I step out of the platform, shaken and scared, for I had just survived the end. One thing that many others could not say. A man greets me wearing a vault tec uniform.

“Welcome to your new home!” he said. “Who are you with kid?”

“no one,” I said. I am struggling to get words out of my mouth. “My parents did not make it to the vault.” My face scrunches up. My stomach twist and turns. I want to cry.

“Don't worry, your safe now kid.” the man said. He lead me to a big room filled with what looked like pods. Like a cocoon, it was clear that this is where I will be staying.

“Step in the pods when ready.” I step into the pod on the far left of the room. It is very cold. I push myself into the pod. When I am in, the door closes.

Then, something happens. I feel cold. Very cold. Colder than I have ever felt. I am slowly losing control of my body. Finally, everything stops. No heartbeat. No sound. No event breath is released from my body. Then something happens. All my senses are returned from what felt like an eternity of silence. The door to the pod opens. I threw myself out onto the floor. I get up from the ground and look around.

“Hello!” I say. But nothing returns. As I look around, I see all the people who were in the vault. Their frozen, dead bodies were insulted within the pods. I start my way for existence. As I walk, I see skeletons of all the people the used to work at the vault.

What happened here?!

I think to myself. One of the skeletons had a pistol laying next to him. It seems to be a 50 cal. handgun. There was also a gun strap and a pip-boy on the skeleton. I take both of them and put them on. I pick up the pistol and put it in the holster. I keep walking till I get to the platform. I step on the platform and push the button. It starts to move up.

Finally, I get to the service. The platform stops. Then I see it. The world I once knew was gone. In its place was a dead wasteland, deprived of all hope. They have finally done it. Mankind has succeeded in destroying itself.

What do I do next?

Everything’s gone. I guess I will just go home. Or what's left of it. I make my way down the hill, back into the town. I walk down the broken streets of what used to be Littleton. I finally get to my house. It is in pieces. I walk inside and look around. Then I see someone I never thought I see again. It was my family's robot assistant Budsworth.

“Budsworth!” I run over to him and give him a big hug. “Buddy, I thought I wouldn't see you again. Is mom and dad here too?”

“No Mr. Jakey. They were out at work when the bombs fell.”

“So they really are gone. How are you alive Budsworth?”

“I was inside when it happened, and I am made of the strongest of titanium and have a uranium shield coating.”

“so your basically indestructible?”

“Precisely! Now how exactly have you stayed alive for the last 200 years?”

“well I was in the vault and…wait did you say 200 years?!”

“200 and 10 actually, give or take!”

“What!?”

I sit down in the kitchen chair and start to cry. Then I see something on the table. It was a picture of me and my parents.

“This is not what my parents would want me to do. They would want me to get up and push through the pain. I need to find my own path, somewhere out there. Hopefully, there is a place for me out there. I will return to get you Budsworth.”

“you go, Mr. Jakey! Find your own path.” with that I walk out of the house and start my way north.

I have been traveling for days. I have traded what I had left with me for food and water. Now things are looking hopeless. But then, I see something great. A settlement! I run up to the first person I see.

“Hi! Ma’am, I need a place to stay. Can I rest at your settlement for a night?”

“Hello kid, you want a place to stay? Name’s Beckey-Jones. What's it to you?”

“Jakey,” I said.

“Well, maybe we can help each other out. I will give you a place to stay, permanently. All you have to do is clear out a group of raiders that have been bothering us. You game?

“I’m game.”

Here I am. I am about to enter the raider camp that Beckey-Jones told me about.

I walk up to the door. It had a button with a speaker and a lock on it.

“Let me in!” I say. The voice on the speaker started talking.

“Go away!” he said.

“Fine, if you won't let me in, then I will have to force my way in!” I pull out my 50-cal handgun and shoot the lock. With one shot the door bursts open. When I step inside, I am prepared for a fight, but no one is there. I keep going down the hall until I reach the door to the main area. When I walk inside I see 6 people of all ages tied up with a rope.

”No, stop!” one yells. “Get away! It was a trap!”

Right then I knew exactly what was going on. I had been tricked. Then I hear a ticking sound. I knew that sound all too well. It was the sound of a manually detonated wall mine. Right then threw myself across the room just as the wall collapses. As I get up, I see Beckey-Jones and the other fake settlers.

“Well, you finally figured out our plan. You aren't as dumb as you look.”

“I could say the same about you!” I bark.

“Well sadly for you your life ends now.”

As they talk to me, I see a pipe above them. This is a food plant so that pipe most likely caries smoke. I quickly shoot the pipe with my 50 cal. As the smoke falls on the raiders I pull out the one grande I had been saving. I pull the pin and throw the grenade into the smoke. Within a few seconds, the grenade blows. When the smoke clears, I can see the scattered remains of the raiders. There is a terrible smell of gunpowder left over. I run over to the tied-up settlers.

“Don't worry guys I’ll cut you free.” There were 6 of them, 5 adults and one girl that was my age.

“How can we ever repay you?” one of them said.

“I will make a deal with you. You let me live at your settlement and I will teach you all how to fight.”

“That is fine but where are your parents?”

“They did not make it,” I said. Then the girl walks up to me.

“I'm sorry. I know how it feels.”

“What do you mean?”

"My parents were killed by those raiders you just put down.”

When I look into her eyes. I feel something. Something great. Like a moth to a flame, I feel something pulling me toward her. I think I'm in love.

“What is your name?” she asks.

“Jakey. What's yours?”

“Jessie”

“We better get going.”

We all start our way back home.