Waking up to the buzzing of his alarm clock next to his bed Doug sat up slowly and pressed the off button on the clock with a clenched fist.
Getting out of bed he got dressed onto his vault jumpsuit and overalls.
He was obviosly unhappy about today he had been asked lastnight I he could take a look at the toilets because they seemed to be broken not flushing he might not be a Plummer but there was no Plummer in the vault so he was the next best thing.

Sitting at his small table eating his processed mush breakfast he thought to himself "I bet they have much better food up top this stuff doesn't even taste!"
Lifting a spoonful of his breakfast he watched it slowly drip of the spoon as he held it at an angle then dropped his spoon into the bowl and stood up heading towards the door grabbing his backpack on his way.

The door clicked behind him locked as he left.

What's going on?

All he could hear was a buzzing, all he could see was darkness. There was no taste, no smells. As far as he could tell he was clothed, but he did not want to hang around in the dark anymore than he needed to. He felt his way along the wall, hoping to find something. Anything. But still he crept further and further into darkness.

Suddenly, the lights came on with a flicker, and he could see he was in a long narrow corridor. On one side was a wall. The other were rows and rows of containers. With the lights on, he gasped in horror. There were people in these containers. Did he come from one himself? Where was he? He doubled back and walked towards the direction from whence he came. He stopped when he reached a container with broken glass. The plate at the top of the tank read "Subject 22"

"Is...that" He couldn't find his words.
"Is that...me?" He looked at his hands and on the back of the right hand, the number 22 was branded into his flesh.

"Where the hell am i?" he murmered to himself, still shocked by what he saw.

He glanced to the left, and saw a trail of blood. Left with no other option, he decided to follow the blood and hope for somebody to talk to.

*I hate this place, it's so small, so dark, and the stupid enforcers wont even let people leave if they want to, on top of that I have to deal with crap every day, I should just leave, but first I have a score to settle* Thurmond thought to himself as he finished patching a pipe, swearing softly when a jagged edge of metal scratched his hand as he pulled it away, not drawing blood but being rather irritating all the same. Thurmond stood up, almost banging his head against the low ceiling, and after replacing the grate over the pipe began trudging back to his room. *Tonight, tomorrow morning at the latest, I'm gonna have a little 'chat' with Phil, then I'm going to leave this forsaken place forever, the wasteland they say is outside couldn't possibly be worse than this hellhole.* with a grim smile Thurmond squeezed into his cramped room and sat down for a short nap after thumbing through his magazine, looking at the muscular men in there and wishing he had the weights and equipment they had so he could be that strong.

Doug had the sleeves of his vault jumpsuit rolled up as high as they could possibly go and he had his arm inside of a toilet water tank sitting on the toilet seat he pulled his arm out and he was boding a makeshift hook made frome a wire clothes hanger. Hung on the end of the hook was a soaked newspaper.

There was a sudden awoken from all around as the blockage had been cleared.

Sanding up now Doug began talking to himself "Thats it I've had enough of this place I'm out of here tonight one way or another".

"Guess me and Steve need to have a chat."

Steve was the overseers son and Dougs best friend in this place, they had talked for hours about escaping the vault. If any one could get him out it was Steve.

Douglas headed out of the toilets and started walking through the grey corridors of the vault towards Steve's living quarters.

Subject 22 shivered as he followed the trail of blood. It was hadn't dried out yet. This was a bad sign. What if whatever had caused the blood was still around. He didn't want to hang around to find out, but still he pressed on, moving deeper and deeper into the tunnels of the dark and gloomy vault.

He came into a large chamber, with a large sign that read "The Overseers Office" with an arrow pointing towards a daunting corridor with flickering lights. Subject 22 stared in disbelief. That corridor looked terrifying! Not only were the lights out, the blood followed the corridor too. No doubt the answers he wanted would be down there. Towards the Overseers office...

Shrugging off dark thoughts, Subject 22 gathered his courage and walked cautiously down the corridor. The flickering lights made him edgy. What if something appears? he panicked to himself silently. He had nothing to defend himself with. But curiosity egged him further and further into the darkness.

The corridor led to a lush waiting room, with sofas and bright green plants. Outdated magazines scattered the floor and the blood led to a puddle in the middle and then abrubtly stopped. Whatever has bled had gone. But where?

He looked around and noticed the door to the Overseer's office slightly ajar, in blind desperation he lunged towards the handle, determined to end his fear and find out where he was. He flew into the office and saw a strange sight. The room was decorated with bits of paper with strange insignia on them. Like a strange obsession. There was a large wooden desk in the middle of the room and that seemed to be the only thing not covered by paper with the strange scripture. But a glinting knife, no longer than a foot long and very sharp, was standing atop the desk. The point peircing the solid wood.

Silently, he walked to the desk, and upon closer inspection he could see that the knife had the same strange symbols from the paper enveloping the room on the blade. The hilt had leather attached the end in a small loop with a fastening to attach to his wrist. He wrenched it from the wood and stared.

"What is this..." he murmered quietly to himself...

Then he glanced upwards and saw a tunnel behind the desk. Subject 22 had not seen this because his attention had been fixated on the knife. Gripping it tightly, he took the knife and clambered over the desk and began walking blindly into the tunnel that would bring him to the wasteland...

Lights out, the official end of the day. after this the only people allowed in the corridors were people with official business. Thurmond pulled out a little sheaf of paper with an official seal on it, slid his hefty aluminum bat and magazine into the backpack he had requisitioned to hold his work equipment, and started walking down the hall towards the office of Phil, the man in charge of Thurmond's sector. He only passed one security enforcer and showed his work badge and sheaf of paper, which was a requisition form, and continued on his way. When he got to his destination, Thurmond unzipped his backpack and partially slipped out the handle of hit bat before walking in. Phil Was the only person in his office and barely payed Thurmond any attention when he closed the door behind himself. "We've been over this Thermun, there simply aren't enough available supplied this month for you to get more pipes, can't you get that through your thick skull you oaf?" Phil mildly said to Thurmond, not even bothering to look up from his paperwork. Thurmond shrugged to himself, as if to say 'well I gave him this one last chance, it's out of my hands now' and silently slid his bat out. Phil seemed to notice something was wrong by the extended silence and looked up from his desk just in time to catch Thurmond's two-handed swing that caved in the crown of his head with a sickening crunch.

As soon as he had checked that Phil was indeed dead, Thurmond began rapidly moving through the cabinets and shelves around the office, taking anything he thought would be useful or he thought he could sell on the surface, quickly stuffing a carton of cigarettes, two empty glass bottles, a small handgun with 7 bullets, 4 stim-paks, 2 doses of rad-away, 1 dose of rad-x, 3 doses of jet, and a knife into his backpack before stuffing the body underneath the desk and sliding out into the hallway moving quickly towards the hidden vault door he had found a few days ago. Thurmond didn't encounter anybody along the way but just before he reached the vault door he heard the alarm go off and he smiled a bit before ducking through his safety hatch and running to his freedom.

As he exited the cramped tunnel leading out, Thurmond stretched to his full height for the first time in what felt like years and soaked in the expansive waste in front of him, overjoyed that there wasn't a ceiling above him or filtered air filling his lungs. With a happy sigh, Thurmond hefted his bat in his right hand and began trekking towards the city he saw in the distance.

Douglas was sitting in a small living room on a sofa, across from him there was another man sitting at a table looking over some papers.

Douglas began talking to the man "So did you manage to get it"?

The man did not take his eyes from the paper on the table in front of him but pulled a hand out of his pocket and raised it he had a card between two of his fingers.

Douglas grinned his eyes lighting up at the sight of the card. "So how are we going to do this and when"?

"We do it now. My farther is out of his office for hours when he starts reading his books. And i just seen him enter his library. Get your stuff were leaving".

Doug's grin changed into a huge smile. "i'll go grab my stuff"!

Douglas was sitting on a large polished oak table in the overseers office sitting in a large leather chair next to him was Steven the overseers son he was franticly tapping a keyboard entering commands so fast and fluid he was like a robot.

Douglas was twitching nervously fidgeting obviously uncomfortable sitting in the office of the overseer "Is this gonna take much longer?" he said Steven looked up at him his typing not even slowing as he looked away from the screen in font of him "Maybe if you stopped bouncing around the room like that i could concentrate more"

Douglas stopped instantly it was clear that in his mind he was still twitching.

There was a sudden clicking sound and then a noise of rotating gears from the floor below the two men. They both stood and took a few steps back staring at the red carpet in front of the oak desk as it started to drop lower and lower into a long deep staircase the only thing that was visible down the stairs was a red light.

Steven headed down the stairs first followed by Douglas both the men were missing most of the steps launching themselves down the stairs. As they hit the bottom of the stairs Steve pulled the card from earlier out of his pocket and swiped it in a small black box with a red light at the top nothing happened for a few long silent seconds then it pulsed with a green light and the door blocking them swung open.

The two men were now running thought what looked like a rock walled cave with a few lights strung across the ceiling.
Suddenly there was a sound of running feet behind them and a deafening alarm tone wailing.
Douglas kept running not looking back to see how close the men behind had gotten.
"Steve look... Look at that door i can see daylight"

Doug looked back to his friend he was still running but had lagged behind slightly Doug heart felt like it had stopped when he saw behind his friend there was a guard from the vault aiming down the sights of a pistol with his finger on the trigger there was a bang from the guards direction and Steve dropped to the floor.

Doug ducked down into a crouched pose looking at his friend on the floor he had his face sideways in the dirt one eye was still visible it had rolled back into its socket there was no sign of life he stood leaving his friend in the dirt tears streaming down his face he turned to the wooden door they were so close he only had to take a few steps then he was out slamming the door behind himself.

The sunlight blazed onto Subject 22's skin. This was a peculiar feeling. Something new, and fresh.

Exciting! he thought.

He spent a minute or two staring, wondering which direction he would head in. The landscape looked all the same.

Dull and dusty, with dead tree's and scummy looking pools of water dotted around the rough terrain. There was a road just ahead. Leaving the mouth of the cave entrance that led to the vault, he clambered down a jagged slope and headed towards the road, gripping the knife tighter than ever.

What was this place? It was all new and exciting, but somewhat eery also.

When he got to the road, there was a signpost.

"East to Megaton. West to -" It was charred. Whatever it was, it was impossible to decipher.

"Looks like i only have one place to go." He mumbled.

Then he set off, following the broken road towards Megaton, hoping to start his search there.

Walking along the barren landscape, Thurmond kept his eyes constantly sweeping across the massive expanse around him and the sheer amount of space that he had to be in. After ten minutes of walking, Thurmond began humming and swinging his bat back and forth in front of himself, letting his omnipresent dour mood slowly fade away. His peace was shattered when he heard a loud shout from behind himself and he turned to see a ragged man dressed in tight leather clothing obviously in need of repair charging at him wielding a large bloody axe.
Adrenaline screamed into his veins and Thurmond turned to face the crazed man, holding hit bat at the ready. When the raging man got close and began swinging his axe Thurmond darted forward within the swing of the axe while whipping his bat up, connecting with the other persons jaw and knocking him back. While his opponent was stunned, Thurmond tightened his grip and swiped in a hard horizontal line, connecting with the side of the mans head and causing him to drop to the ground unconscious. Looking down on his fallen foe, Thurmond was confused as to the motives of the apparently angry man. With a swift movement he pulled out his knife and cut the mans throat and picked up his axe and continued on his way, somber once again.
After an uneventful twenty minutes Thurmond arrived at the gates of a town with a big sign that read "Welcome to megaton" and he walked inside, ready to find something interesting to do with his new freedom.

Looking around the city Thurmond was excited and slightly disappointed, he had expected grander things than this place but what was there greatly exceeded anything he had seen before, houses separate from each-other, wide roads with no ceiling, traders hawking their wares to passers by. Thurmond walked up to a vendor and looked at what she was selling, a variety of cooked foods. Seeing a prospective customer the lady leaned forward, smiling, and said "looking for anything specific? great prices only ten caps for this" she says pointing to a roasting hunk of meat. "caps?" Thurmond asked, confusion apparent on his face, and the saleswoman took in his outfit for the first time, "oh, just got out of the vaults I see. Well head over to the general store and you'll be able to sell some stuff for caps or maybe get a job working for them." she said again, pointing to a building across the way. Thurmond turned around and headed towards the building, hoping someone would come along to help explain things to him.