It was a hot and windy day in the Mojave Desert. The air was dry and rough. The wind was nearly rough enough to leave scars. There was a man who went by Ghost, trying to move his brahmin into cover to ensure it survived the incoming storm. He saw an old, abandoned house with a shed right by it. He pulled the two-headed beast to the shed, where he opened it and saw it was empty. After he put the brahmin in the empty shed, he dashed to the abandoned house. He spent a few minutes trying to get the door open. He gave it a few good kicks, knocking the door open. The house was in terrible shape. Sand and old ash covered the floor. It looks as if there was a campfire at some point in the last 20 to 30 years. The walls were bare; the furniture was nearly all rotted away, and the 2nd floor was blocked off with pieces of old furniture like it was blocking something from coming down or going up. Ghost thought to himself that it was odd-looking.
As he continued scanning the room to see if anything was dangerous, he heard a creak. He quickly pulled out his .44 Magnum revolver and strolled to where the noise came from. As he got closer to the noise, he heard it again. It sounded like a gasping noise. He took a deep breath, stepped closer to the room, and slowly opened the door.
Ghost quickly notices a figure in the middle of the floor, lying curled up with its back towards him. He took his time to see if the figure was human, but after a closer look, he concluded that it was a human kid. He took a step closer and poked the kid's shoulder. The kid jumped and quickly crawled to the corner of the room, which looked painful to him. Ghost looked around the room he was in. It looked like a child's room, with old toys lying all over the floor. 228 hundred years of the post-apocalypse did no favors for this place. Turning his head, he glanced back at the kid.
He was skinny, with pale white skin. He had dark brown hair with streaks of blonde and two different-colored eyes. The right one was an emerald green, and the other was hazel brown. The word "Heterochromia" flashed in his mind as he remembered something he had read. He had a small scar above the left side of his lip. The kid was panting and shaking. The kid was barely awake. He clearly has dehydration, which required him to have water. Ghost, realizing what was happening, opened his bag and took out a bottle of water. He rolled it over to the kid. The kid, after seeing what it was, quickly grabbed it and drank it all in only a few moments. The kid whispered a thank you.
There was a sudden creek above them. Ghost quickly pulled his revolver and looked at the ceiling above them. The ceiling kept creaking with a guttural growl. As it began to stop, the kid coughed. It heard the cough. It yelled a guttural scream and started smashing its hands into the floor beneath it. Ghost quickly grabbed the kid and pushed him out the door. The thing above them started to break its way through the old wood floor. As Ghost got the kid out of the room, the thing above finished smashing its way through. Having jumped through the hole just made in the ceiling above, it landed on Ghost, resulting in the revolver being knocked out of his hand. It managed to throw Ghost on his back on the old, cold floor. It jumped on Ghost, smashing its skeletal hands on his breastplate. Ghost grabs one of its mangled arms and punches it in the mouth, knocking it off him. After that, he quickly scrambles to his revolver and grabs it. He pointed it at the thing behind him and pulled the trigger. After a loud bang, the creature fell to the ground with a loud thud. Ghost got up and looked over at the creature he fought.
It was a feral ghoul. It had rotted skin and no nose or hair. It was skinning enough to see its bones. He steps out of the room and breathes a sigh of relief. Once the storm passed, Ghost stepped outside the house and noticed that there was something strange in the distance. After grabbing the brahmin and placing the kid on it, they start heading towards it.
The kid, in a loud and relaxed voice with a faint southern drawl, said, "My name is Connor." Ghost was quiet for a bit and then answered in a quiet and awkward way, "You can call me Ghost." Connor grinned and said in an amazed voice, "That is such a cool name." Ghost quietly thanked him. Connor, for a while, kept telling Ghost about how cool while asking about the adventures he has been on, but didn't give him the time to answer. He was. "It's nice," Ghost thought. "Where's your home?" Ghost asked. Connor suddenly got quiet. He was quiet for some time. "I am from a nearby town that was attacked by a small army of super mutants; I don't think there is anyone left." Connor sadly said: They were quiet for a while as they walked. Ghost took off his helmet and placed it on a hook attached to his on the brahmin. He had a mix of light brown and golden blonde hair; he had bright electric blue eyes with tanned skin from being in the sun for so long; and there was a scar on the left side of his forehead from something hitting him in the head.
"My upbringing took place in a vault situated in the Bell County area of Texas. I lived in vault 115 until my 14th birthday, and on that day, a group of unknown people attacked. They took the G.E.C.K. and my sister. After all that, I decided to head out to take them down and get my sister and the G.E.C.K. back. I will save her." Ghost said calmly. He showed no emotion about his past. He grabbed his helmet and placed it back on.
As they continued to walk to the thing they saw in the distance, they were close enough to make out what they were seeing. It was a train with the name Adiona on the side of it. They extensively modified the steam locomotive and upgraded it to run on nuclear energy, featuring three modified cabins and two boxcars. It seems to be stuck in the sand at an abandoned train station. Connor recognized it as soon as he saw it.
"Wow, is that the Adiona? Have you ever been on it?" Connor asks in excitement. Ghost was confused, as he had never even heard of it. "No." Ghost said. Connor expressed surprise that Ghost had never been in the Adiona. Connor explained that the Adiona is a train that carries people to their location as long as they pay the fee, and there was a railway left along the way.
As they arrived at the train station, Ghost noticed that the train was damaged. A few people were trying to repair something, but they looked confused. They were conversing about the damage to a crucial piece.
As Ghost and Connor stepped closer to the train, the people repairing the train noticed that they were there. They pulled their .45 Auto pistol on them. The first guy yelled in a scared voice," D-DON'T STEP ANY CLOSER!" Ghost froze in place, lifted his hand above his head, and said in a calm voice, "Is something broken?" He was a dark-skinned man with a skinny and dry skin appearance. He had some injuries from the storm on his hands and face.
The man looked nervous. "Yes, it's my turn to ask a question: are you a raider or brotherhood?" The man nervously said, and Ghost calmly said, "Neither; I am a courier." The man took a huge exhalation of pent-up breath and put away his pistol. Ghost lowered his arms and asked, "What is broken?"" The man looked surprised for a second and replied, "The engine has a hole in the radiator system. It is fixable, but we don't have an engineer to repair it anymore due to him being injured from the storm."
Ghost was quiet for a moment and said, "I'll take a look and see what I can do." The man was surprised again. "Wow, th-thanks, mister. Um, sorry, what was your name?" The man said. "Call me Ghost, the kid is Connor, and the brahmin is called Jess." Ghost said, "And yours is?" The man said in response, "My name is Antonio, and if I can get it fixed, we will give you a free ride anywhere along the track in the state."
Ghost considered it for a minute. "I will take your offer, but how much is a ride to the capital wasteland?" Ghost said to Antonio. Antonio looked puzzled for a minute and then said, "Not sure; that is the conductor's job to know." Ghost nodded. He walked up to the train, climbed the ladder, and looked at the exposed area of the train's engine. It had laser rifle blast marks and bullet holes. Ghost noticed that there was something in the corner of the machine. It was small and hardly noticeable. Ghost reached in and grabbed it. It was a stop sign bent into a cylinder shape like makeshift armor, but it was way too big to be human. "Did you hit a super-mutant fortress?" Ghost asks, already knowing the answer. Antonio replied, '' Yes, but it was during the sandstorm, so they couldn-" The makeshift armor landed in front of him.
Antonio was quiet for a moment. "Oh, that was what was making it stop working." Ghost nodded and jumped off the train. After landing, he walked up to his brahmin, grabbed an anti-materiel rifle, and placed it on his back. "I guess I owe you a ride to anywhere in the state, friend," Antonio said in a joyful tone. Ghost was quiet and then said in a calm tone, "Where was the super mutant's fortress?" "In a small town called Smallville, about a mile that way," Antonio said while pointing to the west along the track behind the train. "But why do you want to know?"
Connor was quiet and then said in a sad tone, "That was my home." Ghost started to walk in that direction and said, "If I am not back by sundown, then take Connor and leave the area." Antonio nodded, too shocked to say anything.
As Ghost walked, he didn't think about why he was doing this. Super mutants are some of the most dangerous beasts in every wasteland he has been in. Plus, he needed to get rid of them while they were small. If he remembers correctly, they get bigger and dumber the longer they are around.
He was halfway, and the noon sun was beating down on him. Luckily, he was used to the heat at this point. As he arrived at the train track near Smallville, he noticed the number of scrap metal and crumbed bricks and figured that the train had come through there. He took a look around and noticed a tower on the outskirts of the town. He sneaked over to it. While he was climbing up the tower, he kept an eye on the super mutants and for behemoths. Once he reached the top, He set up the rifle on some bricks. After setting the scope and checking out the fortress.
As he looked over the fortress of Smallville, he saw dozens of hulking masses of muscle and green skin. He could hear them yelling like animals for meat, but not just any meat; they wanted humans. The beast disguised Ghost before him. They were huge and strong, like an ox, but dumb, like bag bricks.
He loaded his rifle and adjusted the scope to the point so he wouldn't miss a single shot. He took his first shot and hit the dumb monster in the head. It exploded like a water balloon. He took three more shots before they realized what was happening. He hit all three. The super mutants, figuring it out, started to fire their laser rifles in every direction; some got close. Three more shots. They yelled out for whoever was shooting. They kept yelling, "I'll eat your brain and drink your blood!" "You pay for that!" and "I'll wear your bones around my neck!" Three more shots. They were starting to quiet down, but there were two or more left. He took three more shots.
It was quiet for a bit, but then the entire town started to rumble. The ground started to split and crack. Then it erupted from the ground—a giant green and yellow creature with stretched skin. It had a disproportionate body with a huge shoulder that reached above his head, short legs, a long, thick arm, a small head, and a tiny neck.
He took a shot, but it moved before it hit. It now knew where he was. It threw an old, rusted-out car at the tower. It hit the bottom of the tower. It started shaking. As it starts to fall, Ghost jumps off and lands on the roof of a house. As he hit the roof, it collapsed beneath him. He hit the ground on the second floor hard. As he cleared the scar from the fall, he noticed that there were gore bags everywhere in the room. It smelled like rotting meat; it was so strong that even with the built-in filters in his gasmask, he could still smell it. He got up and scampered out of the room.
He descended the nearby stairs, kicked the front door off the hinges, and aimed his rifle at the beast. He fired three shots at the monster. The first shot hit the beast in the leg with enough power to remove it; the second shot hit its arm to do the same; and the last shot hit its head. With that last shot, it was over. They were all dead. After looting the place of its valuables, he starts to head back to the Adiona.
It took him hours to get back; it was nearly sundown by the time he got back to The Adiona. The battle with super mutants left him bruised and battered. When Antonio saw him, Ghost, being alive, surprised him. Ghost then dropped a bag filled with the super mutant's weapons and said, with exaltation in his voice, "They... are... all... gone." He then collapsed from the exaltation and passed out.