Chapter 1 - NEW GAME PLUS

MC'S POV

Ever since Virtual Reality entered the mainstream, NeuroNet VR had been the dream.

Back in the early days, when VR meant strapping a toaster-sized headset to your face and praying it didn't fry your GPU while handing you the worst migraine, gamers already knew what they really wanted. 

Total immersion.

Sword Art Online jokes were flying around forums like digital confetti, half in fear, half in hype. Everyone wanted their own fantasy world to escape to, just without the whole "die in the game, die in real life" clause.

NeuroNet was the holy grail amongst every other company's broken promises. 

Fully neural-interfaced gameplay. No clunky controllers, no lag between thought and action. The kind of tech that had only existed in late-night Reddit conspiracies, abandoned Kickstarter pages, or the fever dreams of sci-fi writers who clearly played too much Deus Ex or Cyberpunk.

And in 20XX, it finally happened. And as expected, the world lost its damn mind.

Stores were stormed. Lines wrapped around city blocks. Bloodless brawls broke out over preorder spots. People were practically willing to trade limbs for a shot at escaping reality in style. 

And me? An old RPG veteran with too many hours in too many fantasy worlds? You bet your ass that I wasn't about to miss out.

But my goal wasn't some flashy new MMO or twitchy shooter. Nope, my friend. I wanted something personal. I wanted to return to an old obsession of mine: Fallout 4.

Grinding that game had been hell. Not the fun kind, not the "I'm getting stronger with every fight" kind…no, the soul-crushing kind. 

The kind that makes your eyes burn from staring at the same screen for hours, the kind that makes you question whether the platinum trophy is worth sacrificing sleep, meals and maybe your last shred of sanity. 

Especially in a Bethesda game, where crashes and bugs weren't the exception but the norm.

Yet there I was, back in my younger years, controller in hand, finishing the last tedious requirement. Another miscellaneous quest line ticked off, another checkbox in the endless wasteland of my completionist brain. 

My life outside the screen? Miserable. My time in school? Forgettable. My relationships? Nonexistent. But when the notification pinged…that sweet little icon announcing I had finally wrung Fallout 4 dry…my chest still swelled with pride.

And here's the kicker: despite every agonizing moment, I still loved that damn game.

Not liked…Loved.

I'd played the classics…Fallout 1, with its isometric charm and brutal RNG, where every decision felt like it could get you killed and the UI hated you personally. Fallout 2, where the satire was sharper, the world bigger, and the bugs somehow more absurd…God help you if you picked the wrong perk or missed an early-game skill check. 

New Vegas, the golden child of the fandom… Obsidian's magnum opus that took player agency and storytelling to a whole different level. I still remember agonizing over which faction to back, then reloading hours later just to see how it all could've gone differently. 

Even Fallout 76, the black sheep of the family…I played it at launch, bugs and all, wandering a half-dead Appalachia hoping the next patch might inject some soul into it. It didn't…but I still gave it a fair shot.

But Fallout 4? That one hit differently. It resonated with me in a way I can't fully explain.

Maybe it was the obnoxious base-building system that somehow became my blank canvas…janky, frustrating, and duct-taped together with mods, but mine. I'd spend hours just placing walls and wiring up lights, building settlements that no one else would ever see, like they were my own little utopias carved from irradiated ruin. 

Places where I controlled the chaos.

Maybe it was the characters. The ones with just enough spark in their pre-programmed personalities to pull me in. 

Nick Valentine, haunted and loyal. Piper, relentless in her search for truth. Even Dogmeat, that silent, faithful and cute shadow. They weren't real, but at that point in my life, they felt more present than most people I actually knew.

And maybe, just maybe, it was the illusion of choice and control, the freedom to decide what the Commonwealth should become. Brotherhood, Railroad or Institute. And how my Minutemen would integrate with each faction. 

I knew the decisions were smoke and mirrors, barely branching paths in a world that would mostly reset once the credits rolled…But it felt real in the moment. Like my influence over those that I cared actually mattered.

Or maybe it was just the timing. Because Fallout 4 was there for me at the exact moment I needed it, allowing me to find some refuge from reality.

Regardless, despite the platinum being achieved all those years ago, I wasn't finished. Oh no, not even close.

Because you see, Bethesda has finally dropped Fallout 4: NerveNet Commonwealth. And there was no chance in hell that I was missing that hype train.

Like I've previously hinted at, the launch was chaos incarnate. 

The sun baked down as the line snaked around the block, packed with cosplayers, people shouting over rumors about server crashes, or trying to scalp their preorders. Some guy actually swung a fist over a queue spot, another tried bribing a clerk with concert tickets.

Suffice to say that the crowd was rabid.

And me? I was sweating like a sinner in church, clutching my preorder receipt like it was the freaking Holy Grail.

You might wonder…why go through all this for a single-player game?

Simple. I didn't care about twitch shooters or soulless VR MMOs filled with troll players, overpriced cosmetics, and close to zero story unless you went out of your way to look for it on online forums. Even the "best" of them couldn't hold a candle to the lore, the immersion, the theory-crafting of single-player RPGs.

Bethesda's writing might be a dumpster fire at times, but Fallout's universe? That was my drug. And now I could mainline it straight into my skull.

After hours of suffering, I finally got my hands on the box. It was sleek, weighty, and honestly so perfect I nearly cried.

Not long after, I nearly died crossing the street…some car came screeching out of nowhere. Fortunately I managed to dodge it, headset still safely in hand. 

Whew, crisis averted! No reincarnation arc for me today. 

The driver apologized, and I even scored a ride home out of it.

My jobless little brother, who was living with me until he got his life together, just about lost his damn mind when he saw the NNVR set in my hands.

I'd told him I was getting one, but he didn't believe I'd actually beat the crowd. His jaw hit the floor the moment I walked in, parading the box around like I'd just looted Excalibur from a Deathclaw nest.

He immediately dropped whatever half-baked game he was playing and dubbed me "Boss", offering up his eternal loyalty…and probably his dignity…for a chance to try it later.

Shameless little gremlin. Still, he's family. Gotta love him.

Once I was finally left alone, I booted up my PC. Fallout 4: NNVR was already downloaded, installed and waiting for me like an old friend ready to catch up with me. But no way was I diving in vanilla, despite all the Bethesda claims of this being a super duper special anniversary edition, not when I had NexusMods.

Forget Bethesda's "Creation Club" scams…trash promises of security that still ended with more crashes and corrupted saves than not. 

Real players knew the holy land was Nexus. That's where the true legends lived: Fallout HD, Immersive Weapons, Climates of the Commonwealth, fully voiced questlines, UI overhauls… and CBBE for reasons best left unspoken.

Me? I was an immersive graphics nut. My mod lists usually hit 200+. 

But with NNVR offloading everything straight into the brain instead of the GPU? The sky was the limit. So this time my arsenal easily hit over 500 mods…immersion-focused, gameplay-enhancing, all curated and tested to perfection.

After a few hours of load order wrangling and dirty plugin cleaning, the sun was dipping below the horizon. Which meant it was finally time.

The manual came with all the safety warnings…don't overuse it, don't yank the headset mid-session so as to avoid headaches, maintain proper posture, yada yada. Standard stuff.

The headset itself was gorgeous…smooth, matte finish, memory-foam padding, sleek cables. Next-gen luxury strapped to my skull. I followed the manual, double-checked every step, and then stretched out on my bed with the grin of a kid on Christmas morning.

"LINKU STARTU!" I couldn't resist shouting, doing my best anime protagonist impression. "Shit, does that count as jinxing it?"

Fortunately, nothing exploded. So I called it a resounding success for now.

A countdown appeared next, ticking down from five. 

What I saw in front of my eyes next was…surreal. A vast black space engulfed my vision. No sense of direction. No up or down.

Then, without warning, a thick white "Bethesda Studios" logo popped into existence, right in my face.

That was terrifying. Next time, I'll add a mod that removes this jumpscare that the company planted here.

I checked my surroundings once again until I heard a very familiar piano theme song before the Red Rocket garage montage came into focus, with that iconic Power Armor staring back at me and where a few words began materializing midair.

They were as follows:

-New

-Load

- NEW GAME +

-Add-Ons

-Creation Club

-Mods

-Settings

-Crew

-Quit

Perfect. Everything seems to be in place!

I tried selecting the 'New Game +' option until I realized that I had no hand here. Scratch that, I had no body here.

'Right, neural controls.' I told myself, slightly embarrassed that I forgot it.

So I focused, moving the marker with a single thought and selected the option. Easy enough.

Then a loading screen appeared. And stayed there long enough for me to feel nostalgic about it. And stayed...now reminding me why I hated it in the first place. And stayed…for so long that I started to get worried. 

'How is such an old game giving my computer so much trouble? It's not by a long shot the best on the market, but still…' I thought while trying to calm myself down.

Tips and lore pieces kept cycling over and over, music played in a loop, until everything faded.

I was left with a black screen that made me miss the annoying loading screen. No UI. No sound. No feedback. Just... black and silence.

Panic forced me to try everything. 

Emergency Logout, Force Quit and even calling my Task Manager. Nothing worked and so time kept slipping away. I felt pain in what I believed to be my head, which soon radiated throughout my non-existing body. 

I was... dizzy. Tired.

"What the hell's going on? Did my 500 mods break reality?" I laughed nervously. "This isn't right!"

But my limbs wouldn't move and my thoughts grew slow.

The headset had safeguards, right? Right? Please...

————————————————————————

When I came to, I wasn't in my bed. I wasn't holding a controller or wearing my VR headset. Hell, I wasn't even me.

The air was too real…thick with the sting of shaving cream and cheap aftershave clogging my nose. Fluorescent lights buzzed overhead, sharp and steady in a way no game audio ever quite captured.

My hand was already mid-movement once I realized, dragging the cold weight of a razor across my skin.

I blinked at a small window, and a stranger blinked back at me. No… not a stranger. And that wasn't a window, but a bathroom mirror.

My face. My jaw. My lips, my breath fogging against the glass. A neat black beard fell away in damp curls as I shaved it clean, just like a thousand times I'd watched in the game's intro.

And then I heard the words. My own lips were shaping themselves, as my voice was now gravelly and certain. "War never changes."

They weren't audio files from a cutscene, much less pixelated lips on a screen. They were mine. That realization should've broken me, should've cracked my mind in half. 

Not just the impossibility of it, but the gut realization that I had woken up in a fictional world, stripped bare of everything that had once defined me. My name, my family, my friends. All gone, as if someone had surgically carved those memories out and left only the hollow ache where they should be.

Details of my old life that should've left me shattered, mourning faces I'd never see again.

But I didn't break. 

I'd read too many fanfics that began exactly like this. Swap out the franchise for…SAO, Pokémon, Azeroth, Westeros or whatever. Same beats. Selective amnesia, a new identity, the "second chance" dangling in front of you like bait.

Even knowing all that, I still wished I knew what happened to my original body.

Did that VR device actually kill me after I overloaded it with so many mods? Or am I merely an artificial intelligence convinced I'm still me, while the real version of myself moved on with his life? Perhaps neither.

Not that it would matter in the end. Let's just call it morbid curiosity on my part.

Regardless, I was well aware of the first rule: panic was a waste of time. So instead, I clung to what mattered. What I still remembered.

Every questline, every dialogue branch, every glitch and exploit burned into my brain after hundreds of hours combing through Fallout 4. Not trivia anymore, nor wasted time, but survival tools now. Even if the rules had shifted, even if the logic of this world wasn't fully the game's anymore.

And even now, as I stared at my reflection, I started getting flashes. Not memories of mine… his.

The smell of scorched dust on a training field in Fort Benning. The rattle of boots during some long-forgotten morning drill. The nervous grin of a younger sister whom I haven't seen since her wedding, but who I remembered teaching to ride a bike on a cracked suburban sidewalk.

I didn't ask for them, nor did I want them. They just surfaced, like something buried under thin ice, waiting for the right weight to break through.

It didn't feel like possession, or like I was becoming someone else. It felt more like stepping into an abandoned house and finding old photographs still taped to the walls.

Familiar in a way that made me uneasy. The kind of familiarity that whispers, This life used to belong to someone else.

But then the real selling point of all this finally hit me.

The twist that I should've seen coming the moment I noticed that I had the Urban Ranger haircut and a slightly tweaked handsome face complexion slider instead of the male Sole Survivor's standard one. My fingerprints could be seen on this man's body, the same ones I'd sculpted years ago just to justify the high charisma stats I always went for.

I wasn't Nate, the retired US Army veteran… I was my avatar. And at the edges of my vision…no, deeper, like a phantom limb…I felt the build.

My monster of a character, every SPECIAL stat maxed, every perk unlocked. I could feel it humming in my veins, strength in my arms, perception sharpening the edges of the world, endurance coiling tight in my chest. Charisma, intelligence, agility, luck…all of it, crammed into a body that shouldn't exist outside of a screen.

Perks like Adamantium Skeleton, Iron Fist, Rooted, Solar Powered and other similar buffs, made me confident that I could not only put a dent on the toughest Power Armor without breaking anything in me, but perhaps even brawl against it.

I wasn't human anymore…but the cheat-code version of one. And I knew what came next.

Minutes. That's all I had before the sirens blared, announcing that this tidy little slice of suburban life was about to go up in nuclear fire. 

Before total armageddon, I could still remember the major moments, like Nora's voice would soon call me from behind, asking me to stop hogging the mirror. The salesman would knock on the door and inform me of my fortunate selection at the local Vault. Shaun's tiny fingers curled around mine for the first time…well, not counting the other times with his real dad…as I tried to calm him down. 

That fateful news report blaring from the TV, announcing the world's end with clear terrified dread. Then would come Vault 111, with its secret cryopods and two hundred years of sleep on ice. And when I would finally wake up…just to witness this new family of mine being stolen away by Kellogg and the Institute.

I've watched those scenes play out more times than I can count. But now? Now it's personal. Nora's screams aren't just sound files anymore… and I can't hit pause while her murderer walks off with my kid.

But for the first time in years, I didn't feel the odds stacked against me. I didn't feel stuck, or broken, or miserable.

I felt…ready.

————————————————————————

NORA'S POV

I noticed something was off with him the moment he moved after shaving his beard.

Not the casual Nate I'd known for years, fumbling with the morning coffee or scratching at his jaw. He wasn't even the same Nate that I woke up with this morning, with all his anxieties about attending the Veterans' Hall tonight.

No… his hands moved with a strange focus, each motion careful, deliberate, like he'd suddenly remembered something important.

I was just about to set the coffee cups on the counter when Nate leaned casually against the wall. He smirked, oddly confident, and murmured, almost under his breath. "173.5 degrees. Brewed to perfection."

I blinked. "What?"

A moment later, Codsworth rounded the corner, floating gracefully with his tray. "Ah! Good morning, Sir! Your coffee. 173.5 degrees Fahrenheit. Brewed to perfection!"

I turned sharply to Nate, eyes narrowing, but his smirk didn't falter.

Before I could compliment him about his neat trick, he glanced at his watch, tilting it just so, before fixating his eyes on the front door.

"In five seconds, a Vault-Tec representative will knock." He said casually.

I laughed, thinking he was joking. "What are you, clairvoy—"

KNOCK. KNOCK. KNOCK.

My smile faded, and a chill ran down my spine. But Nate's gaze didn't waver.

Just as he opened the door and the salesman stepped inside, clipboard in hand, Nate cut him off mid-introduction. 

"Vault 111, right?" Nate said with a grin.

The man blinked, taken aback. "Ah…yes, actually. Vault 111. But how did you…?"

"Lucky guess." Nate replied, still smiling. My chest tightened, and I didn't smile back this time.

Once the papers were all quickly signed and we were left alone again, Codsworth's next words came out of his mouth before our butler robot could properly float down the hall and say them himself. "Ah, yes…Shaun may need some of that parental affection you seem to be so good at…"

And before getting any validation, Nate was already moving, precise and determined. 

"Where are you going?" I asked, still trying to process his weird behavior.

"Shaun." He said, and I froze. The living room suddenly seemed smaller and tighter.

Codsworth's mechanical voice echoed a beat later. "You know, I was thinking…Shaun may need some of that parental affection you seem to be so good at."

I stood very still, shoulders tense, arms stiff at my sides. Every movement he made seemed predestined, perfectly timed, while my mind raced.

Was it a trick? A game? Or had something truly changed in him…something I couldn't yet name? Something that he wanted me to notice.

I laughed nervously at first, trying to shake it off. But when the salesman turned, clipboard shaking slightly, and Nate had already reached for Shaun's crib, my laughter died in my throat. 

My lips parted in surprise. "Hon…You're acting like that guy in Timewave. You remember? The one who comes back to warn everyone just before the meteor hits?"

He blinked at me, seriousness clear in his expression. "…Yeah. Except the meteor's a mushroom cloud and it hits today."

My heart jumped. Part of me wanted to laugh at the ridiculousness of it…but another part, the part that knew him, felt the weight behind his words, understood that he wasn't pretending. 

My rational brain wanted to call the hospital, immediately thinking that it might've been PTSD, from his time in the army. Or some head injury he didn't tell me about. 

But another part of me, the part that had argued cases with less evidence than I had right now, believed him. This wasn't a game or some joke. Something serious was coming, and he already knew.

"You're…serious…" I whispered, my voice betraying nothing of my actual thoughts. 

I watched him closely, noting every twitch, every deliberate gesture. Even the way he leaned slightly, almost preemptively, like he could feel what would happen before it did.

I took a deep breath, forcing myself to stay calm. 

He was tense…but controlled. That was Nate. That was him, even if he wasn't exactly acting like his usual self. And somehow, even in the face of the impossible, I trusted him.

"You're saying all this, and yet you're calm? You're scaring me…but somehow I…get it." I admitted softly, knowing that despite all of his playfulness, he took our family's safety very seriously. "I don't know how, but I know you're not lying."

He didn't answer immediately, just looked at me, letting the moment hang. I watched his blue eyes drift around the room, cataloging the small, ordinary things: the unopened mail, Shaun's pacifier, the little flower on the counter just starting to wilt. 

Things that seemed insignificant to me now, but would soon be gone, never to come back again.

I felt my fingers tighten around the mug in my hands. "Is this about that Vault talk you knew the Vault-Tec rep was going to offer us?"

He nodded, just slightly, calm and steady. "…Yes. We have just a couple of minutes. So I need you to do exactly what I say until the time comes. Do you trust me?"

I swallowed, feeling the gravity of those words settle over me, and nodded, even as my chest tightened. "I trust you."

For a few fleeting seconds, I let myself believe that it would be okay. That somehow, following him, we'd survive what was coming. 

And when the distant hum of the world seemed to shift, just slightly…the air tingling, the faintest rattle of a shutter…I realized. Time was slipping, and the seconds left were precious.

And when the distant hum of the world seemed to shift, just slightly… the air tingling, the faintest rattle of a shutter… I realized. Time was slipping, and the seconds left were precious.

From what Nate told me, that was all we had before everything changed forever.

The house suddenly felt too quiet, like the breath had been sucked out of it. The kind of silence that didn't belong in a home filled with morning sounds… Shaun's cooing, Codsworth's hums, the kettle's soft whistle.

A breeze crept through the slightly cracked window above the sink, one I hadn't noticed it was open before, but the air coming from it was off… too still, like everything was holding its breath.

I glanced at the living room… the blanket still crumpled from last night's movie, the faint stain on the carpet Nate never managed to clean from when Codsworth spilled oil. I used to feel displaced in this place when we first moved in. Too quiet, too clean.

Now I'd give anything to keep it, just as it is.

————————————————————————

MC'S POV

The moment she said it…that she trusted me…I stepped in front of Nora, resting a gentle hand on her shoulder. I was more relieved than I cared to admit, like I'd just passed a crucial Charisma check…no glowing text or soft chime needed to tell me so.

"Sit." I said softly, knowing well that it was the best opportunity to make Nora appreciate her confidence in me. "You'll want to be holding Shaun for this."

"What are you—?" She was still processing everything that I just told her, until it finally happened. 

The television in the corner of the living room snapped, cutting out of the old black-and-white movie and into a harsh, sudden BREAKING NEWSbanner. The screen shook as static flickered. The anchor looked pale, sweating, barely keeping it together.

While the TV man tried to pull himself together, I turned to someone else. "Codsworth…"

The Mr. Handy turned at once, bobbing gently in the air while his polished frame caught the morning light. "Yes, sir?"

I stepped close and rested a hand against his cold steel casing with the familiar hum of countless playthroughs. "Listen to me carefully, old friend…"

He hovered slightly lower, voice flickering with concern while his robotic eyes focused on me. "Is… something the matter, sir?"

"I'm sorry, but you're not going to follow us." I told him, aware that he has caught on faster than Nora.

Still, his optics blinked. "B-But sir, surely I could be of assistance—"

"No." I said, not unkindly. "You'll stay here. Keep the house intact for as long as you can… but that's not your mission." I leaned in a little, leveraging in my tone the couple of months he had been treated as family by me and Nora since we first activated him. "Your mission is to survive, you hear me? I don't care if the whole street turns to ash. You live and wait. I'll be back for you. Not soon, not tomorrow, but hopefully in two hundred and a couple more years from now, when the world starts to turn again."

A beat passed and Codsworth didn't speak. He just floated still, processors clearly churning. Until I noticed a faint twitch of his claws. A shiver, almost.

Then he said, voice trembling: "Yes, sir. I shall wait…as long as it takes."

"That's my guy." I smiled. 

And that was when I finally heard the infamous words from the news anchor, shaking and stammering as the transmission began to fall apart.

"We…we seem to have lost contact with our affiliate stations... we do... do have…we do have coming in confirmed reports... I repeat... confirmed reports of nuclear detonations in New York and Pennsylvania. My God…" The screen glitched again, the audio distorting just slightly before the transmission finally ended.

Nora's breath caught in her throat. Shaun, sensing her fear, started to cry, but I tried my best to ease them both without speaking. 

Then the sky outside dimmed, subtly but unmistakably. Not the sun setting or a cloud covering it, but something else. I looked out the window and knew exactly what was coming next, but it still sent a chill up my spine.

And then the air raid sirens began… one long, low mechanical scream that vibrated through the walls and bones alike. The kind no one alive should've ever had to hear for real.

'Here we go.' I thought, not willing to test how my Rad Resistant and Ghoulish perks would fare if a nuke exploded right on my face while my "wife and kid" weren't behind the thick walls of a vault.

Nora flinched, clutching Shaun tighter while pressing herself under my arm like I could shield them from all harm.

I turned to Nora, noticing how her eyes were wide, and nodded. "We need to run, now."

"Wait…but the sirens—" She asked, but I soon interrupted her doubts.

"The Vault isn't far from here. We can still make it."

She hesitated, only for a second, then nodded again before we were finally bolting through the front door and out into the neighborhood.

There, we both witnessed how the once peaceful suburb had been instantly flipped upside down. 

People poured into the streets, screaming, grabbing kids, bags, each other. Cars were left running, abandoned mid-turn, engines roaring uselessly while neighboring dgs barked, Virtibirds buzzed overhead and soldiers barked orders, barely keeping any semblance of order.

The sky now was…off. Not just due to its color and brightness, but the air…itfelt thicker, like the atmosphere itself knew the end had arrived.

"Please, make way!" I yelled, pushing past a couple who were frozen in panic and blocking our path.

That's when she nearly collided with me…a woman, mid-twenties, clutching a bundle tight to her chest. 

"Please! My baby… she's only a month old—!" The panic in her eyes wasn't performative. 

Just for a breath, I looked her over. Frazzled, desperate, but healthy. The baby was real, small and breathing, but quiet for now. 

"You want you and your kid to live?" I asked, quiet but firm. "You follow us. Say nothing, just keep looking scared and don't fall behind, understand?" 

She hesitated, completely startled by the fact that someone actually stopped to help her, but only for a moment. "Y-Yes."

I turned without looking back, heart pounding…not from fear, but from calculation. One more couple of bodies wouldn't break Vault 111's capacity. But it might just help fix a lot more. 

Shaun wouldn't be the only infant in that vault. And Nora… Nora wouldn't have to die for him.

In any event, the Vault gate finally loomed ahead, just past the checkpoint. Soldiers were everywhere, rifles slung, trying to direct people…but only some people.

"We're on the list!" I shouted before they could stop us. 

One soldier stepped forward, rifle slung, clipboard ready. "Name?" 

"We are the Howards. Nathan, Honora, and Shaun." I didn't slow, my body's memories easily coming to me just as the ones from my previous life did. "My sister Claire Mitchell, and her baby daughter Sophie." 

He glanced down at the manifest and started to skim..until his eyes locked on the first name almost instantly. 

"…Wait a minute…" His brows furrowed, then shot up in sudden recognition. "Howard? Nate Howard? United States Army, 2nd Battalion? Holy—sir, I read your debrief after Anchorage. You're him!" 

I didn't flinch, despite totally forgetting that I also had my luck maxed out, and just nodded sharply. "Then you know we don't have time for this." 

"Yeah…yeah, of course. Sergeant Daniels, sir." He straightened instinctively, like muscle memory kicked in, stepping back to clear the path and ordering another soldier. "Go! Get them below!" 

The other soldier barely questioned it, once one of them moved, the rest followed suit. He stepped aside, motioning us through the fence as a family behind us started screaming that they were residents too. But they weren't on the list.

I felt "Claire" squeeze in closer behind us, clutching the baby as tight as possible, her face a mask of terror at what could've been them. 

And then I saw him…just outside the gate, uniform rumpled, panic setting in. 

The Vault-Tec rep. The same man who guaranteed our spot with a smug smile hours ago, and the one of the few amongst all these people that I could believe would survive two hundred years from now, no longer as a human but a mutated ghoul. But right now he was being turned away by the same company he served for who knows how long. 

"Sir! Please, I…I'm supposed to be on the…!" 

"No manifest. Step back." Another, more aged out, guard barked and signaled for the other two soldiers in T-60 power armors to scare him off. 

I pushed through and grabbed the man by the arm. "He's with me." 

"That's not—" The older guard started, somewhat impressed by my courage, but the soldier from before that recognized me cut him off, clearly reading the room. 

"Sir…?" Sargent Daniels asked, hesitating just long enough. 

"He processed my family's spot. If we're down there, it's because of him. And if we aren't, there's going to be a hell of a lot of paperwork…assuming there's still a country left to file it in." 

A pause, a flicker of doubt, crossed the older soldier's face before he finally cursed under his breath. 

"Go. Don't make me regret this." He finally declared with a tired growl. 

The Vault-Tec rep stumbled past the gate, clearly still stunned. "Why… why did you…?" 

"Because if you hadn't knocked on our door this morning…" I said, but trailed off, knowing that time was bleeding away. "Let's just say, my family owes you." 

We moved fast now, only a few more meters left. The massive platform elevator was already lit, Vault-Tec staff waving us on. 

I turned, gave the young soldier from before a one last look. He met my eyes, and despite the storm around us, he gave a crisp, silent nod. 

Just a few more steps…and just on cue…the ground shook.

Not violently, not yet. But it was real. A distant rumble through the earth like some massive god had taken a single step.

Nora looked back over her shoulder. "What was that?"

"Flashpoint…" I said grimly. "The first detonation just landed." I grabbed her hand before she could hesitate this close to the finish line. "Keep moving!"

The platform was already half full. Some crying, some praying. The Vault-Tec rep looked like he'd wet himself. I didn't blame him, none of them.

Another Vault-Tec officer waved us on. "You made it! Hurry…stand right there, center of the platform!"

We squeezed in, shoulder to shoulder with strangers while above us, the sirens kept screaming. And then…a blinding light. Far off on the horizon, like the sun had risen sideways.

People gasped, one soldier even dropped his rifle. The sky turned white and the air pulsed just as everything went silent. I turned, just in time to see it. The mushroom cloud, rising like a titan, behind the horizon past Sanctuary Hills. 

The flash was so far off…and still impossibly, heart-stoppingly close. Birthing right then and there what I knew would be known as the Glowing Sea.

For a fraction of a second, everyone was still. Like time itself forgot to move. Then came the sound. Not like thunder…worse. Like the world had been split open and the earth was screaming in protest.

The shockwave raced toward us, a wall of destruction carving through hills and buildings and air like tissue paper.

Claire screamed, clutching her baby so tightly, probably thinking it was too late. Someone fell to their knees, while I pulled Nora and Shaun close to me.

"GO!" I screamed, finally pushing the Vault-Tec officer to slam his palm on the control panel.

The platform finally lurched, descending into the earth as the shockwave got closer, closer…and the elevator shaft's walls rose around us, turning the light into a narrow slice of sky.

The last thing I saw was the heatwave of fiery inferno licking at the edges of the closing thick and heavy vault doors closing overhead. 

————————————————————————

The massive elevator thrummed as it descended into the earth, the whine of hydraulics struggling to compete with the muffled roar of the apocalypse above. 

The air felt thick, not with smoke or dust, but with the silence and shock of everyone in it. The kind only born from too much death and destruction, too fast and too close.

Shaun's quiet whimpers were the only sound I focused on. His mother held him tight, her knuckles pale, before whispering. "...Jesus, you were right." 

Claire stood just beside us, eyes wide, staring upward through the narrowing shaft as the last cries of the world we left were muffled above us. Her baby was nestled against her chest, swaddled and unaware of how close she'd come to vanishing.

The Vault-Tec rep… Stan, I think his name was… had fallen to one knee, muttering prayers between rapid breaths. 

"You're safe now." I placed a hand on his shoulder and said quietly, just loud enough for the entire group of survivors to hear. "We all are."

His eyes, red-rimmed and wet, rose to meet mine. "…Thank you. You didn't have to—"

The elevator shuddered to a halt with a metallic groan. The cage door screeched open, and the stale breath of the underground swept in…cool, recycled, heavy with the faint sting of chemicals.

What lay before us wasn't the cavernous, cathedral-sized halls I imagined most Vaults were designed. 

This was narrower, more utilitarian, carved into the bedrock like a bunker corridor that hadn't been given the luxury of grandeur. Fluorescent lights buzzed overhead in long strips, their pale glow painting the world in sickly whites and washed-out yellows.

Ahead stretched a steel tunnel wide enough for two people abreast, the walls lined with exposed conduits and painted warnings. A faint vibration ran through the floor, the constant hum of turbines buried deeper below. 

Every few meters, thick blast doors sealed off side chambers, each one stamped with the Vault-Tec logo as if the branding could make us feel safer. 

Perhaps I would if I didn't know better.

Regardless, at the far end, the entrance proper greeted us as a circular hatch, monstrous and unmistakable, loomed half-sealed like the lid of a tomb. The great gear-shaped door bore the yellow stenciled numbers 111, flanked by hydraulic arms and locking mechanisms that hissed with occasional spurts of steam. 

It wasn't the vast steel wheel of propaganda posters, nor the monumental fortress I'd once seen sketched on pamphlets. No, this one felt different: functional, clinical and smaller than expected, as if it had been built more for efficiency than for humanity.

Just as I kept my Good Guy posture amongst my group of survivors, the Overseer's voice cut through the silence, thin and rehearsed. "Please, everyone, this way. Just follow me up the stairs and down the hall."

The others moved, dazed, like cattle. 

Stan clutched his clipboard like it was a lifeline, still mouthing fragments of prayer. 

Claire stumbled forward, murmuring soft comforts to her child though her own face was streaked with soot and tears. I fell into step beside her for a heartbeat, eyes flicking to the tiny bundle pressed against her chest.

"What's your little one's name?" I asked quietly.

She blinked, as if the question alone was enough to jar her back into the moment. "…Holly. Her name's Holly."

I nodded, letting the warmth of it cut through the cold steel around us. "And yours?"

She hesitated, blinking as if the question startled her. "…Marcy. Sorry, it just… feels strange to say it right now." 

"You know…" I said gently, forcing the corners of my mouth into something close to a smile. "…despite Sanctuary Hills being such a small place, we never really knew our neighbors like we should have. It's good to finally meet properly…even now."

Marcy gave the smallest nod, clutching Holly closer. Her lips trembled as if she wanted to say more, but nothing came. 

I felt the gratitude in her silence, and the exhaustion too. So I let her be, stepping back to give Marcy and her baby the space they needed.

Nora didn't move right away, but I still noticed how she was watching me. The question in her eyes wasn't about the bombs, or something silly like me talking to another woman…it was about me and how I knew so much of what has and will still happen.

I helped her by offering to take Shaun in my arms and leaned close enough that my lips brushed her ear.

"I know you deserve more answers than what I'm giving you. But you will have to trust me that this is just not the time yet for them." I whispered, low enough only she could hear. "This Vault isn't for riding out the war. It's been secretly designed to freeze us in Cryo-pods."

Her head snapped toward me, searching my face the way she might study a witness, looking for cracks, for the space between truth and reassurance. "Freezing?" 

"Not forever. Just… until the surface is safe again." I kept my voice steady, though the words felt like ash in my throat. "A couple of hundred of years. We'll sleep through it. You, me, Shaun…we'll wake up together. That's the point of all this facility, to see if we will survive. And believe me, we will."

Nora's gaze darted to the elevator gate closing far behind us, as if trying to see the truth written in the steel.

"Okay…we will." She whispered back before looking me in the eyes. "I'm with you."

There wasn't anger in her tone, not yet at least…just fear.

Perhaps not for us…I'd done my best to make it all sound survivable enough…but most likely to her parents, brothers and friends. All the ones who might not have found shelter, and even those that have but might not be frozen like us.

Nora's lips parted like she wanted to ask more, but the Overseer was waving us along, his voice growing sharper with each command. 

The moment passed, swallowed by the echoing corridor and the hum of fluorescent lights. 

Not long after, a Vault-Tec technician in a spotless white lab coat stood waiting for us, clipboard in hand, wearing a welcoming smile that didn't match the trauma carved into every face around me.

"Welcome to Vault 111." He announced, gesturing for us to move forward. "This way, please… everything is fine. Just follow me. We'll get everyone situated in no time."

Contrary to the chaos we witnessed outside, there were no sirens down here. Just humming generators, sterile lighting, and the echo of our steps on polished floors. 

Once I felt Nora squeezing my hand tighter, trembling, I leaned in, whispering for her ears only. "When we get to the pods… don't react. Don't let them know that we know. It's better that way."

She nodded once, sharp and short. "Understood."

I turned to her, forcing the warmest, most reassuring look I could manage. "It'll feel instant. Like blinking. When you wake up, it'll be a new world. We will just have to give our best to make it a better one."

Stan was walking beside us now, gazing to the distance with awe at what he still believed to be decontamination chambers waiting for us. Marcy followed close, clutching Holly, her eyes flicking nervously between cameras and junction boxes.

"We made it…" She murmured into her daughter's hair.

We passed through the misting chamber… Vault-Tec's actual decontamination procedure… before emerging into the central hub. Technicians ushered us forward, handing out blue vault jumpsuits like we were VIPs being checked into a hotel, not refugees from a dead world.

Just had to make sure that Stan, Marcy and her daughter were mistaken by someone else that was supposed to have been absent from the manifest.

"This way." One of them gestured to a branching corridor. "Please follow the doctor. He'll take you to your pods for decontamination before we can initiate you all on your new life underground."

I let the others move ahead while I lingered a few steps behind, letting my eyes drift…casually, like I was just overwhelmed… to the side panel by the door where something easily to me missed was labeled: Cryogenic Control – Staff Access Only.

My fingers subtly brush against the seam in the metal. 

No Pip-Boy yet, no proper tools, but I didn't need them. My mind hummed like a terminal screen loading lines of code. 

The Hacker perk made advanced systems reduced to second nature, while my Sneak perk, made every move of mine invisible if I wanted it to be, even in a place wired with eyes.

No one noticed as I crouched for the briefest moment, running a nail along the edge of the panel until I found the latch. A quick press, disguised as resting my hand against the wall, and the faceplate loosened just enough.

Inside, a row of maintenance leads glimmered like exposed nerves. 

Most people would've needed schematics or even a screen to understand what they were doing, I however only needed a glance. My brain stitched together the pattern instantly…colors, routes and redundancies. Two wires needed a bridge, nothing more.

I slipped a thin metal clasp from my jumpsuit's fastening… flimsy, disposable, but conductive enough. Twisting it between thumb and forefinger, I slid it into place, completing the circuit like I'd rehearsed it a hundred times in my head.

After I felt a soft click, I waited. No alarms, no blinking red lights and no suspicious looks. Just a system ready to accept my override the moment it mattered.

After a quick press of a few buttons, I closed the panel with a gentle push, straightened and caught up with the others before even Nora could notice my absence.

Perfect.

We then finally entered a sterile chamber where more Vault-Tec staff stood waiting, smiling too wide, gesturing toward the open pods. 

Rows of them lined the walls, more than I'd expected. Some stood empty, their polished surfaces already collecting a fine film of dust. 

From the look of it, not everyone had made it in time.

"Just step inside." The doctor said to Nora, as if rehearsed to death many times over in the last couple of days. "You'll feel a little pressure as the pod seals, but that's normal. Very comfortable, I assure you."

Before Marcy could step inside it with Holly still cradled against her chest, a technician nearby frowned and hurried forward.

"Ma'am, I'm sorry, but infants must be placed in their own units." He said carefully, doing his best to sound apologetic. "Vault-Tec policy…specialized pods maintain a safer environment and…better decontamination…for children under two."

Fortunately, the explanation sounded clinical enough to ease her worries, so Marcy let them lift her gently into the smaller pod beside hers.

The Vault-Tec rep followed without protest. I could see the awkwardness on his face…but also the hope. He had now lowered all of his guard thinking he was finally safe.

Three lives changed…makes me wonder how much more I can change in the canon.

But I digress, Nora was the one who hesitated next, clutching Shaun tight until I gave her a silent nod. She turned to me one last time, eyes full of trust and never once breaking contact with mine.

"I love you." She mouthed before stepping into her own pod and waited for the door to seal, while I struggled a bit to not give her my Han Solo answer of 'I know'.

The last empty pod was mine, which ironically had to be the one facing Nora's. Still, since I'd already made my preparations, I knew better than to stall the inevitable and step in, and as the pod began to close, I exhaled slowly. 

The hiss of freezing gas began to fill the chamber, just as I steeled myself to do what needed to be done.

The last thing I saw through the pod's small window was Nora, frozen in time… her eyes closed, but her thoughts definitely still clinging to me and Shaun.

In the silence to come, I would rest, not sleep…and not for long.

————————————————————————

OVERSEER'S POV

I pressed the intercom, recording my log. My voice sounded steadier than I felt.

[Vault 111 Overseer's Private Holotape – Day One]

As the doors of my Vault sealed today, my work has finally begun.

The hiss of hydraulics had long faded by now, leaving only the low hum of machinery from the backup generators that hummed endlessly through the bowels of Vault 111 and the faint rattle of its cooling pipes. One by one, the pods confirmed green, every display reading vital signs stable.

Though the sound will linger in my ears for years, I think…that deep, thunderous slam of steel on steel, a coffin-lid for the world outside. The desert of ash and fire is shut away, and down here, beneath tons of granite and iron, the future begins. 

Our future…my future.

Everyone had felt the vibration in their ribs, and watched the dust tremble off the pipes above. It was clear in their faces: the awe, the relief, even a trace of pride. They've traded the chaos of the surface for the certainty of science. 

I, their Overseer, am the steward of that certainty. For one hundred and eighty days, we will prove the worth of Vault-Tec's design, alongside every other vault with their individual and meaningful tasks.

Already, less than an hour after our job began, the rhythm took hold. Rations distributed, schedules assigned, the daily rotation established. 

The commissary echoed with laughter at supper. The fare was bland, true… pale beans, a loaf that crumbles before it satisfies, protein cuts that taste of chalk more than meat. But no one complained. 

They toasted one another with glasses of water, joked about who could finish the "meatloaf surprise" fastest. I could almost believe we were celebrating a holiday, not the end of the world.

Hope is easy when the shelves are full and the lights are steady. My task is to make sure that feeling endures past the first week, the first month, the first hint of monotony.

The real work lies in the cryostasis wing.

I adjusted my glasses with a shaking hand, exhaling a long breath I hadn't realized I was holding. Weeks of planning, decades of research, billions of dollars poured into this technology…and it worked. 

No explosions, no ruptures, no grotesque crystallization of flesh like the early failures. 

Just sleep…I almost envy them. 

Still, I walked the length of the hall this evening, the air sharp with frost, the glass panels glowing with pale blue light. The pods were marvels of scientific research. Dozens of sleepers, preserved in perfect stillness, their lives entrusted to us. 

Their futures suspended in my care.

It is one thing to speak of the theory, to lecture on suspended animation, metabolic suppression, the miracle of halting decay. It is another to stand among them, row upon row, watching faint trails of frost bloom across glass like spiderwebs, and know that behind each pane lies a beating heart slowed to a whisper. And breaths that could stretch across centuries.

I told the staff it was routine. That the system checks were ordinary, the vitals stable, the suspensions seamless. That was a lie, though not one I will ever confess aloud.

Because one pod is not ordinary. Subject: Nathan Howard. Young Adult Male with a Military Background. 

The vitals should have been quiet, nearly flat, the barest embers of life banked low by cryostasis. Instead, the monitors sang. A heartbeat strong enough to rattle the readouts, neural activity pulsing at a frequency that should be impossible under suspension.

At first, I assumed error…a calibration fault, a line of code misfiring. But I checked…and then checked again. Triple-confirmed across every terminal. The numbers were consistent, the anomaly was real and even more incredible than I had first imagined.

Bone density off every chart, as though his very skeleton were cast from some indestructible alloy. Radiation uptake flickers on the readout…and then vanishes, metabolized faster than the machine can log. Even the energy shielding reads odd, as though his very tissues rejected even the touch of outside energies.

If I didn't know better, I'd say Vault-Tec had engineered him as a weapon, not a resident.

But still, what am I to make of it? Vault-Tec's documentation promised preservation, nothing more. A controlled slumber. Yet here is life burning just as bright under ice as it did before it was frozen. 

A subject who refuses to quiet down entirely like the others.

I marked the variance as routine and logged it as stable, for there was no need to stir curiosity in the staff. They were still dazzled, still eager to believe this was the triumph we were promised. To mention it now would plant questions I cannot answer. So the burden stays with me, as all true burdens of command must.

And yet, even the world outside this vault does not let me forget.

This morning, a couple of hours before the door sealed, a reminder flickered across my terminal: Submit regular pod status reports to Overseer 31. 

Overseer 31. Who was that? Not even I knew, much less why they should be concerned about my Vault's mission.

Another Vault-Tec appointee, perhaps, but why the secrecy? I know nothing of them… not their Vault, not their purpose, not even their name. A faceless superior and an unseen hand.

It grates at me. 

I am the Overseer of Vault 111. This Vault is my responsibility, my command. To be ordered to send reports to a stranger whose authority is unquestionable yet invisible… it unsettles me more than I care to admit.

And what will Overseer 31 make of Subject Nathan Howard? If I log the anomaly truthfully, it will raise alarms. It may draw scrutiny, intervention. If I conceal it, I risk discovery later… and Vault-Tec is not forgiving. Already, on the very first day, I am forced to choose between honesty and self-preservation.

Sometimes I think the reports are read the moment I send them, as if someone is waiting on the other side of the screen.

I find myself now lingering in the cryo-wing even after the staff are dismissed. Watching that one pod, frost crystals glinting like diamonds on glass, the faint glow of monitors casting the chamber in cold light. 

He sleeps, and yet… he lives as though he were awake.

What secrets lie in that frozen body? Did Vault-Tec know? Is this their design, or something gone awry? Why place such a subject here, in my care, without explanation?

For a moment, I thought I saw his eyes move under the frost…watching me. I shivered and turned away, forcing myself back to the terminal.

Now back, I sit here in my office, the silence pressing heavily, and I feel the walls of this place differently than they do for my staff. For them, it is safety. For me, it is weight, responsibility and expectation. 

A steel door locked between us and the world we left behind, and a faceless Overseer above me, watching through my reports.

I told myself, when I accepted this position, that I would be master of this Vault. That I would hold dominion over these lives, shepherd them through trial into triumph. But already, on the very first day, I see it clearly. 

Vault 111 keeps secrets even from its Overseer.

The staff will wake tomorrow with smiles, ready for their shifts, ready to count the days down to one-hundred-and-eighty.

But tonight, when I close my eyes, I know what I will see: frost, glass…and the heartbeat of a man who refuses to sleep.

Day One final statement: To those who might end up awakening in centuries yet unimagined, if you find this recording, know that your sacrifice paved the way for humanity's survival and proved that Vault-Tec was right.

————————————————————————

MC'S POV

The first thing I felt after what seemed like the blink of an eye was vibration.

A low thrum, steady as a heartbeat that wasn't mine, crawling up from the floor and burrowing into my bones. The cold still had its claws in me, sunk deep, but it was loosening…one shiver, one twitch at a time, like ice melting under a hidden flame.

Then came the hiss.

The pod's seals cracked with a sigh, white vapor spilling out like the dying exhalation of a giant. My lungs tore for air, dragging it in too fast, too sharp, coppered with rust, and my body drank it greedily.

Might've been the survival instincts of an enhanced body kicking in, but it wasn't some elegant rebirth. No gentle awakening, no angelic chorus.

This was violent and beautiful in its brutality, like drowning in reverse. Every cough, every spasm, every rasp of breath seemed to pull the Vault toward me, the air thickening, charged with my presence before I even realized I could feel it.

The glass in front of me blurred, then bled clear. My vision swam, my head pounding with a rhythm all my own and then, like opening a door to the first dawn of the world, I saw it…the Vault.

Stainless steel walls that didn't shine but swallowed the light whole. Consoles pulsing with that sickly, artificial white blue color scheme. Everything looked untouched, too clean, too sterile, like no time had passed at all.

And thanks to my previous effort, I knew it hadn't been more than a couple of days, just until the Vault's human activity had reached its lowest point.

I dragged my eyes to face ahead, and there she was. Nora, still sealed and still beautiful in her stillness. Not far from her, Shaun, tiny in his special pod, fragile, but alive.

Their breath fogged faint halos against the glass…fragile, fleeting, but proof that they weren't completely frozen.

My fingers curled into a fist, but my body felt alien as I tried to move. I swung one leg over the pod's lip, then the other, my feet landing softly on the metal floor.

The echo of that step rang out, not too loud even in the silence, but enough to startle my senses and prompt me to freeze mid-breath.

Nothing. No alarms or rushing footsteps coming to investigate my early coughs, just the endless hum of machinery, steady as the grave.

Even in this stifled gloom, my eyes adjusted easily. Shadows held no mystery for me anymore, I could see colorless shapes forming in them, faint heat patterns bleeding off warm bodies, motion tracing across my vision like ghostly afterimages. 

My ears filtered everything, the clink of keys, the faint stutter of an anxious guard patrolling a nearby hall, the subtle distinction between sleeping and trying to sleep from even further chambers. 

Thanks to my Night Person Perk, the night, or what passed for it in this place, was mine.

I straightened slowly, vertebrae crackling back into place, lungs learning to breathe again to the rhythm of the Vault. Behind me, my pod hissed shut, the sound final, like it was swallowing my old life whole and telling me that there was no way back.

The chamber stretched out before me, rows of metal coffins, each holding a known neighbor or a stranger that Vault-Tec had selected from the city of Concord. 

So many lives were dangling on the mercy of Vault-Tec's machines. But mine was awake now. Moving, breathing and I would not waste the opportunity I had.

That said, as I ventured out of the Cryo-pods chamber, the echo of footsteps reached me before the man himself. Hollow, hurried taps echoing down the sterile corridor, bouncing between steel and concrete. 

I flattened against the wall, more out of precaution than necessity, pulse steady and every nerve wired to the rhythm of the sound.

Then he appeared…a lone scientist, clipboard clutched like a shield, head buried in notes. But it wasn't the man that caught my eye. It was the Pip-Boy glinting on his wrist…or should I say, my Pip-Boy.

It didn't take thought, only motion. My hand shot out, casually clamping over his mouth, before easily dragging him sideways into the shadows. 

His gasp barely reached his throat before my arm twisted… sharp, precise… and the crunch of vertebrae echoed louder than the clipboard I caught before it reached the floor. His weight sagged into one of my arms, dead before his body realized it.

But I didn't spare him a glance as I pried the Pip-Boy free.

The device latched onto my arm with a mechanical click, fitting so nicely as if it had been waiting all this time to come home. The screen flared to life, casting my face in a faint green light. Vital signs scrolled across: heart rate, respiration, temperature. My life, digitized, measured, displayed back at me.

But not only that, thanks to its sensitive sensors, I got a quick glance at how exceptional my body was. 

Finally.

My thumb danced across the interface…menus, maps, readouts. Every flick of the wrist revealed more…every option another door unlocked in my head. I had dreamt of this moment, replayed it a thousand ways, and now here it was: real, solid, humming on my arm. 

The vault itself reduced to data, to code I could shape with my fingertips thanks to my maxed out Intelligence. I could've laughed right then and there, if not for the corpse cooling behind me and the silence I wanted to preserve in these tunnels.

But the Pip-Boy wasn't just a recorder of life signs and blueprints. Thanks to its Assisted Targeting System, or just V.A.T.S, it was also an extension of my senses. 

I could trace the paths of motion before they happened. Boosting my aim by calculating angles, or timing my strikes with data that I could feel in my bones. Every twitch, every shift in posture, every heartbeat became a marker. 

The Pip-Boy highlighted them, silently, invisibly, but still very significantly. Targets, weak points, vectors of motion…they all pulsed in my mind's eye, color-coded in a spectrum only I could perceive.

With V.A.T.S. active, the world slowed into data points. Every motion broke into frames I could dissect, every weak spot pulsed with quiet certainty. It wasn't just targeting assistance…it was foresight digitized.

And so, more than satisfied for now, I moved on, quick and precise, until a terminal blinked awake at my touch. The Vault-Tec logo mocked me in its sterile and smug colors, muscle memory carrying me through lines of code. 

The screen spat back lines of text:

SECURITY PROTOCOL: DENIED.

OVERRIDE: GRANTED.

VIDEO SURVEILLANCE: OFFLINE.

DOOR ACCESS: MANUAL.

Each green flicker rippled across my reflection in the glass, like the system itself was bowing its head. Each keystroke erased another eye, another ear, until the vault grew blinder by the second.

Then came the registry. Rows of names and glowing dots filled the screen, a constellation of the living. With guards circling their patrols, scientists about to change their shifts and maintenance workers dozing in their quarters. 

But one dot pulsing brighter than the rest. The Overseer was flagged as ACTIVE.

"There you are." I whispered, lips curling in something between a smile and a snarl. "Time to take control of MY vault."

And yes, I was calm with that statement. No guilt or hesitation, but honest to God, calm. Like the Vault itself had my name carved on its front door.

The future of Vault-Tec's little experiment still played in my head. Dwindling rations, whispered arguments, paranoia creeping like a poison, until the inevitable… starvation, madness, rebellion and death. 

They were already dead the moment the steel door sealed us all down here. I'm just… accelerating and easing the process. Turning chaos into clean and merciful order. 

I know how that sounds…and yes, it's part of my coping process…but it still really is the most humane treatment I could currently think of giving to those that were fine with turning me into a lab rat.

Better this way… how should I put it… the boogie man in the night than the rats devouring each other in this cage.

Regardless, as the first guard rounded a corner that would lead to me. I could sense his boots thumping against the cold floor with careless confidence birthed from it still being the early days of his duty. Broad shoulders, relaxed posture, flashlight swinging lazily across the corridor. 

I pause, pressed to the wall again, with my eyes narrowing and gazing past the shadows. 

Timing, it always had everything to do with timing. I took note of every twitch, the tilt of his head, the way his hand brushes the holster at his side, the brief hitch of his breath. And when I finally strike, it's fluid, a motion as if it was rehearsed countless times in the silence of my mind. 

Distance barely mattered anymore whenever I put my Blitz perk to good use, my body closed the space between thought and action in a blink. Like I could teleport in a blink of an eye, channeling the momentum of my longer sprints into unrelenting strikes.

One heartbeat, and I was already there.

My hand immediately clamped over his mouth, fingers pressing hard enough to silence instinctive gasps. The other arm slides under his shoulder, dragging him into shadow.

The lanyard around his neck… his own hubris… becomes my weapon. One careful tug, and he goes still. The Pip-Boy hummed faintly, just registering the spike in biometrics that only I could monitor now. 

'Another down… just a few more to go.' I think while exhaling in silence.

Some more steps forward and another guard appears in my radar. Crouched low, timing each step like before, I strike with a sudden jerk, forearm pressing against the base of his neck pressed on a nearby wall. 

A snap came followed by a body folding into shadows, before silence reclaimed the hall again.

One by one, the rest of the patrols were neutralized. Each guard appears where I've already expected them to be, steps counted, posture noted. Crouched, lunging, reaching for their weapons before any unwanted shots were fired… none escaped my attention. 

Each strike was as precise as I could perform, forearms against windpipes, ribs and limbs broken or twisted, unprotected heads splattered on the ground just as a nearby valve released some loud steam. 

By the time the last hall was cleared, the corridors were mine. 

They never heard me coming. My Ninja Perk made it all feel almost like I had years of conditioning baked into my very marrow, making my movements automatic. No wasted motion, no hesitation. Just decisive, silent execution. 

I wasn't just sneaking, I was erasing.

The sleeping quarters came next, they were worse…don't get me wrong, definitely easier, but a bit more intimate. 

Rows of bunks, bodies stretched in slumber, their breaths rise and fall in a quiet rhythm, oblivious to the shadow moving between them. One scientist murmurs nonsense in his sleep, turning half onto his side. 

I watch, noting the curve of his neck, the tension in his shoulder, the flutter of fingers in dreams. At least I was sure he wasn't faking it in order to lure me into a trap.

Gliding forward, my hands moved with surgical precision. A pillow over a mouth first, to muffle instinctive cries. A shard of broken glass pressed to the throat, a cold, precise tool. He twitches once, and then stillness. 

One life ended mid-dream, a clean execution no one else notices.

Next, a smaller researcher, delicate and unaware, wrapped in a thin blanket. 

To some, sleep was sacred. But to me, thanks to my Mister Sandman perk, it was vulnerability distilled into one still moment. Better they never woke to tempt me to get creative with my kills.

I linger for a heartbeat longer, tracing the line of her jaw, the rise and fall of her chest. One hand on her shoulder, guiding, steady. The other presses a fingertip against the carotid, just enough. 

Her twitching stops as her dream is never completed.

The silence afterward was heavier than any scream could have been. The faint tang of blood mixes with the sterile scrub of recycled air. Yet the room feels… ordered, balanced and if anything…controlled.

I straighten, adjusting my Pip-Boy, letting the moment pass like water off stone.

Agility, strength, perception, and patience all converge…each muscle, wire and tendon humming in perfect sync. Not to keep tooting my own horn here, but right now I was both a ghost and predator, methodical as a surgeon and relentless as a storm.

By the time I leave the quarters, the room holds only bodies, neat and inert. No screams, no chaos, only the quiet hum of the Vault.

'Just one more to go.' I told myself after quickly adjusting my Pip-boy.

Fortunately, to remediate my growing boredom over the past easy kills, the Overseer wasn't asleep. But sadly for him he wasn't even hiding either.

When I found him, he was hunched over a workbench in his private office, tools scattered, coolant canisters stacked like offerings. The weapon in his hands gleamed with frost-lined coils, an ugly thing half-born of vanity and geniality.

The Cryolator. Vault 111's little secret…or should I call it, this men's pet project.

I stepped forward from the shadows, intentionally drawing his attention, and just as intended he jerked upright, the rifle clutched tight against his chest. 

His eyes went wide at the sight of me awake, breathing and standing where no one but he should be.

"Stay back!" He barked, though his voice cracked under the weight of it, probably trying to alert any security that might hear him.

I almost laughed looking at this sorry sight before me.

Instead, I tilted my head, studying the weapon the way only my Gun Nut perk allowed. "The Cryolator. Impressive in theory. A portable freeze chamber, condensed into a gun."

He flinched at how casually I named it.

"But it's not ready, is it?" I continued, calm, conversational. "The seals aren't reinforced. The compression chamber still leaks. You're running coolant through an unlined feed. Pull the trigger, and best-case scenario, it hisses mist. Worst-case? You lose the use of your hands."

His grip faltered, just for a heartbeat, but pride shoved him forward. He raised it, leveled the barrel at me, finger trembling on the trigger.

The Cryolator whined, almost coughing, and frost bled from its vents with a pitiful sputter. The Overseer hissed in pain as his glove frosted stiff, the weapon kicking back with nothing but a hollow rattle.

And so I moved in a blink, my hand crushed his wrist, forcing the useless gun aside. The other grasped on his throat, lifting him off the floor with no more effort than shaking a curtain from its hook. 

His legs kicked against the steel, but my grip didn't falter. His eyes bulged, realization dawning too late, he'd put his faith in a broken promise, in an unfinished toy.

A few brief minutes of intimidation was all I needed to learn what I wanted. The snap of his neck that followed was quieter than the hum of engines that permeated the vault.

And so I let his body drop, just as casually as I had picked him up.

The Cryolator now lay beside him, still hissing frost like a dying animal. I spared it one last glance, already imagining how it might actually work in the right hands. 

Which definitely translated to my hands.

But I didn't linger on that though for long, for my work here was still far from done. 

In the next couple of days, bodies became weight to be moved and nutrition to be managed in case my supplies ended before the radiation outside reached safer levels, stories to be rewritten once I decided to wake everyone up from their cryostassis pods. 

Consoles were wiped, fingerprints scrubbed clean. The Overseer's terminal blinked empty, a pale green glow the only trace left behind. Every corner, every crevice, I checked. Call me paranoid all you want, but I prefer to be vigilant. 

Especially once I discovered that the Overseer had noticed how abnormal I was and tried to keep it a secret from everyone, his staff and superiors alike.

My perception sliced through the Vault's sterile veil like a scalpel. If someone stumbled here centuries from now, they'd find only clean and empty halls, vacant bunks, and stainless steel reflecting nothing but their own images. 

I kept looking for any signs of some hidden sections where someone else might've been hiding, either because somehow they noticed my slaughter of everyone or just some unknown group who were tasked with keeping watch on everything going on at Vault 111.

There was no margin for error. 

I left no witnesses or evidence…no blood or broken equipment…it was as if the vault had never been occupied since its construction.

By the time I finished, the Vault felt…mine. 

————————————————————————

In the end, by the time my first week of solitude in Vault 111 came to a close, I had already perfected the art of being effective while staying all alone. 

Every record I tampered with, every Cryostasis log I carefully doctored and rerouted to the Overseer of Vault 31… Bud Askins, if my memory serves right, whether still in flesh or already riding around in a chrome roomba… was one more stitch in the illusion that nothing here had gone awry.

But the Vault itself? It had seams.

And it was in those seams that I found them, forgotten corridors, discontinued sectors, places that had been walled off or simply abandoned when blueprints met budgets. 

No secret cadre of Vault-Tec voyeurs waiting in the shadows, no clever experiment nested within an experiment. Just unfinished space, empty frames of steel, conduits left without purpose, rooms half-born and left to rot.

The kind of places no one would think to search. And precisely the kind of places I could make mine until I managed to sell the lie that we would all wake up in the future with everything empty.

These hollow places called to me.

Not because they were glamorous, they weren't. They were ugly, skeletal things, more suggestion than structure. Exposed beams, wiring that led nowhere, bulkheads left unbolted. A corpse of an idea, abandoned when Vault-Tec decided "good enough" meant "seal it and forget the rest."

But where Vault-Tec saw waste, I saw opportunity.

One chamber still held the husk of an unfinished Cryostasis pod, little more than a glass shell and coolant lines. 

Useless to them, sure. But to me? A fridge waiting to be reborn. 

I stood there for a long while, palm pressed against its cold glass. I could almost see my reflection in it…pale, unshaven, eyes ringed by sleepless nights, but still keeping my overall handsome appearance. 

For just a second I imagined myself inside, suspended, preserved, left to drift again. Maybe that would've been easier, but then my mind drifted to places like Appalachia, immediately giving me a sharp reminder that "easy" wasn't an option.

But also, another sad truth was that supplies didn't last forever, and I wasn't arrogant enough to pretend that ration packs… designed to stretch half a year for a skeleton crew… would sustain me for decades.

Even alone, hunger was a patient predator. 

When the time came, if I wasn't sleeping my way through the future, when desperation clawed, I wanted options, even if it meant tasting choices no sane man would put on the table. And thanks to my Ghoulish and Rad Resistant perks, I knew I could stomach what others couldn't.

Regardless of that grim fact, I lingered there, listening to the hum of the Vault echo through the metal bones around me. The silence between those mechanical sighs was heavier than it had any right to be. I'd never noticed how loud loneliness could sound until I had a whole underground tomb to myself.

Still, it was far too soon to have any sort of mental breakdown. 

Other rooms offered scraps of potential for different uses.

A half-wired storeroom, already plumbed for ventilation, perfect to stash the gear I stripped from the guards. Riot shields, pistols, armor plating… clumsy toys to be wasted on their eventual mutiny, were valuable raw materials for me. 

The Vault didn't have a workbench yet, but my hands itched to build one. To take apart, to reassemble, to learn the bones of every weapon until steel and circuitry bent the way I wanted.

And from my brief exchange with this Vault's previous Overseer, I claimed a prize I had expected to inherit from the moment I step inside this place: the Overseer's pet project, the Cryolator.

I found it barely good enough to be called a prototype, schematics scattered in the countless logs I hacked my way through, the weapon itself was as if waiting for better hands to claim it. A marvel of overengineered ambition…liquid nitrogen tanks, unstable coolant canisters, a mockery of practicality. 

The previous Overseer must've thought himself a genius.

But staring at it now more carefully, it was crude, inefficient, but the bones were there. And so I spent hours focused over it, tracing wires, making notes, running my fingers along the contours of the freezing chamber. 

Out there, in the wasteland I hadn't yet seen or truly experienced, survival meant teeth and claws. But in here, I had the luxury to prepare and to rest without fear.

And deeper still, I found silence heavy with promise. 

Narrow chambers where no one would ever think to wander, the kind of sterile, blank rooms that begged for glass walls and humming machines. Laboratories, though not now… for I lacked the parts, the power, the data. But the thought stayed, and I had the soil to plant in the future.

Sometimes I walked those empty corridors with my eyes closed, imagining the sound of machines humming to life, the sterile smell of chemicals, the faint vibration of generators running hot. 

For a few moments, I almost fooled myself into believing it was already real. 

A place where one day I could peel apart what radiation truly did to flesh. Where ghouls might lose their rot and keep their minds. Where synths wouldn't just mimic humanity but help refine it. Where even super mutants might be shaped not as brutes but as soldiers.

That day was far…probably too far away. But imagining it gave me a strange comfort, like sketching castles in the dark when the real world gave me nothing but concrete walls.

So for now, I was just one man with stolen tools, sealed steel and the patience to wait.

But I knew myself. 

I would wait and I would build, until these forgotten halls bent to my absurd expectations.

————————————————————————

Took me a while to cover up most of this Vault's original mission, but finally I'm proud to say that I've survived the 180-day mandatory shelter period of reporting back to Vault 31 the excellent results of observing the effects of long-term cryonic stasis on unsuspecting test subjects.

Requesting an "All-Clear Signal" from Vault-Tec, which I already knew would never come, allowing the opening of the Vault. I even stretched my storytelling skills and made up a fake story about shortage of supplies and some unrest from my support and security staff. 

Nothing much different than what happened in the original canon just to play safe.

But playing safe alone wouldn't power a future, and it certainly wouldn't power a Power Armor either.

I had no delusions of stumbling across a spare fusion core tucked neatly behind a panel, or perhaps find one of the mods I used when this was just a game and I wanted to have a power armor from the get go on my casual runs, this Vault had no need for neither of them in its conception. 

But what the designers left behind for me were… old capacitors, broken reactor shielding, industrial-grade fission batteries that once powered lift machinery during this place's construction… so yeah, that was something.

None of it amounted to a proper power source on its own. But together and with my current intellect? Given enough trial and error, fire and failure somewhere that wouldn't endanger the main vault? I built something close. 

A bastardized solution to be sure, volatile and dangerous to anyone but me.

A low-yield cell made from stacked capacitors and a salvaged thermionic converter, cobbled into a lead-lined chassis I ripped from a busted panel in the forgotten spaces granted me my own custom reactor. 

She doesn't last long under pressure…maybe a minute at full burn once I turn off the coolant system I built from the cryostassis pod I worked on… but she'll push a frame to sprint, to jump, to punch through steel if the moment demands it.

Or, when discretion calls louder than fury, I can dial her down. Low-draw mode, I call it for now. Enough to keep servos alive, boost my walking and carry capacity that were already great to begin with, and keep the HUD flickering just enough to give me a better taste of my V.A.T.S.

For now she hummed like a dying generator and leaked rads like a hole in a reactor wall…which fortunately ended up working out just fine for me with my abnormal metabolism of radiation…but with constant care and timing, it works better than fine.

Of course, it wouldn't be worth much if I didn't have something to plug it into.

The idea of dragging around a full power armor frame… T-45, T-51, whatever legacy model the world left behind for me to find outside of this vault… was idiotic. Those were tanks, not tools. Gas-guzzling gods of war, meant for open battlefields and shock-and-awe deployments. 

But me? I wasn't planning to act like a soldier outside. At least not all the time, much less this soon.

So I built something else.

I built my old frame from its skeleton, sanding off the weight until it barely resembled its original inspiration. Reinforced the actuators with scavenged metal parts. Tuned the servos for silence, rerouted the control nodes, and housed it all in a frame that could pass for overengineered combat armor at a glance.

Just like my own custom reactor, it's not flashy. 

It won't stop a .50 cal at point-blank, and I'd be a fool to solely rely on it without backup. But it moves like muscle, not machine. It doesn't scream when I walk, doesn't spark when I sprint and even suppress the hum of my custom reactor. 

I can climb, crouch and move through narrow halls. Best of all, I can still disappear in it.

And when I really need to move, when I need the power of going beyond my maxed out strength stat, I switch my custom cell to Burn mode, and for sixty seconds I'm just as fast, as strong and as terrifying as any supermutant or deathclaw out there. 

It isn't perfect, but it's still a far cry from being just enough. And I made it this early on my adventure.

Which basically brings me back to my plan to go back to sleep now, since I wasn't willing to test this early if I still aged regularly on my wait to catch up to Fallout 76 time, still twenty five years from now.

Before climbing back into the cold though, I ran one more sweep. 

Rewired the security override so the security I built in the east wing would recognize only my biometric ID. Buried my tampered logs three folders deeper, hidden under dummy error reports about coolant leaks no one would ever bother to read. Even hard-locked the Overseer's office door with a manual weld, just in case some ghost in the system ever tried to override it.

Vault 111 had to stay a grave for the next 24 years.

Not a vault full of corpses to be discovered, not an open invitation for scavengers if the doors ever cracked, much less an open buffet for the institute to come in and take whatever they wanted in case my own Cryostassis pod glitched and I ended up sleeping longer than I planned.

Still, that was all great and good in theory, going through with it admittedly made me pause.

I lingered in the chamber with all the other sleeping occupants of this vault one last time, listening to the muffled sound of their slowed breaths cooling down right as they left their bodies. 

For a second, I almost wished I had someone to tell, someone to see what I'd built and what I was planning to accomplish. But the silence was absolute and it wasn't going to answer any time soon.

So I swallowed that thought, now already stripped down from all my equipment and back to just my vault jump suit, and chose my pod.

I climbed in, sealed the hatch, and let the cold crawl over me. 

My last thought before the world went dark wasn't of survival or glory, but of the possibilities that the future could offer me.

————————————————————————

The first thing I felt again was the vibration. 

The same familiar, low hum that crawled from the floor of the cryo-pod and burrowed into my bones, a steady rhythm that was not my own heartbeat, but what I came to describe as the patient breathing of the Vault. 

The cold was still there, but it had lessened enough with a final shiver that loosened its grip. My consciousness wasn't a spark igniting from a deep slumber, but a flicker, and then a full-on blaze.

I'd set my internal alarm years ago, or what felt like seconds ago. The exact day and the exact hour, all so that I wouldn't miss the window I set for myself.

The hiss of freezing gas escaping the chamber was my only greeting, a cold whisper in the admittedly tiresome sterile silence.

No panic or confusion from me, only a chilling clarity.

My eyes adjusted to the pale blue glow of the cryo-bay. 

The air was thick, recycled, but it tasted like victory. I swung my legs over the pod's lip, my movements fluid despite the years of stasis this time. 

Every muscle, every tendon, every nerve felt perfectly calibrated, a biological machine operating with quiet precision. I took a deep, deliberate breath and stepped out.

I turned to my left, the faint, shimmering fog on the glass panels still clinging to Nora and Shaun's pods. They were there, just as I'd left them decades ago. 

Nora's face was a study in serene perfection, her hair a cascade of pale gold. Shaun was tiny, a quiet little bundle frozen in time. 

Marcy, Holly, Stan and all the other neighbors from Sanctuary Hills were there too, in their respective pods, silent and safe. The dots on their terminal screen read green, stable.

So far so good.

With a final, lingering look, I turned away from them and headed for the deeper sections of the Vault. My footsteps made no sound, as my Ninja perk saw to that even without me trying. 

The corridors were now my kingdom, my realm. I navigated the labyrinthine hallways with the ease of someone walking through their own home. 

I was in a ghost ship and I was its only living soul.

I stopped before a blank wall in a disused maintenance tunnel. My Hacker perk immediately granted a quick way to bypass the panel's security I installed there myself, the terminal screen spitting out a series of green messages with each thought. 

ACCESS GRANTED. 

LOCKS DISENGAGED. 

The wall slid open with a soft hydraulic hiss, revealing my makeshift armory.

After a quick inspection, I soon confirmed it was all there. The fruits of my long, patient wait. 

My custom-built power armor frame, a sleek, deconstructed skeleton of steel and circuitry, hung from a rack like a morbid sculpture. 

Beside it, on a small, makeshift workbench, sat the ticking heart of my creation: my custom-built fission cell. A volatile, beautiful mess of capacitors, thermionic converters, and lead shielding. It still hummed with a dangerous energy, a soft crackle of contained power that spoke to me.

After I got my Pip-Boy strapped back on my arm, I donned the slim exoskeleton. 

The servos clicked softly, a perfect fit, a second skin. The HUD flickered to life, the digital world of my old life bleeding into this new, precise one. 

Grabbed the Cryolator, now the size of a pistol thanks to my own modifications, from the workbench, and noticed its polished barrel cold against my armored fingers. 

I also made sure to equip myself with a couple of customized guns and batons I looted from the security team's own arsenal.

With my gear secured, I retrieved a handful of MREs that I have saved thanks to me prioritizing the consumption of all the bodies, a few bottles of clean water and a dozen or so Stimpacks I had looted from the Vault's medical supplies. 

I made one last check of the Overseer's terminal, just to confirm if my reports to Vault 31 hadn't been answered in the last few decades. Which they weren't.

So now, I am ready.

Making my way to the Vault door, the massive gear-shaped portal that was the only thing standing between me and the end of the world. My hand lingered on the release switch after unlocking it with my Pip-boy, my mind running a final check. 

My family should be safe here for a century or two. But Kellogg would eventually show up under the orders of the institute, who by now should still be losing their minds inside their own bunker. 

So I needed a head start. I needed resources and knowledge that the Commonwealth couldn't offer me. Not yet.

My mind went back to the old world, to the game I'd admittedly played more than I ever should. 

The lore of Fallout 76. A world barely touched by the war, full of caches, technology, and information that predated the Commonwealth's slow rebuild. 

I was not a soldier running from a fight, but a tactician setting up my board. And my first move was a retreat to gain an advantage.

The main door groaned, the giant hydraulic arms hissing as they pulled it open. For a moment, a sliver of blinding, pale sunlight cut into the dark corridor. And then another, as the doors slid open entirely. 

A gust of wind, thick with dust and the scent of decay, rushed in. And that was even before taking the elevator out of this bunker.

Once the last barriers between my Vault and the outside world opened, I witnessed that it wasn't silent. It was alive. With the sound of mutated wildlife, the faint rustle of dry leaves and the low whine of a distant wind.

Mostly out of habit, I raised my arm to shield my eyes from the sun and saw that it was all still standing, albeit with the obvious signs that didn't let anyone forget that a nuclear bomb had fallen nearby.

The world was dead and alive at the same time. The houses of Sanctuary Hills were in ruins, but the trees were still standing, their branches thin and skeletal.

I took a final look at Vault 111 underneath my boots, this monument to a successful experiment. 

Then I took a step forward, the crunch of dead grass under my boots sounding almost like a muffled gunshot. 

My Pip-Boy lit up at my command, its screen a compass and a map. My destination was clear. Appalachia.

And my journey had only just begun.

————————————————————————

*Hey everyone!

Thank you for reading the first chapter of my Fallout fanfic. I hope this take of mine on the Sole Survivor's story was a welcome surprise!

I was half tempted to cram all of the plot from Fallout 76 in this chapter, but eventually decided against it, not because I love the game, but due to finding that the introduction to this story should have some space to properly breathe and set the tone.

To my returning readers: I'm so sorry for the long wait! Life has been busy, but your patience and support mean the world to me.

To new readers: Welcome! I'm thrilled to have you here. This story is a passion project that for now isn't part of my main fanfics, so despite planning to update as consistently as I can, I can't in good conscience make any promises other than I will try to do my best.

By the way, your feedback is a huge motivation for me. If you have any thoughts on the chapter, or ideas for powers, plot points, and character pairings, please share them. I love hearing from you all, and it genuinely helps me improve.

Thanks for your time, and stay safe. Hope you have a fantastic day!