Leaving The Vault

Chapter 2 - Home Sweet Home

I fall to my knees, I feel the tears going down my face. My mouth is slightly open, as the tears fall from my face. My whole life has been leading up to this moment. Rebuilding Appalachia, rebuilding America. I don't think any of us were ready to face the real world. 

"Micheal, are you ok?" My mom crouches next to me with tears in her eyes. She hugs me in comfort, "Everything will be ok Mike." 

"Where do y'all wanna go?" Dad wipes away his tears, he turns and looks down at us.

"Home." Mom stands up, "I want to go home Tom. I want to see what happened to my childhood house." 

Mom was born in a small town called Flatwoods, not to far from the vault. Dad was born in Norfolk, down by the bay. We get up, turn around and see the vault door close. This door is designed and built to withstand a direct hit from a nuclear bomb, this door protected us from the outside world. I turn around and look around, this is my home now. I will build the future that I have dreamed for myself. I look down the hill and see smoke, and people. fellow vault dwellers? We predicted that people would try to build right outside the vault but I didn't think there would be farmland down the hill from the vault. We were told it was built in a forest, they didn't mention it was the edge of the forest though. I see a path down the hill, but I also see the sidewalk going to the right side if the vault. 

"Go down the hill, I want to know what who those people are. I bet they are fellow vault dwellers, but I want to make sure." Dad says, pointing down the hill. he leads us down the hill.

 On the way down I see a cabin on the left of us, I see dwellers patching it up. That's a nice spot, it looks like it's looking over a pond. We are halfway down the hill when a deer jumps across us, I almost grab my rifle to shoot it. Dad stops me.

"Save your bullets for something more scary." He's right, who knows what the radiation did to the animals, or the people. 

We walk further down the hill and.... 

OOF

"OH MY GOD MICHAEL! ARE YOU OK?!" My rushes to help me help. 

I look back and see a that I tripped on a root that is sticking out. "Damn that fucking hurt."

I turn my body so I'm sitting on my butt, I look at my body. I don't see any bleeding, I'm lucky. 

"You look fine, no bleeding, no scapes, no bruises... not yet anyways. You're lucky." Mom pats my back and helps me up. 

Dad doesn't say anything but  I can see in his eyes that he was worried about me. We continue down the hill and we make it to a road. Across from it is the little settlement that the fellow vault dwellers are making. 

"Mike!" I look and see Skyler running up to me. The short brunette with brown eyes and simi tan skin jumps and hugs me.

Her last name is Anderson. Her family was one of the first families to leave with the Overseer. "Sky, what is going on here?" 

"Well, my daddy was a botanist before the war and he said this is good farmin land. So, we are settlin hea. See that house down yonder?" I look over to where she is pointing, it's a two story farmhouse. "That is our house now. Daddy and Charles, who is our security detail, cleared out the house." She smiles thinking about Charles, he's a good looking guy. A typical American boy, 5'11, dirty blond hair, blue eyes, musclier, and of course the West Virginian accent. 

"I am so proud of y'all!" I hug her. "I know y'all will be happy here. Are there a lot of families here?" I ask looking around, I can tell there might be 10 different families here. 

"Yes, there is about 15 families, including mine. OH! Join us Ryder's!" She looks so happy, but...

"Thank you Sky, but I want to look around first. Mom wants to go to her childhood home before we settle." I do a nervous chuckle.