Melting Steel ➼ Fallout

Six

❝ I had all and then most of you, some and now none of you ❞

➼ Lord Huron

He sits at one of the benches in the mess hall, his legs swinging as he shovels porridge into his mouth, nodding intently in answer to whatever the soldier is saying before him. A mop of thick black hair falls over his forehead and he blows it from his eyes absently.

Everything within me freezes upon seeing him, his lanky form, his wide grin, his enthusiastic, silver eyes. And for a single moment I forget that he was created in a laboratory as a sick experiment, I forget that he's not my son, the boy I had searched for through blood and pain. I forget, then I remember and my heart squeezes and I nearly run from the room. But Maxson is beside me and his presence draws the attention of everyone in the room and suddenly the little boy's eyes are on me and I can't seem to recall how to breathe.

He stands from his seat, recognition spreading across his features and his mouth opens in shock. I can't seem to move as he rushes towards me and wraps his arms around my waist, a sob leaving his throat. But I think I've fallen into a state of disbelief as I stand there, a numb hand resting limply on one of his shoulders.

I had given everything of myself in search of this little boy and now he's here, small arms wrapped around me but I only taste bitterness in my mouth. He's not my son. He never can be. But he'll be executed if he stays in this place. Maybe I don't care, maybe I shouldn't worry what happens to a little synth boy that thinks I'm his mother. But I cared for Danse and I can't see that type of destruction again.

I shake myself from my thoughts and kneel before the boy, holding him at arm's length and studying him. I can't form any words but it seems I don't need to as words spill from his lips in a steady stream. He speaks about Maxson, the soldiers, the Prydwen, the Institute, the things he's heard about me. He talks with such bubbling excitement and I barely hear most of it. This little boy... so human, yet not. He never can be. I want to apologise to him, tell him how sorry I am that he was ever created but I can't dim that light in his eyes. Such a pure light, born from true excitement, emotion, as real as the emotion Danse once had.

"Alright, kiddo," Maxson interrupts, a light chuckle on his lips as he places a hand on the dark-haired boy's shoulder and leads him away. "Go find something useful to do." The boy begins to protest but one look from Maxson has him scurrying away.

I stay kneeled on that cold floor, a haze settling over me as I stare blankly where the boy had been. My son died when my husband died, when I died. I'm not his mother, I don't have a son. I don't have anyone.

The other soldiers shuffle around me, going about their business and ignoring the broken woman on the ground. Maxson's firm grip on my shoulder is what brings me back to myself and I lurch away from his touch, standing and brushing loose strands of hair from my eyes.

"You look like you could use a drink," he offers but I shake my head. No, a drunk stupor will only make this situation worse, will only add more confusion to my head, especially if shared with him.

"No," I simply say and lose myself in the halls, leaving him behind, brushing the synth boy from my mind. I want to go back, return to a life where simplicity was easier to grasp. But I don't know when that time was. When I was a wife? No, it wasn't in that relic of a life. Simplicity was somewhere in this wasteland but perhaps I never had it. Perhaps there was always something, a weight that was always on my shoulders.

Simply surviving is the least complicated way to live, searching for my next meal, my next shelter, fighting, breathing, nothing more. But then again, I've never been a survivor, have I? That word makes no sense to me because there has never been a time where I have 'survived' and some part of me hadn't died because of it.

No, there is no simplicity in my world, there is only the next looming mountain to climb, the next river to push through, struggling to not get dragged under.

Being a survivor is not my victory, it's my downfall.