Hi there this is my first try at a fanfic, so dont be too harsh please! but i would like any comments you wish to share thanks






Is this Life?

Chapter 1



As she crouched behind the shrub, she narrowed her eyes as she spotted her next meal. A lone bighorner. A rare occurrence. But she wasn’t about to pass the opportunity of red meat, after all she has to look after herself. She slowly pulled back her bow, equipped with her handmade arrows. It fired through the air and cracked into the beast’s chest with such force it flung backwards.


Ellen waited for a moment. The bighorner stirred and slowly came to it’s feet. Then fell again.
She lowered her bow, and crept into the clearing. As she approached the body she could clearly see now that the beast was in fact a youngling.
‘[censored],’ she whispered, pulling her arrow from the depths of it’s chest. A faint rumble was beginning to shake the ground. Suddenly a herd of bighorners came of the valley into the clearing.


Ellen quickly jumped to her feet and slowly started backing away. The largest of the herd came stomping over, sniffing the youngling. Then, as abruptly as it appeared, it gave a almighty roar of despair. At that instant it turned it’s fierce eyes to Ellen.
‘Now, now big fella, I was only trying to….’
She sharply whipped out another arrow into it’s chest. The bighorner simply looked at her, as if to say ‘Bring it on.’


Ellen turned, sprinting away, in no particular direction, just as fast as she could without bouncing her important bundle too much. She had the bighorner charging after her. She managed to get a split second to look over her shoulder. Not only was the bull galloping after her. The entire herd were stampeding towards her.
Really, she knew she was [censored]. But Ellen wasn’t about to give up now, after all she had been through.
She continued her mad escape across the desert. Lucky for her, these bighorners were not the fastest over long distances. As Ellen was starting to weaken, she remembered her bundle. She had to survive. She noticed something ahead of her, a narrow chasm. It was her only shot.
She sped up, and leaped into the canyon and held the rocky ledges both sides of her, and prayed her tired legs would stay wedged in the gap. Ellen succeeded. She hung there whilst some of the bighorners, that where eithier running too fast or too stupid to stop themselves, plunged into the canyon crunching at the bottom.

The bull stopped in it's tracks and gave up, delivered one last roar and retreated.
Ellen sighed with relief. Made sure her baggage and contents were still firmly tied to her back. And began carefully scaling down the uneven wall to the ground. She spotted the couple of young bighorners that had fortunately fell to their deaths.
‘ Well at least I can still have supper,’ she thought aloud.

Ellen watched the crackling fire, the meat slowly cooking, the smell slowly reaching her nostrils. She gave it a prod,
‘That’ll be about done,’ she thought. She got out her knife and started hacking away.
Once she had eaten a sufficient amount, she pulled the bundle from her back, and carefully opened it and reached for the precious cargo inside.
A pair of beautiful blue eyes stared sleepily back at her and started svckling the air.
‘Your suppertime now little one.’ She popped her boy under her top, and let him drink.
‘Calm yourself little one,’ she soothed to him, ‘there’s plenty there thanks to your ma, quite a spot of bother for food tonight….but as always, worth it.’

She stared into glowing fire. And thought back on how this came to such desperation.

Well firstly before firstly, welome to The Fallout Forums!

Well firstly, I'm glad I found this before anyone else did. Space this thing out, you have right now what we refer to as a "wall". Give each paragraph at least a line of space, helps the eyes out.



I'm not sure if it could get through the hide, but I'm glad you chose arrows over a gun.



This was pretty confusing, but I gathered that it ran into the gap, stopped short of it, and then snorted and backed down. Either way, that should be revisited.

Good job overall, but I suggest your read and re-read your work, especially for something this short. Also flesh out her emotions as she does these things and the area around you to give you more of an environment. I really like the addition of a child, but you should have incorporated more foreshadowing in the passage about the child. Like saying "as she ran she had to make sure not to hit any tremors as to not disrupt my cargo", or maybe, "After she fell she couldn't roll, her luggage wouldn't allow it", or evn reveal the baby the first time you had the chance.

And make sure when you character thinks you put it in quotes (") and not these things ('). When she thinks, It'd be better to out it in italics.

Keep it up.

yeah your right, ive changed that now. handy as i noticed a few mistakes i had made

Here I took the liberty of reformatting that first installment for you so you can understand how the quotations are used in addition to proper spacing and a separator for understanding of time lapse.

Is this Life?

Chapter 1


As she crouched behind the shrub, she narrowed her eyes as she spotted her next meal. A lone bighorner. A rare occurrence. But she wasn’t about to pass the opportunity of red meat, after all she has to look after herself. She slowly pulled back her bow, equipped with her handmade arrows. It fired through the air and cracked into the beast’s chest with such force it flung backwards.


Ellen waited for a moment. The bighorner stirred and slowly came to it’s feet. Then fell again. She lowered her bow, and crept into the clearing. As she approached the body she could clearly see now that the beast was in fact a youngling.

"[censored]," she whispered, pulling her arrow from the depths of it’s chest. A faint rumble was beginning to shake the ground. Suddenly a herd of bighorners came of the valley into the clearing.


Ellen quickly jumped to her feet and slowly started backing away. The largest of the herd came stomping over, sniffing the youngling. Then, as abruptly as it appeared, it gave a almighty roar of despair. At that instant it turned it’s fierce eyes to Ellen. "Now, now big fella, I was only trying to. . ." She sharply whipped out another arrow into it’s chest. The bighorner simply looked at her, as if to say ‘bring it on.’


Ellen turned, sprinting away, in no particular direction, just as fast as she could without bouncing her important bundle too much. She had the bighorner charging after her. She managed to get a split second to look over her shoulder. Not only was the bull galloping after her. The entire herd were stampeding towards her. Really, she knew she was [censored]. But Ellen wasn’t about to give up now, after all she had been through. She continued her mad escape across the desert. Lucky for her, these bighorners were not the fastest over long distances. As Ellen was starting to weaken, she remembered her bundle. She had to survive. She noticed something ahead of her, a narrow chasm. It was her only shot. She sped up, and leaped into the canyon and held the rocky ledges both sides of her, and prayed her tired legs would stay wedged in the gap. Ellen succeeded. She hung there whilst some of the bighorners, that where eithier running too fast or too stupid to stop themselves, plunged into the canyon crunching at the bottom.

The bull simply ran over the gap, it was that narrow, gave up, delivered one last roar and retreated. Ellen sighed with relief. Made sure her baggage and contents were still firmly tied to her back. And began carefully scaling down the uneven wall to the ground. She spotted the couple of young bighorners that had fortunately fell to their deaths.
"Well at least I can still have supper," she thought aloud.

________

Ellen watched the crackling fire, the meat slowly cooking, the smell slowly reaching her nostrils. She gave it a prod,
"That’ll be about done," she thought. She got out her knife and started hacking away.Once she had eaten a sufficient amount, she pulled the bundle from her back, and carefully opened it and reached for the precious cargo inside. A pair of beautiful blue eyes stared sleepily back at her and started svckling the air."Your suppertime now little one," She popped her boy under her top, and let him drink.

"Calm yourself little one," she soothed to him, "there’s plenty there thanks to your ma, quite a spot of bother for food tonight….but as always, worth it."

She stared into glowing fire. And thought back on how this came to such desperation.

Welcome Star!

I see Ant has it mostly covered. In fact, he has it completely covered, from what I can tell. It was a little confusing, but Ant has touched up on that and I suggest you follow his advice.

All I can give is my words of support, and that this is pretty unique, haven't seen a story about a mother before. So that's new. And oh, you do have this planned right? Silly question, I know, but lots of time people don't and it turns out...bad.

Regardless, good luck.

This one slipped by me entirely somehow.

I like it though. There aren't that many female writers/writers who write as females here. Tickchtock and Venix are the only ones I know of. Nice to have another.

I like the idea of the story of a mother supporting a child in this environment too. As if things weren't hard enough. Plus she can have that death stare the first time someone put's her child in harm's way, kind of like that mother Bighorn in your post.

Good stuff.

thanks for the advice, will be more careful how i lay it out next time. ive changed the bit with the bull and the gap as well. u were right was a bit confusing!

and yes i do hav more planned, mainly about her background etc, . hope i keep u intrested will be making another post soon, but i do hav kids and work, so i mite not be straight away!

Welcome to the forums. I enjoyed the story so far. I think everyone has already covered the advice, although I personally disagree with one of Ant's suggestions. I loved the way you built it to the "Holy [censored] the package is a baby!" moment and I don't think you should change that part. Just my opinion.

Keep it up. :thumbsup:

I respect your disagreement. It seems while we RP together well, we never get to share the same opinions. :gun: :meh:

Oh I don't know mate. I think we both agree that this is a good attempt for a first post. :nono: :slap: :rofl: :hugs:

thanks kettle, i am sticking wif building up the bundle as a baby anyways, but thanks for support! i am going to start writing the next chapter asap

I see you haven't done anything to this, but I suggest keeping it up. I want to see more originality. trust me once you hit like 500 views you'll feel accomplished.

o.o.c- I know it's been ages since i started this but i still hope ppl will still take an interest!





Chapter 2

The vault was a good place. A neat, well organised place.Everyone had their place, everyone had a their role. It was the sort of place you would want to raise a child. Sure it was run by a slightly mad overseer, but what vault wasn't?
He was just so passionate about his vault and having control over everything, and everyone for that matter. But he did it for the good of the vault, he was a softy underneath it all. Or so Ellen thought.

She was only 10 weeks gone when she found out. Never told anyone. She kept well hidden for the first few months. Not from Jack of course. He was fantisic right from the beginning.Looking after he in their tiny 'apartment' (they tried to call it, butreally it was a kitchen with a bed and toilt at the other end). Anything she wanted he sorted out for her. Of course it was very reassuring that he was the vault's doctor. He didn't have much knowledge about pregnacy or labour. But as soon as he found out about it, he was cracking open any book he could find. Which wasn't alot.

You see the vault had a problem. It was doing too well. It was getting overpopulated. They had to control it, they had to, as supplys were running short far too quikcly, space was getting tighter. And less said about the air supply the better. So the overseer had a 'brillnat' idea. Noone was allowed to procreate without his consent. He never actually said what he would do it anyone did. He just declared the new rules and people obeyed.
But this lead to the overseer going abit too far. With selective breeding. Couples (and they had to be married) could only reproduce if any one in the vault died. People were distraught at the idea of not being allowed to express themselves. As the overseer banned contraception as well. As it is not always 100% effective. In the overseers eyes the only ways to be sure was to make people substain themselves from each other.

Ellen never really took much notice of such affairs, she never really left her home. Her role within the vault, after taking the G.O.A.T , was to be a housewife. She grew up with her mother within this role, so she didn't learn about the rules outside the home. She was taught it was the man's job to deal with such things. She grew up, she met Jack, a subtle macth, he had a important job as a doctor. So she knew she wouldn't need to go outside her home. They soon married, pehaps a bit too fast. But that was one of her life's goals. The other of course was to be a mother. That would make her life complete.
So when she discovered she was pregnant she was overjoyed. What better way to celebrate her perfect life than a baby?
So Jack told her to keep quiet and nust let him look after her. She did not know his true concerns. She believed him when he said it was just incase anything goes wrong with the baby. When she began to show, Jack panicked. Covering Ellen in his baggy jumpsuit and jumpers. Hoping no-one would notice.
But one morning a letter appeared at their door. A summons from the overseer. Straight away. Jack quickly grabbed another jumper and shoved it on Ellen.

'Calm down will you honey,' she said, trying to calm him down,'we would have to tell him sooner or later. I mean what's the worst that would happen?'

Jack gave her a ghastly look. Put his arm around her and slowly started to make their way to the office.

The over seer was glaring at the couple over his desk. Gestered them to take a seat. He was unsettingly quiet for a few minutes. He made a long sigh.

'Ellen', he began,' do you know the rules of the vault?'

'Sir I...' Jack began.

'No I want her to speak the over seer interrupted.

Ellen glaced at Jack,

'I know my role within the vault sir. Look after my family and home.' She replied.

'Yes...family,' he said,'and Jack is your family, yes?'
Jack began looking more unsettled.

' Erm, yes sir,' she answered.

The overseer slowly stood up, and walking over to Ellen.

'Please take your jumper off Miss Heather.'

'I'd rather not sir, abit chilly you see.' She answered.

'Take, it, off.'
She slowly pulled it off. Exposing the large bump within.

'Not again,' he sighed.

He made his way back to his chair.

'You know what this means don't you?' He rasped.

'I know,' Ellen smiled, 'you are not happy, but it has happened now, so we are just going to have to accept it.'

'No.' the overseer began,'you broke my rules, lied to me and everyone within the vault. Do you really think I would treat you any differently than the others? Just because you are ignorate of the outside world means nothing to me. You will be turned out of my vault. You will have to withstand the harsh circumstances of the Mojave. You will have a bag provided. But you will leave immediately . Mrs Heather. You have made a mockery of my rules, my vaults, my people.'

Ellen sat there gobsmacked by the situation. Her? Alone?! There must be some mistake!

but sir...'she stuttered, ' I am the wife of the doctor of the vault...'

'This means nothing,' he answered. 'He can stay, you and your seed cannot.'

As he spoke two guards entered the room eithier side of Ellen.
Jack started freaking out,

'No!' he shouted, 'anything but this!'
He jumped to his feet and pulled a pistol on the the overseer.
Ellen was shocked,

'Where hell did you get that?'

'Years of dealing with the dead, you find a thing a two!'
He shouted in the overseer's face.

'Now don't be stupid Jack,'

The overseer said calmly,'

'It is not you we wish to leave, just your mistakes.'

'My mistakes!' Jack screamed, with the shaking gun in his hand,'this women is the best thing that has ever happened to me! And the baby!'

'Regardless,' the overseer answers. 'This is happening.'

With a look to the guards they both grabbed Ellen at each arm.

'No!' Jack screamed once again.' If you need a dead body to keep a baby, then that you shall have!'

He flipped the gun under his chin, tears streaming down his face. Looked Ellen in her panicked eyes,'I'm so sorrY,' he whispered. And pulled the trigger.
Blood and brain sprayed over the wall, and what was left of Jack thudded to the ground.

Ellen, now forced to her feet, stood there shocked beyond believe.
The overseer stared at her.
'Look what you have done. Not only have you disgraced this vault with your selfishness. You have now denyed us our only doctor. Take her away. And get someone to clear this mess up.'

The guards grabbed her once again and dragged her out of the office.

'No, not me,' she whispers,'Jack, no,Mojave? I know nothing of this!' She rambled.
The guards continued towards the exit.

'Please!' she started screaming,' John! I've known you sice we were wee ones!' How could you do this to me?!' She yelled in the face of one of the guards.

'Sorry Ellen...it's my job...I can't defy him.'

They approached the mighty vault door. Still grasping Ellen who is now screaming, spitting and thrashing out at the guards. But this wasn';t the first time they have done this, they were used to it.
The guard name john John slowly tapping in the release key.
The door creaked open. They tossed Ellen out into the drakness. Ellen made a mad run for the gap, but it was already closing. She began hammering the door and houling like a animal. The door came open a little.
'Yes! ' she thought, 'they have changed they minds!'
Suddenly a backpack appeared through the door and landed in front of Ellen. Then the door sealed again.

'YOU CAN'T JUST LEAVE ME TO DIE OUT HERE!' she screamed.
She began neating the door with her fists and kicking as hard as a she could. She did this for seemed like hours, and finally started to slow when she began to bleed. She collasped to the ground.

'you can't just leave me to die out here,' she whispered. She slumped to the floor, curled up and fell asleep. Morning fell and she slowly opened her eyes. A humans skull stared at her, she jumped to her feet in disgust. I half decayed skeleton laid curled up on the ground. Ellen looked closed and saw it was wearing a vault jumpsuit and that it was clutching a smaller corpse.
Ellen began to weep, 'I guess they have done it before,' she thought. She grabbed her bag, inside were food supplys, a blanket and a pistol. Hopefully all she would need to survive at least days.
She slung the bag heavily on her back. And commencing walking slowly into the wasteland, 'I must survive,' she thought. Clutching her bump.
'I must survive,' she whispered.

So far it shows good potential

thanks, im guna start working on my next chapter soon

Good to see you posting again starbug.

A few things to keep in mind for your next chapter.

-use spell check. Copy and paste everything into word first, and you won’t have any mizspellinzg

-make sure you put a space between every paragraph. It will look. . .prettier. . .and is much easier to read

-quotations are doubled (“) not (‘)

-italicize internal thoughts

-keep on writing this

thanks for the advice mate, i did try to make it look 'prettier', and i dont even have mircosoft word, so i had to look up the spellings online, sorry for any i missed.
i will keep trying though

May I make a suggestion? Get Open Office! It's like Microsoft Word, but it's free! Isn't that just frigging awesome. It will help with spelling by a lot too. And some other minor grammatical things.

Other than that, just follow the clear and concise advice of Surfer.

Good Luck.

this looks good starbug keep it up!

hi thanks for the advice but i tried to download open office and it wouldnt work, i will try again later

This is beginning to show more promise. I like the flashback which gave the whole lore of the story more background and flesh to the characters. Don't let this die!