Note: There might be some spoilers in this tale, but I don't think they would be very great. In fact, this is the first time anything like this has happened to me, though I've done this quest several times.
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I'd finished the journey with Jack Cabot to the old Parsons Asylum, and we'd fought a hell of a fight to get to the lab where his father had been confined. Now, I was intent on retracing my steps within the old facility to gather loot from my fallen enemies (and of course anything not nailed down that was of value).
I walked carefully along the time-ravaged hallways of the upper level, watching my step because of the fallen debris and ruins of the long-dead past. Not to mention avoiding stepping on the many bodies and body parts of raiders that were carelessly scattered and flung all over the place by the impact of the .45 cal ammo I'd been using in my Combat rifle. Jack's kills were generally not so messy, being only ash piles left by his laser.
Walking along that upper hallway, I could hear the moaning of a low wind that seemed almost alive with the sounds of the despair and madness of the patients who had endured so much here, and then died in various ways still locked away in their tiny cells. Mournful does not really describe it.
Suddenly, I heard a gasped intake of breath, and the sudden nervous sounding footsteps of someone else moving nearby. It sounded like a woman's startled cry... There is nothing worse than being alone in a place of death and despair, except suddenly discovering that you are not alone after all.
I felt a sudden kinship with this unknown frightened woman because I was sure we had both just experienced the same thing. Fear of the unknown. Who is there? Who, and what are you? More importantly I suppose, where are you?
I'd been certain that Jack and I had killed all of the raiders in the asylum, but of course one might have somehow slipped by us or was passed in the rush to reach Jack's father. I wondered for a moment if my unseen woman was even really alive, or if she was a ghost of the distant past haunting these shadowy ruins, lost forever in eternal death and madness.
Crouching now, trying to be as stealthy as I could, I searched the floor I was on room by room. I found no sign of anything or anyone alive, and I heard nothing else. Uncertainty became the nature of my state of mind. Should I stumble along in the very dim light, barely able to see, or should I switch on my light and take a chance on making my position known?
Finally, after what seemed an age, I moved down to the next level where a hallway lined with cells awaited my coming to reveal their secrets. I had begun to relax, when suddenly I again heard that high-pitched gasp filled with fear bordering on terror. A cry of "Who's there?" soon followed, but I couldn't tell where or from which direction it came. I froze, motionless, breathless, and unsure if any movement would bring a hail of bullets my way from some unknown direction.
After a lengthy time, I heard that voice mutter "They said jet will make you jittery, and they were right.", followed by footsteps moving away somewhere beneath my feet. So, she was down another level, eh? Good to know, and I smiled with relief because I now had some knowledge of what I was facing and where it was.
I finished searching that level and now, overburdoned, I moved to drop to the floor below. Normally, I can carry about 300 units of weight, but I reckoned at that point I was loaded with about a thousand units. What I'm saying is that dropping lightly to the next floor below was really not an option. In fact, I landed with a quite noticeable thud.
The echoes of my not-so-soft landing had not even faded away when I heard that softly female voice again. "When I find you, I'm going to put a bullet in your head, even if you're already dead!" While the words were threatening, the tone was full of terror inspired by her surroundings. Supposedly alone with the bodies of her dead friends in this madhouse, she knew that something was there with her... but its nature was completely unknown to her.
Lights off, I moved forward through the dim light watching every footstep carefully and willing my movement to be silent. Once again I checked to see that I had a full magazine in the .38 caliber submachine gun I had switched to after running out of .45 ammo earlier. A corner lay close ahead, and though I listened intently, it seemed that the moaning of the wind would drown out any slight sound I might hear or make.
I peered 'round the corner and found myself confronted by a raider who was wielding a sledgehammer that looked bigger than she was. We were both startled, and she uttered a cry of fear while for my part I stumbled back trying to get out of the range of that marvelously large hammer.
Was it reflex, or training, or experience... or simply fear? I'm uncertain, but my finger squeezed the trigger of the fully automatic weapon I carried, and seemed to turn to stone in that position. Ten, then twenty, and thirty rounds slammed into the raider as she raised that hammer high, and I thought I would surely die as the last ten rounds of the 48 in the mag struck her... then flung her lifeless body back across the hallway she had just been leaving.
It took a moment for me to realize that the magazine was empty, and I slammed another full one into place as I moved forward to get a closer look at this last raider. Light on, I looked down into her face and felt a moment of kinship with this woman who had shared my fears of the unknown. For her, I guess death really had been waiting in the shadows. We had shared our fear, and I knew that one day I would share her fate as well...
If there had been any way to avoid it, I wouldn't have killed her. I wondered why it is that we can't sometimes just talk, share a smoke, and go our separate ways... but that's the way it is. It's war, and war never changes. Or that's what I've heard.
If one of us had to die, I'm glad it was her rather than me, eh? Shouldering my heavy load that now included a very heavy sledgehammer, I began the long trudge back to Starlight. Now, where the hell did I leave Dogmeat?