Chapter Text
There was a time before the bombs fell, a time when there was an entire planet that people were free to travel. There were cars that could take people miles across the ground, huge airplanes to carry people through the sky, ships that could float on the water and transport people to new lands. Ashton made one of those once, out of a broken, plastic food tray from the cafeteria. He put it in the sink, filled with water, and placed his toy alien on top of it. The sink was barely big enough to fit the tray, but Ashton still liked to imagine that it was an ocean, and he was the alien, and one day, he could sit on a real boat and travel the ocean to somewhere new.
There was a time before the bombs fell, a time when everyone would’ve been allowed to go outside, not just the runners. There were special parks, green plants covering the ground and tall mountains that you could climb. Ashton remembers hearing about how they live under a forest in the mountains, has seen pictures of the trees and animals that used to cover the terrain. He wonders what it looks like now. Scarred and barren, just a big pile of dirt? Or are there still remnants of the life that once was, tree trunks laying around like match sticks dropped from their box?
There was a time before the bombs fell, or so people say. They teach it in school. The elders pass down stories from the elders before them. But Ashton’s never met anyone who was alive before the bombs fell. It’s almost as if no one was.
He knows there’s something outside of the vault. People go on runs to scout the area every once in awhile. But are there oceans? Is the sky blue? What’s left of the factory above that shields the entrance to their vault? The runners say that it’s a desert, everything is brown and dry - there’s no water, no blue anything, no signs of life except for lizards the size of humans and large flying insects that will inject poison into you like the Med-X Ashton had to use once when he cut his hand and needed stitches. He figures that the lizards and insects are a tall tale, though, a story created to scare the children.
Ashton supposes he’ll never know if they are real. He lives in Vault 31, and things are good. He has food and water, a place to sleep with clean sheets, his mother and father just down the hall, and no real worries about the fabled irradiated wasteland outside.
—
Calum holds his hand up to his forehead to shield the sun from his eyes as he peers up at the head of the brachiosaurus statue. Micheal’s silhouette perched on top of the stone dinosaur is defined against the bright sky, covered in an ever-lingering haze from the radiation trapped in the atmosphere.
“You gonna sit up there all day? Or are you ready to head out?” Calum calls out, readjusting the strap of his backpack on his shoulder.
Michael lets his binoculars fall to his chest, their strap gently pulling at the back of his neck. He glances down at Calum before taking one final look out at the horizon and sliding down the long neck of the dinosaur.
Calum picks up Michael’s bag, prepared to hold the weight of several supplies to last them a few days in the wasteland. Instead, he feels nothing but a pound or two, and notes how flimsy the pack is without supplies to give it shape. “This is all you’re taking?”
“We’ll find something this time,” Michael grins and takes the pack from Calum. “I promise.”
Calum can’t help but smile as he rolls his eyes. They haven’t found anything sustainable in months. Trip after trip, they come home empty. And yet, Michael continues to maintain a positive attitude that there’s something left out there, even through the I-don’t-give-a-shit exterior that would fool anyone outside of their camp.
And, oh, how Calum loves their camp. A pre-war park on top of a hill that overlooks the City, huge dinosaur statues littered the area that they had helped shape into one of the Midwest’s most prominent trading posts. That’s what they like to say, at least. They hadn’t been to many other trading posts. There was little protection at the camp, but with only one way up and down the hill, they were able to hold off any hostiles, be it raiders or a rabid coyote. The occasional battle was worth life outside of the City, Michael and Calum always agreed on that.
They’d grown up in the City, a huge camp down below with tall fences crafted of the junk scavenged from the area, designed to keep people out as well as in. After the first settlers had finished gathering supplies from what was once a pre-war city, they decided it was safest that no one leave again, unless they wanted to leave for good. They had discovered how to create a water purifying machine, which is just as precious as the gold that once found to the west.
Calum and Michael grew up watching traders stop by the City, giving the inhabitants everything they needed in exchange for a few containers of purified water. The traders were never allowed to stay, and any of the citizens that they saw leave were never seen again. Calum’s thankful that exile and the unknown never scared Michael, because when they were 17, he showed up in Calum’s room in the middle of the night and nearly kidnapped him. They ran from the City that night, tired of being trapped within the walls and ready to adventure. And, then they nearly got murdered by a yao guai, a grossly mutated creature that once would’ve been called a bear. Thankfully, a woman in black leather boots and a dusty cowboy hat heard their screams and rushed to the scene, shooting the creature dead with three precise shots. She led them up a hill to her dinosaur camp and adopted them as her own.
“Where to?” Michael asks, breaking Calum from his thoughts.
They start heading to the horse pen. “Stonefaces?”
Michael lets out a big, happy laugh. He loves Stonefaces. It was a tourist attraction before the war, and it still is one now. Plenty of travelers and raiders are drawn to the huge faces carved into the side of a mountain, which means plenty of standoffs and some good loot left behind, occasionally. Michael’s favorite part are the small battles themselves, though - he loves getting the first shot on a raider who has probably had it coming for years. The pair have ventured to the location so many times for fun and out of curiosity that they know the area inside and out, all of the best spaces for protection and the best lookouts. They’ve never lost a confrontation at Stonefaces, because they have the upper hand before anyone else can even suspect it.
“Let’s go, then,” Calum nods, finishes securing his backpack to the horse and then swings his body up onto the horse’s back.