Melting Steel ➼ Fallout

Five

❝ Who am I to die for all my fucking pride ❞

➼ Keaton Henson

I wake on a stiff mattress with a pounding head. I'm quick to sit up, my mind covered with a layer of dust but I'm very aware of where I am and the events that brought me here. Maxson and the synth boy that he believes is my son.

A tray sits on the bedside table, containing the slop they call food around here and a metal cup filled with water. I raise the water to my nose before I drink, eyeing my small surroundings as I do, willing my heart to stay steady. I need to get out of this place.

I stand without touching the food, having no stomach for it. I straighten my clothing and move to the door. I press against it but find it locked. Suddenly my heart is in my throat, clogging my airway as I shove against the door. I'm stuck in here, in this small place with not enough air. There's nowhere to move, no place to escape. A sob claws its way up my throat as I uselessly pound at the steel door, lungs shuddering, heart squeezing.

I need to get out, now. I can't... I can't be here.

The door flies open and I stumble into the hall but there's no air here either. It reeks of steel and oil. I fall through the hall, unaware of anything around me apart from the erratic beat of my heart. It took me months of slow exposure to this place to tolerate it. I can't be a prisoner, I can't be caged, forced into the dark. Not again, not ever again.

In a past life it was too many people, a sea of faces all looming and surrounding me, closing in on me. Then it was the space, the enclosure of the vault, the cold steel, the gasping breaths. Screaming until my throat was raw with no one to help me, no one to hand me the key and show me the exit.

No, never again.

They don't let me leave, soldiers bar the exits, herding me like a wild animal until I land in the circle of windows overlooking the skeletal Boston, clouds of pure white cluttered in the blue sky.

It's not enough, it will never be enough but I grasp onto the railing and force air into my body as I collapse by the windows, looking out into the wide expanse of air.

"I apologise," comes a voice from behind me but I know he followed me. I'm always aware of the shadows at my back and Maxson is one of them. "I had hoped to be there before you awoke to take you to... a better place." I don't reply, simply kneel by the windows and draw in shaky breaths, feeling both pathetic and murderous. He knows what it's like for me, I drilled it into his skull that I hate this place, hate the narrow bunks, the layered walls, the rare exits. He showed me ways outside, he showed me where I could go to escape. He knows, yet he locked me up. Does he truly think I would hurt anyone here? People I once called my friends?

"Shove your pity up your arse," I manage to grit out, shaking the panic from my mind. I press my forehead to the metal bar that separates me from the window and the outside, gripping it until my knuckles turn white. Maxson doesn't answer.

Usually my language would gift me with his trademark scowl until I tossed him a smile that would soften those sharp features. But I haven't genuinely smiled for the longest time, not since coming face to face with my real son and Danse's name on that fucking list.

"Where's the boy?" I ask, my lips unable to form the words 'son' when referring to him.

"Still asleep," Maxson murmurs. "He has a tendency to oversleep, I believe it's due to the fact he stays up all night reading comic books. The soldiers have taken quite the liking to him." The laughter that bursts from my lips is cold, heartless. It's a cackle of mock joy.