in the sky—there is no sound. Not the wind passing by, the chirp of the birds, or even the beat of his own heart in his chest. He stares on, too afraid to watch, and yet even more afraid to turn away. It looms over all of creation as it blots out the sun, and there is no escape from the pale horse that rears its head.
There Is Only DEATH
The rush of that scalding wind flays the flesh from his body and sucks the air from his lungs, bubbles and boils and he tries to stop it as he rips the skin from his face as it melts from his hands and he shrieks, squishes it beneath his feet as he tries to hide from the pain, to run away from everyone as they hold onto him as he passes but he cannot get away, for they have his arms, his legs, and his neck, and they pull him down, drowning under the black rain that falls from the sky to smite them. He is blind, He is deaf, He is mute. Nothing is to last and everything is to blame, and he is here, sobbing in his hands despite no tears to stain them. It consumes everything, and yet will never be sated.
There's No Discharge In The WAR
On the first day, God gives him sight. He wants to pluck his own eyes out, but he can't, and he can only watch what they do to each other—what he does to them. Then, on the second day, God gives him sound. The wails of the dead that had not yet passed over echo in his brain, and his fingers are bloody and raw from clawing at his head to make them stop. By the third day, God gives him touch. He screams until his voice is gone, but his mouth is open wide, and he lays in the dirt for the worms to crawl inside and eat their fill. He does not know the passing of days, or weeks, or months, or years. He knows the dark, the rain, and the flames. But on the fourth day, God grants him mercy.
The CONTRACT
The words are jumbled and far and just behind his eyes, but slowly, piece by piece, they form together until he is reciting them in prayer, head bowed and hands shackled as it raises him from his grave to the salvation of Deliverance. He speaks the words onto the parchment like a commandment from God, for it was given to him, and it is his burden to carry. There is no thirst, there is no hunger, there is no weariness, there is the contract, there is himself, and there is the One whom he is meant to follow. Their pilgrimage is his own, and his boots boots boots go marching along.
For On The Fifth DAY
Everything is white…and then it isn't. He is seated on the bench again, and he is alone. He frowned as he stood, no longer wearing that silly dress and shiny shoes and droopy butterfly clips.
"Evelyn!" he barked out, marching off towards the playground. There is no Evelyn, or Betty, or even the dog.
"Evelyn!" he called again, and he looked up to the sun. Charon goes house to house, room to room, shouting as he frantically searched, "Evelyn!"
The knob for the last house was turned, and he stepped inside, finding the little girl softly crying to herself in the corner. "Make them stop," she sobbed quietly. "Mein Gott. Es tut mir leid…"
Charon growled as he came close, "Where is Evelyn?"
The little girl clamped her hands over her ears, shaking her head and rocking herself like a babe in a cradle. "Es tut mir leid, es tut mir leid, es tut—!"
Charon grabbed the child by the shoulder and pulled her up to look at him, a nasty snarl ready to lunge for her throat as he roared, "GIVE HER TO ME!"
She attempted to scrabble away. "No more! No more!" Charon dropped a frail, old man to crawl away on his hands and knees as he only repeated, "Es tut mir leid, es tut mir leid, es tut mir—!"
A door shimmered from thin air, and He walked through.
God Gave Him The Greatest Gift Of ALL