She’d decided to leave the vault a week ago, and spent the remainder of her time trying to collect what useful items she could. It hadn’t been easy. Her home had become a foreign and frightening place to her. The people were acting strangely hostile towards each other, and sections that had previously been used had been barred because they feared what hid in the dark.

Now came the difficult part where she had to get from her own room to the exit of the vault, carrying her rather large backpack, without anyone noticing her or sounding the alarm. She had waited until it was late at night before she got the backpack out of its hiding place.

Zoe got further than she had expected before anyone noticed her, but unfortunately it wasn’t as far as she needed it to be. She answered their questions evasively, hoping they would leave her alone and the woman did say she would go back to bed when they parted. However, the alarm went off shortly after and Zoe had to start running towards the exit. She heard the sounds of running guards in nearby corridors coming towards her.

A guard got a hold of her backpack when she spotted the exit, and he shouted at her to surrender or he’d kill her. The guards had used much milder threats when she had been younger. It had been a slow change, but to hear him threaten to kill her just made her more certain about her decision to leave. 

She did try to get the backpack with her, but more guards were closing in and she had to accept it was gone. Zoe pushed it hard towards the guard that held it which made him trip and fall over, giving her time to get to the exit. 

After she had blocked the door to the room she was in with a few crates, Zoe activated the mechanism that would open the entrance door to the vault. It couldn’t withstand the pressure the guards were putting on it for long. It did give her enough time to exit the vault though, and she stepped out into the wasteland where they weren’t likely to follow her.

She instantly regretted losing her backpack as it had contained most of her water, but she had one canteen left. It was doubtful she would survive out here for long with that. It was a certainty that she would be killed if she returned to the vault. Zoe began walking before the guards broke the rules to chase her down and make an example out of her.

There was no shelter in sight, and the environment seemed to be a kind of prairie. The blue sky was a beautiful sight to behold after seeing nothing but dark steel and concrete above her head for her entire life. They had been wrong about the time of day inside of the vault.  It was warmer outside than she had expected too.

Zoe still had her rifle and her pip boy at least, plus most of her stimpaks that she had stuffed into her pockets. Some part of her had known it was unlikely she would get that backpack with her, and figured the stimpaks were the most valuable. Well, maybe she would be able to hunt with her rifle and what ammo she had, but the water would be her most immediate concern.

Those had been Zoe’s first thoughts while taking her baby steps in the wasteland. A few hours later her bad luck had made itself known again, when she ran into a small group of people. She had approached them with friendly intentions and gotten nothing for it. They had knocked her out, and tied her up. Apparently they were slavers, even though she had read that slavery stopped a long time ago in the old world.

Zoe wasn’t the only one the slavers had captured. Two men and a loud mouthed woman had had the same bad luck. The other woman was arguing with the slaver that had been ordered to guard them. She didn’t care much for any of these people. Hell, after the day she had lived through she would rather have woken up to find she was the last human left in existence. 

She sat staring in front of her, feeling as if fighting reality just made it worse. She heard the slaver slap the other woman, and figured it was probably the right decision for her to make. What had she hoped to find out here that was better than her vault? Maybe a life in slavery would not be so bad…

She rolled her eyes when the loudmouth started coughing and drawing even more attention to herself. At least it meant that no one cared about her and left her alone, but if she had wanted to get some sleep it would have been impossible with this woman nearby. It was too cold anyway. 
The fact that she hadn’t eaten for hours made her more irritable than usual too.

A fight soon broke out, and to her surprise the loudmouth won it. She’d thought she was all talk, but the woman knocked the slaver out and freed the rest of them. Zoe rubbed her hands where the rope had been digging into her skin seconds ago.

“Thanks.” She whispered with a snarky tone and retrieved her rifle, as if she didn’t care either way.  Most of the ammo was still in her clothes anyway. The rifle was the main thing they had taken from her, and a few stimpaks. She had been clever enough to hide what she could in hidden pockets or other places.

Zoe became suspicious of the other woman when she told the men to fuck off. Why would she want anything to do with her? Out of the three of them, Zoe was the least experienced by far, even if neither of the men had a weapon they could have taken hers. Perhaps she had been able to hide her lack of knowledge from the others.

When she told her that the men would serve to distract the slavers while the two of them got away, Zoe’s suspicions felt warranted. The woman would likely turn around and stab her in the back, as coldly as she had done to the men, if she ever needed to save her own skin. She nodded, and began to walk after the woman. If she asked why Zoe walked behind her with her hands on her rifle, well, it wasn’t like she knew where they were going and it was clearly best to be prepared for the worst out here. 

She sighed. Was this really any better than the declining situation in the vault?