I knelt down in the wet, stinking mud, bent over in a sea of gourd vines. It was here on my family's property that I engaged in the ever-so-exciting task of pulling weeds from the earth. My calloused hands and dirt-worn fingernails were accustomed to the task, but alas, it was not made any more tedious as sweat slopped from my forehead, permeating my overalls.

I habitually wiped sweat drops from my eyes before resuming my chore. For nineteen years now, this was the life I had known: get up early, feed the brahmin, tend to the crops, eat lunch, back to the crops until sundown. Rinse and repeat. Once a month, we would take a family trip to Bunker Hill and sell the fruit of our labors at the market, which could be fun when we weren't being hassled by the raiders that frequented the place. Aside from that however, this life was inordinately dull. When I was a little girl, I used to dream of running away and starting my own life, away from the stench of brahmin manure and the eternal revolving of our lives around our crops. But, as I matured, and my parents steadily grew older, I realized that there was virtually no hope of this transpiring. My monotonous existence was simply the norm in this world after the bombs.

Sometimes, I wondered what caused humanity to stagnate so much two centuries after the apocalypse. On our ventures to Bunker Hill, I always took notice of the crumbling buildings in the distance that reached into the clouds, now populated by a litany of baddies that my father often mused about. There were also food items like Nuka-Cola, Fancy Lads Snack Cakes, Cram, or my personal favorite Sugar Bombs, which still managed to retain their flavor after all this time. If humans before the war could manage to make a box of Sugar Bombs taste so ecstatic over two centuries after their initial production, surely we could have accomplished anything.

It was not my place to speculate though. I had not known much outside of this place, tucked away in the eastern Commonwealth. My mom had given birth to me after a series of unfortunate stillbirths. They raised me with all the love and affection that was deserving of their only surviving child, feelings which were quite void in the Commonwealth as a whole. When I was sick, they would take care of me; when I was sad, they would hug me until I felt better; when I was hungry, they would cook up an orgasmic batch of vegetable soup. Heck, my mom even taught me how to read, a highly sought-after skill in the Wasteland. Both of my parents provided for me, so long as I provided my fair share of the farm work. When I was younger, I didn't quite realize all the sacrifices they had to make just to keep me healthy and radiation-free, which caused me to act upon my selfish impulses. Now though, I knew: this was my home. My only home.

I watched for a moment as my dad labored over the fence that encompassed our tiny plot of land. A ghoul attack a few days ago had left it in desperate need of repair (it never failed to surprise me just how much damage a few ferals could produce). Luckily, my dad possessed enough skill with hammer and nail that fixing the fence was a cakewalk to him.

I caught his eye, and he glanced up from his craft. His red, weather-worn features shone like opal in the midday light, and the sunlight on his face glimmered more as he smiled, nodding his head to acknowledge my presence. I grinned and nodded back before resuming my task. Thankfully though, most of the weeds were already gone. All I had to do was to exterminate a few remaining stragglers, and to smooth out the dirt around the plants before I could stand up, wiping a smear of soil from my breeches.

Thankful to be able to stand again, I headed towards the house, the same sturdy wooden shack where I had been born.

"…Hey, Lily," my father called across the garden.

I turned around, the wind sweeping my hair in my face as I looked back at my father. He stood, visibly tired from his work. He supported himself on a fence post as he glanced over at the garden plot I had just left.

"…Good job, baby girl. I'm impressed with how good that field looks."

I laughed at his sentiment, seeing it as rather strange.

"You didn't say that last time I did it."

"Well uh, I forget sometimes to show my appreciation for ya'," he said honestly as he wiped sweat with his newsboy cap. "So thank you, Lily."

"You're, uh, welcome, dad," I played along. "…Anything else you need me to do?"

"Nah…But I believe your mom's canning vegetable soup. You might, uh, convince her to cook some for dinner tonight."

"Alright. Good idea, pop."

I gave him a thumbs-up before I sojourned back into the house, the tang of vegetable soup already present on my eager taste buds. Mom's vegetable soup was always out of this world, so it was no wonder that she canned the stuff and sold it at the market.

I found my mom on the living room couch, completely absorbed in her task. Her unnaturally-vibrant orange curls matched mine, as did the spray of freckles upon her pale cheeks. For some reason or another, spending hours in the Sun and heat did not manage to tan our skin, as it did my dad's. Instead, me and her simply turned into human tomatoes that peeled skin endlessly after prolonged exposure.

I cleared my throat to get her attention, which snapped her out of her work-induced trance.

"Oh. Sorry honey, didn't notice you there…You cleaned out the garden?"

"Yep," I affirmed as I wiped sweat from my face with a towel. "You need any help on your end?"

"Well…I mean, if you want to…"

"Not like I have much else to do," I sighed as I took a seat beside her. "Besides, I uh…I like canning stuff."

"Is that so?" she chuckled. "You told me you hated all forms of farmwork."

"Well I do, but canning's not farmwork. It's done indoors, where you can sit and make casual small talk. Like so."

I promptly took a seat next to my mom and began ladling the soup into each glass jar, poking out air bubbles and forming an airtight seal in each container.

We continued silently for a few moments, allowing the stillness of our creaky wooden shack to absorb us in our task. The wind came in hot, intermittent gusts through the gaps in the wall, swirling about our humble abode.

I sighed with heavy exhaustion. Unless I were to take a dip in a highly-irradiated creek, there was simply no way to escape the pervasive heat and sweaty miserableness of summer.

"…So what did you think of that Arnold boy, from Nordhagen Beach?"

My mom asked this in earnest, smiling with innocently-rounded cheeks at me. I knew the routine, yet I was reluctant to spout the answer I always gave.

"Yeah, he was okay…"

I kept my eyes on the can in front of me, looking wholly uninterested. Seeing this, my mom decided to take a different approach. She placed a hand gently on top of mine.

"Lily, you know I just want what's best for you, right?"

"…I know, mom," I sighed. "But you really don't have to be going to all this trouble. I'll just…find someone when I'm ready."

"Sweetheart, I want you to find the perfect man for you. I was seventeen when I married your dad, and we met through my mother."

"No mom, it's not you, it's me. I'm just…not that into romance yet is all"

"You just haven't met the right person yet," she said as she tickled my cheek. "Don't worry, honey. We just have to keep trying."

All that I could do was silently nod at my mother's warm, creased face as she looked at me so eagerly.

For the past couple years, she had been trying to hook me up with a husband, scouring the Commonwealth and her friends at the Bunker Hill market to find for me a suitable romantic partner. However, I was always hampered in this process by my seeming inability to be attracted to the guys I met. As far as personal relationships went, I was one who had relatively few, with the exception of my parents. Growing up on a desolate farm in the Commonwealth didn't afford many opportunities to make friends.

At that moment, the only other entity that I could call a friend padded into the room. Bessie, our loyal guard dog, yawned and licked her lips before plopping down beside my feet. I gave the old girl a pat on her head, causing her to pant affectionately.

"My, Bessie, you've gained weight," laughed my mom.

"Maybe if Lily would stop sneakin' her Sugar Bombs, she'd be lighter."

My dad said this through the wall before opening the door and taking refuge from the blistering Sun.

"Because yeah, I see you doin' that," he joked at me.

"Hey, I can't help if she begs for them so cutely," I retorted, gently smushing Bessie's jowls into a smile.

"Well I know someone else who knows how to beg."

My mom looked mischievously at my dad, who tried to act dumb.

"You sent Lil in here to get your hands on some vegetable soup, didn't you?"

"What…espionage?" he laughed nervously. "C'mon, hon, that's not my style."

"Hmm," my mom squinted at him. "You two do realize we're running low on caps? We're gonna have to start charging more for these cans to cut even."

"Maybe if Cutty could cut us some slack," I sighed as I petted Bessie's belly. "Or, y'know, we just pay her protection fee in cans of soup."

"Maybe that'll calm 'em down," suggested my dad.

"Interesting idea…" quipped my mom. "Tell you what, guys, let's test that hypothesis over dinner."

My mom dutifully withdrew a can of soup and rose from the couch, venturing over to the stove. My dad and I rightfully cheered, high-fiving in congratulations.

"Whoo, we did it, Bessie!" shouted my dad. "Don't worry, I'll sneak you some tonight."

Bessie looked up, as if to acknowledge his proposal, before drooping back down so she could rest.

I leaned back on the couch, relishing in the victory I would soon be able to taste.

Later that night, with my belly full of tangy soup, I fell back onto my mattress and prepared to get some sleep. My dad had volunteered to take night watch, leaving me feeling rather safe and comfy as I rested by the warm light of an oil lamp. The soft chittering of crickets outside my window; the settling of the old shack into the irradiated Earth, the gentle swinging of my dad's rocking chair as he sat on the porch, hunting rifle in his lap…I dare say that I felt like a little girl again, if only for a short while.

I knew that this moment wouldn't, and couldn't, last forever. As lucky as I was to actually have loving parents in this wasteland, they would eventually age and die. The more I realized this growing up, the more I realized I had to cherish my parents while I still had them.

I buried my head into my straw-filled pillow, trying to regain the safety net that I had managed to temporarily create. While adulthood was indeed an irrevocable state, I did eventually manage to blank my mind of these depressing thoughts and slip away into the depths of sleep.

Little did I know that what was to occur that night would lead to the end of safety, the end of comfort. In a blink, I would be violently thrust into the gaping maw of the Commonwealth. I would get to witness firsthand the spectrum of humankind's capabilities, from its most benevolent kindness to its most depraved savagery. In just one night, my life would be pulled out from under me. And it was up to me to survive, to reclaim what had been taken from me and my family.

Welp, I suppose that's it for now. This story shall continue.

Constructive criticism is welcomed, this is only my second story after all :P