Chapter 3 : The Underworld [Fallout Fan Fiction]

Fallout 3: Chapter 3. The Underworld

Susan

[Author’s note:
This story was written as the person is experiencing the event that unfolds, and the events that unfold give the reader the option to decide what they think about what is happening.
End note.]

Susan woke up startled. She was lying on a bed in some house somewhere, anywhere. She was a bit scarred as she looked around the room that she was in. But then something was tugging at her nose and she looked down and felt tubing that was inserted into her nose. She started to pull it out, coughing and spluttering as the long tube slid through her throat and out of her nose. She threw the tubing to the ground and looked around again, her senses starting to come back to her as she observed her surroundings, still scarred as she was unaware of where she was and what sort of trouble she might have been.

She tried to roll on her side, but then she felt something else tugging at her arm, another tube. But as she reached for it to find out what it was coming from, she started to feel faint and blacked out.

When Susan started to wake up again, she first noticed that someone was standing next to her. When she started to open her eyes, which she then closed again because the light was very bright, brighter than the first time, she looked to see what or who it was that was standing next to her. When she saw him, she almost gasped in shock.

The man standing next to her bed, but not over her, was wearing beige trousers and a white T-shirt splattered with some bloodstains. He was also holding a clipboard and facing a window, whilst writing down something. But the shocking thing was that different parts of his face, and even his arms, were missing. His skin which should have been pink was a dull yellow colour and there were several patches of his skin which were missing altogether, and she could see the exposed muscles and veins. He was wearing a pair of reading glasses and his eyes; his pupils were paler than they should have been and the whites of his eyes were darker and slightly bloodshot.

She was looking at a Ghoul, for the first time in her short life she was confronted with something she had heard horror stories about; insane and deranged monsters that’d sooner eat you than anything else. But this was not one of those Ghouls, as for one he looked perfectly sane and intelligent. She then looked at the window he was looking through, and saw something which looked a lot like the things she had heard about, although this one was glowing green, wasn’t wearing any clothing and looked almost like a skeleton.

Because she was in a very weak state, and the shock was too much for her frail body to sustain, she blacked out once more.

When Susan woke up once more, another Ghoul was standing next to her bed, this time it was standing over her, watching her. This time it was what looked like a woman. Then she spoke in a hoarse voice, her vocal cords having been exposed and deteriorated.

“You’re lucky to be alive. Most of you Softskins don’t survive this long, but you got lucky when Tykor found you. I’ll bring you something to eat.”

Each time she spoke, it sounded almost like she didn’t have any breath left in her lungs; not that she was constantly gasping for air, but she spoke like she couldn’t get enough air to get her words out properly. When the Ghoul left to get Susan her food, her face was blank and speechless. She couldn’t believe that a Ghoul was capable of intelligent speech, even kindness.

When the Ghoul returned with a platter with some food and water, Susan was almost compelled to say that she wasn’t hungry, but the Ghoul placed the platter on the table next to Susan’s bed and left to return to do whatever it was that she did. She was still a little disgusted and shocked by what was happening. She almost wished she could see a real human at that moment to prove to her that she wasn’t in hell.

Almost as if to answer her prayers, a man walked through the door in front of her bed. He was carrying another man in his arms, but instead of placing him gently on a bed as Susan thought he would, he threw him down on the steel operating table in the middle of the room. The ghoul wearing glasses was following him close behind, taking a pair of rubber gloves out of a nearby desk and slapping them on. The man who had just slapped the other man down like a corpse not worthy of respect, spoke to the Ghoul in a calm and friendly tone, but still keeping his eyes on the body.

“Well Doctor Barrows, just as you asked. One male human, who’s wounded but at least he’s alive this time.”

The previously thought dead body had just moved slightly, which made Susan look stunned, and the man standing over him punched him in the face so hard she swore she heard his jaw break, which made Susan shriek in horror.

“Oh yes Tykor, your ‘catch’ has woken out of her coma. I don’t think she likes us very much.”

Tykor turned to the female Ghoul, who had just spoken to him, and nodded at her smiling. He then turned back to Doctor Barrows and patted him on the shoulder, who nodded back at him while picking up a syringe. Then Tykor focused his attention on Susan, his face stern and slightly terrifying for Susan, and walked over to her bed. He nodded his head towards the still untouched platter of food. When he opened his mouth and spoke, his tone was gruff yet clear and practically dripping with disgust, as if the same creature he was looking at was less worthy of breathing than the monster standing over the soon to be dead body on the operating table.

“Why haven’t you touched the food that Nurse Graves gave you? Does she happen to put you off your food?”

Completely missing all the danger signs, Susan whispered to Tykor, saying that she could throw up with the way that they disgust her and asked him how he could even stand to be near those ‘creatures’. Tykor sighed and took the platter of food back off of the side table, and walked towards the door. Before he walked through it, he told Nurse Graves that he would be upstairs in Carol’s Place if they needed him.

When Susan turned back to watch the Doctor, she fainted as she saw him cutting up the paralyzed corpse of the one Tykor had brought in and blood spurting out from the cuts.

As Susan woke up again, she noticed that someone was changing the sheets on her bed. When she opened her eyes, she realized to her horror that “Nurse” Graves was the one changing her sheets and tucking her in. She really didn’t like that and she wanted her to stop immediately.

“Don’t touch me, you ZOMBIE!!!”

Nurse Graves jumped back in shock, not expecting such a hostile reaction. Doctor Barrows looked up from his research with a look of shock and curiosity and Tykor, who was helping Doctor Barrows, also looked up but with a look of disgust and pure malice, as if she had just said the gravest insult in the history of man, which in his eyes was the gravest insult to ever be told to or about a Ghoul.

Tykor marched to her bed, whipped off her sheets, picked her up in his arms and carried her through the doors. Susan was even more shocked than ever, when she realized that she was in a Ghoul-infested underground city. She shunned away from the curious looks of the Ghouls as she was carried through the hallway out through the main doors. When she opened her eyes, she saw the sign next to the doors which said “Underworld”, and she looked up to the huge skull fissures of the main entrance.

Tykor carried her right of the building they were in, which was the Museum of Natural History. He walked past another Ghoul, whom he nodded to, and arrived at a space in front of an abandoned Metro Tunnel. He placed her down and turned to walk away, when Susan called him a monster and zombie-lover, telling him she didn’t need his help or pity. Tykor stopped and took a seconds pause to think, upon which he turned around and took a pistol out of his holster and pointed it at her forehead.

He lowered the gun, where he shot her in the left leg and holstered the gun again. He told her that he was presenting her a choice. She could either try to descend the broken escalator and try her luck in the Feral Ghoul-infested Metro tunnels to get out of the DC Ruins. Or she could try to walk through the Mall, the area between the Washington Monument and the Capitol Building, which had been previously cleared of Super Mutants but was likely to quickly refill again and either make lunch or capture her to turn herself into a Super Mutant as well. And since the Super Mutants have a very good nose for blood, she would have no chance of sneaking past them, whereas the Feral Ghouls couldn’t smell, since every Ghoul loses their nose once the radiation poisoning starts to kick in properly.

He turned away from her and told her that she was no longer welcome in Underworld, and if he were to see her again it would be the last time. He walked back to the female Ghoul who was standing guard and walked with her inside, giving her a pinch on the bum.

Susan knew she was running out of time, and that she had to make a decision quickly. She either faces her fears with the Feral Ghouls or she tries to trek across the Super Mutant-infested Mall to get out of the DC Ruins. Even when faced with the consequences of her stupidity, she still stood by what she said and did in the Underworld.

[ Author’s note:
This story is open-ended so as to give the reader a chance to imagine her decision later on. She might also return in a later chapter, but then again maybe not.

The moral choice in this story is whether Tykor’s actions were justified or not. Posting what you thought of Tykor will be appreciated.
End note. ]