Here lies part nine of the Vault Dweller's Diary series. If you haven't been reading this from the start, find the content link on the right side there and start from the intro. Otherwise, read on.
I also feel I should give a shout out to my little brother Aidan, who on this day would be turning 285.
What's up, diary? I'm doing dictation right now, I don't think I could try to type on this shitty little Pip-Boy fold-up keyboard. I've been dipping into the whiskey I got from that escaped slave's stash in Minefield yesterday. Killed him and took his booze and his gun. That's a hell of a thing to do.
Oh, did I not mention, diary? That guy I killed was an escaped slave. I asked around about that collar he was wearing; Jericho told me that the slavers over in Paradise Falls put them on the people they kidnap so that they can control them. Apparently, the collars are rigged to explode if they try to run. So this poor fucker was isolated and paranoid, not because he was mentally ill but because he had managed to get out from under the slavers' whips somehow and he thought I was some sadistic asshole come to round him up and drag him back. Those mines he planted, the sniper rifle, that was the only way he could sleep at night with the knowledge that someone out there wanted to put him back into that hell.
And I killed him. I didn't even think twice about it. I wouldn't have even asked about that collar, but I took it off his corpse, thinking I could get some money for it. Moira refused to buy it, didn't want to talk about it. No one else knew what it was. Except Jericho. I think he used to roll with the slavers. Or at least the Raiders. That dirty son of a bitch.
I shouldn't be mad at Jericho. That bitter old shit is just trying to make a decent life for himself now. What am I doing? I'm killing people who never wanted to do anything more than fight for their freedom. I'm running around, looting the decimated ruins of my ancestors' society, picking through the wreckage of human lives for weapons and things of use to me. I'm a fucking vulture, nothing more.
Did you know I found a child's skeleton yesterday, diary? After I killed that poor bastard hiding in the wrecked tower, I spent a little while picking through the ruins of Minefield. It used to be a neighborhood, you know, and the playground sort of confirmed to me that kids used to live there. I knew that, I didn't figure that there were a bunch of retarded adults spinning around on that carousel, but I didn't really let myself think about all those kids who just wanted to spin around on that sad little carousel and died in a white-hot flash, or slowly of radiation sickness. But then, while I was picking through someone's house, scavenging pork and beans in a can, I bumped into something. I looked down and saw a skeleton, couldn't have been more than three and a half feet high. I know it wasn't a midget because the skull was too big, the proportions were right for a kid. I knew that, and I didn't even give it a proper burial.
I just can't fucking take this, diary. I mean, I was sheltered in the Vault. I had no idea what the surface was like. All I knew were the stories that I was told by Mr. Brotch in that shitty little classroom and the stupid fucking drama of Butch picking on Amata or Susie making out with Freddie. That was the extent of my tragedy. I wish I'd never left that. Up here, it's a struggle just to live from day to day. And I have to kill good people to extend my own worthless fucking existence. And why should I do it, diary? What the fuck makes me so special that I deserve to live while that poor sod hiding out in the rubble surrounded by mines should die? Because I'm a better shot or have a quicker trigger finger? That's a fucked up way to live.
This festering shithole, this putrid fucking desert in which we live shows you exactly the kind of person you are. It cuts you open and lays you bare in front of a mirror so that you can see every rotting fucking psychosis you have, eating away at you like a sickness. It proves to you that you're not some moral giant. It destroys any hope that you had left that this world can be saved and laughs at the idea that people can be better. Then it hands you a loaded gun and tells you to fucking do something about it.
I've made a resolution. I still have the 10 millimeter pistol that Amata gave me when I was escaping the Vault. It's the pistol I used to kill a few security guards, guys who were just doing what that twisted Overseer motherfucker told them to. I'm keeping it on me all the time. I won't use it; I have that silenced one from Burke that I can use if I need to pull a sidearm. This one's staying in my bag with one bullet in it, for when I know I'm beyond help. Someday soon, I'm going to lay down to sleep and think about my day and I'm going to realize I've become a monster, worse even than Amata's dad. And on that night, when the stars have gone out and no moon shines, I'm going to pull out that fucking gun and put an end to the beast that I created, that was forged in this post-apocalyptic hell. I promise that, diary.
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