Disclaimer: I do not own the Fallout franchise or claim any canonical and/or other trademark items/characters of the franchise used in this story as my own with the exception of original characters present throughout the story. Since this is an alternate universe of the franchise, I may make mistakes (regardless if deliberate or not) in canonical and other factual statistics and dates. Thank you.

Chapter 1: The Vault

Nothing but pallid light illuminated the subterranean recesses of the Vault. It was pale and frigid, bringing in white incandescence to the cold inanimate machines controlling and the running the facility's conditions. Down the halls, the monotonous, banausic beeps of the machines could be heard echoing could be heard as the residents sleep soundly, in the company of their curious minds, dreaming of an idyllic scene, one which portrayed the antithesis to the harsh world above. Within their dreams, they painted a picture of a halcyon world, nuanced with colors and sanguine life. The color and vivacious illusions granted to them in slumber cried out for an escape from the omnipresent tedium and social humdrum ambient in their uneventful lives.

Given that their dreams take for granted the safety of their ideal home, the Vault residents could never realize the unparalleled perfection found in the Vault in comparison to the vindictive nature of the macabre Wasteland. It was so disparate to the reality yet quite appealing compared to the archaic, beguiling frequencies played many years prior. And yet, the limits and inanity of an indefinitely iterated lifestyle debilitated the controlled and perfect environment of the Vault, inevitably prompting ubiquitous dissatisfaction amongst the populace.

Nobody knows which mark on the calendar is the mark of the present. Nobody can enumerate the amount of calendars which have been thrown out since the inception of this enclosed, insipid society. Prosaic statistics and facts of time and history became of obsolete use long ago. History and aesthetics are abstruse in the Vault, becoming extinct amongst the wealth of knowledge being taught. Daily iterations of arithmetic and impractical yet ingenious calculations of extensive mathematics and eugenics still linger, however, along with other specialized occupations kept alive for practical purposes. As pragmatists, it was essential to the Vault residents to teach and learn the knowledge lucrative to the longevity of the Vault. Of course, that is in the uttermost importance. The Vault is theoretically indestructible and must last forever, for even the youngest of the residents known, "Everyone is born in the Vault, and dies in the Vault."

* * *

One early morning, a pregnant scientist sleeps rather unsuccessfully as an unexplained tumult in her body incessantly vexes her nerves. She is not at all worried that the vexations may be portentous contractions, seeing as how increasing transpirations of these contractions are not characteristic to a woman only 7 months far. The anxious woman began to perspire as her nerves are discomfited by the opacity of the darkness of her chamber. Restless and disconcerted, she rises from the comfort of her bed and paced nervously in the dark.

"Jesus what are you doing?!" her husband languorously exclaimed as her commotion woke him. The woman began to gasp for breath, her body weakening at the abrupt scarcity of air.

"I…" she uttered. Her strength waned exponentially as time elapsed. The austerity of the room unnerved her as she felt the darkness encroach her feeble body. "What…" her voice quavered as words choked her throat. The former anxiety unexpectedly evolved into a fit of suffocation and extreme perspiration.

"Darling, what's wrong?" her husband asked. His initial exasperation transformed into panicked concern as his wife's fit grew audibly disturbing. He reached for the light as her gasps and nervous pacing progressively perturbed him. The distressing situation made him apprehensive. He began to wonder if his wife is becoming violently ill from her pregnancy or something went wrong while they were blissfully asleep and somehow, debilitated the fetus. Her symptoms never occurred before and began to perplex and disquiet him. The husband's hands shook timorously for the light as his consciousness was lost in anxious, fretful thoughts. The light then illuminated his emaciated wife, who gawked horrified at the floor, appalled to see her water breaking.

"Oh my G-…!" Her husband could no longer articulate his concern. It was now happening. In this portentous hour at dawn, his child was about to be born. And yet his panic paralyzed his body, immobilizing all rational thinking and action. He could not move as his eyes were transfixed at his ill wife. "Somebody help!" he yelled. But the sound didn't go pass the metal walls of their solitary chamber. It merely echoed dissonantly in the ambient consternation.

"Andy," the woman mumbled fretfully. The predicament was undoubtedly alarming, but she remained objective and merely slightly dismayed.

"Ivvy stay where you are. I'm calling for help!" He instantly ran to the door, poking his head out into the corridor as he yelled with all his might and energy, mustering up a herculean storm of noise and panic. The obstreperous scene roused the entire dwelling, with each resident languidly curious of the tumult. Amidst all the confusion, residents adjacent to the room were stultified to see Andy Currie whimsically darting through the infrastructure, flagrantly seeking aid. Meanwhile, Dr. Ivvy Currie remained in her solitary and austere chamber as she stood, disquieted by the blood streaming down her legs. The warm, sanguinary tributaries collected on the floor subjacent to her emaciated body as they slowly drained the last of her strength. Immobile and perturbed, Ivy began to feel lost in her own woes and macabre predicament with only sporadic contractions to tug at her existence.

* * *

1 year later…

"Where is she?!" The flagrant complacency found in Andale Currie's voice made the imploration seem plaintive. His eyes never left his fellow conversationalist as he imperiously questioned for the truth.

"Andy, I swear…" The Overseer stuttered at the subjugated resident's impeccable aggression. With each second, he felt the need to admonish him, to remind the doctor under whose arbitration he is subject to. However, Andy's indignant countenance stifled him from rightful pontification. The Overseer was unexpectedly incapable of conjuring his sapient and stern objectivity. "Doctor… Andy…," he tried, but couldn't. The Overseer felt spontaneously empathetic to the irrational doctor. His disquiet desperation annihilated all the authoritative energy intrinsic to the self-righteous administrator.

"With all of this power, even with all this junk you call robots! You still couldn't decipher how in the hell she was able to leave?!" Andale's anger stifled the fluency in his articulation Its impending growth frightened him internally. This evident vehemence was unprecedented in all of the impassive doctor's life, whose stoicism characterized his own individuality in the eyes of others. Now with the Overseer perturbed by his paroxysm, the doctor began to grow unsettled and paranoid that his uncharacteristic anger would represent to be catabolic to his own consciousness. The tiny yet voracious fear caused him to perspire and his cheeks to conspicuously flush. The latent panic could no longer be repressed as the Overseer soon took notice of the disquieting change.

However, the Overseer's illogical yet inane fear of losing dominance only prompted further apprehension for his part. For some anomalous reason, he couldn't retrieve the monopoly over the unwarranted interrogation. The doctor's uncalled indictment of his surveillance's ineptitude and incompetence vexed him. The poor, once omniscient man couldn't discern the problem before him. How could he avoid or repudiate prosecution when the accusations as well as their grounds were unknown yet reasonable to him? The abrupt evanescence of his authority threw him even more out of place. One cannot be imperious when his subjects are no longer subjugated properly. Aside from that, he knew he couldn't be physically, emotionally, and psychologically pugnacious to the doctor. His stoicism and omniscience appealed to all of the Vault population. Moreover, the doctor is extremely sapient whilst being pragmatic, which complemented the doctor's already popular reputation. "No," he thought. It would be unwise to event try and suppress the Vault's impeccable white knight. They would crucify him for not attempting to fix the situation as the pretentiously knowledgeable and absolute Overseer.

"Andale," he finally uttered. He immediately tried to muster as much rationale to at least beleaguer the doctor in order to pacify the volatile situation. "Your wife left and it is indeed a mystery. Cameras were never built around the entrance of the Vault because it was theoretically impossible to breach it internally and externally. Knowing this, I ordered a complete and imperative search for her. Dr. Ivvy is nowhere in or near the vicinity of the compound Andale and we can't find evidence suggesting abduction or intrusion. She must have left. I'm sorry."

The doctor could no longer find solid ground for his solicitous anger, but he still obstinately yearned for a more insidious explanation to his wife's surreptitious and irrevocable departure. No, he wouldn't believe it. The plausibility of it all mocked him. Not even a conspiracy theory could serve him in his self-denial. Andale needed to believe she didn't leave on her own accord. He needed a reason to still believe that what caused this mystery wasn't part of the recent tumult and discord in their marriage. Neither did he want to believe that Ivvy's recent philanthropic yet rebellious desire to emancipate the Vault as well as the wasteland from the ubiquitous atrocities caused it. Poor Doctor Andale. He merely wanted to live a complacent and humble life with his wife as simple physicians with their infant daughter, and maybe hopefully, even more children, perhaps a son.

"I'm sorry," the Overseer whispered, interrupting the piteous doctor from his laments. Now the Overseer no longer felt fear, but the inconvenient onus of a lovelorn and lachrymose man. Seeing the opportunity, the Overseer slowly ambled away, to find solace from the piteous doctor.

The abject doctor nodded tersely in response as well as feigned compliance to the Overseer as well as to himself despite the latent and gnawing sense of denial. The absurdity yet plausibility of these recent transpirations stultified him, bringing in a chronic yet subtle feeling of encroachment. The doctor, with his reluctant epiphany, felt ill and forlorn. How could that bloody woman leave him? After everything… "How could she?!" he muttered under his breath.

The corridor was swept with a grave ambience of dejection. To the doctor, it suddenly became darker, as if realizing what it was like too stand in aurous and sanguine sunshine only to realize al this time that he lived amongst his callous shadow. Aside from the flow of lachrymose emotions present in his conscience, he felt humility and was onerously wrought with it. The final feeling of perfidy and marital treachery were the last and most painful ones. The two had established, what he thought, to be an unbreakable affinity standing as a transcending effigy of love. But his wife's actions contradicted them all, leaving him emotionally paralyzed and distraught. All that was left of his once faithful, loving wife was a plaintive note, imploring for his stray and refuting all hopes of having him follow her. It was written as a farewell rather than a proclamation of love. Her amiable words masking the bittersweet truth of her departure tantalized him, driving him mad with passion and disappointment.

"Dear Andy," it began. He could almost hear her sweet, tender voice uttering those two lovely words. "I am so sorry. I do not have much time to write this, so I must be brief." Ivvy's characteristic brevity in her eloquence always appealed to Andale for being so straight to the point. But now, he wished for the point to be prevaricated and adorned with doting, loving words. "I just want you to know that I love you with all my heart and soul. We may have been through tough times, but it made me love you all the more. I have never met anyone who is of your moral and intellectual caliber, but this is why I must leave you here to help humanity. I can't stand sitting here, pretending the horrors outside don't exist. You can call me a coward, but to me you always will be the best and most wonderful person. I'm sorry that I must abandon you and our child for my weak and shamelessly selfish reasons. I hope that with my future actions and possible success, you and our daughter could learn to forgive me. I don't blame you if you seek your happiness with someone else for I am too weak and foolish to be content with the one you gave me. I hope with all my heart and soul that we all will be reunited again, but this time, in the brighter future I wish to bring. I love you.

Yours truly,

Ivvy.

P.S: Tell Claire I am sorry for abandoning her and that I will always love her. I hope one day we may reconcile. For now, just let her know that I am with her, heart and soul."

The doctor read over the note with much melancholy. He proceeded to return to his lab, seeking a way, a solution from his problems while the baby slept hidden in his chamber, dreaming of her absent mother. Upon arriving in his laboratory, he logged onto his private terminal and searched his library of files. He clicked upon arrival to a subtly placed file called, "FEV experimentation." Andale clicked on it and deleted a subfile titled, "Claire."

The child woke upon hearing him while in her cradle. She shyly fluttered her eyes as she somnolently woke to see her father, bringing a smile upon her face.

"Your mother," he began, "wanted to call you Sybil, after a famous Ancient Greek oracle. But I felt it was too... I felt it would've doomed you somehow, as the immortal woman who aged to degradation." Andale peered closer at his daughter and tenderly caressed her smooth alabaster cheeks. "That is how your mother is sometimes. Persistent but it will doom her. Now that she's gone, maybe I should name you after her now? How do you like Sybil?"

The baby laughed at the jocularity of their conversation. She could not understand him and everything seemed frivolous. Nonetheless, she proceeded to love the man who doomed her to her fate as he began to unveil a syringe from his lab coat and pierced her tiny limb with the most dangerous fluid to ever exist in the irradiated Wasteland.

* * *

9 years later...

Sybil woke next to rotting cadaverous corpse in a sea of brown and gusts of putrid humdrums, shielding her indolent eyes from the harsh, radiant sun. She still wasn't used to natural sunlight. Afraid and disconsolate, she obstinately hugged her father's rotting flesh, clinging to his odious lab coat while closing her eyes, waiting for the nightmare to end. How did this come to be? How did the Vault expunge them, as if virile contaminants to their perfect environment? Sybil could only cower for the answer.