VAULT 113 Chapter One
I walked down the dimly lit hallway of Vault 113, it was silent. The usual hum of the lights that I had grown up with, was now absent. The only sources of illumination that remained in the hallway were two long strips of UV lights, that ran along the length of the ceiling. It had been almost a month since the main lighting system had failed, on the exact 200th anniversary of the date that the door slid shut. The main engineer said that our vault received a different power distribution system to other vaults. The power from the reactor would travel through the step-down transformers as usual, but the power for the lights were diverted through a different box, the cables could be traced from the box, to a junction box in the lower sections of the vault. It was only last month when the lights actually failed, that anybody had bothered to check all 500 cables running out of the junction box and finding out what happened. The cables from the box all lead to different step-up transformers that would increase the voltage to an unstable level, but only when the power was diverted through them, When it wasn't the system would run smoothly. A small timer circuit was found, which was set to divert the power on a set date. The lights blew out on a quiet Monday afternoon. Hysteria ensured. Half the vault's citizens were banging down the overseer's door, but there weren't enough spare lights to replace every single bulb. There were however, more than enough super efficient RobCo 'day-glo' UV light strips, the problem was, that you couldn't see terminal or Pip-boy screens easily with them, as well as the adverse effects it had on people's eyes. The power input on the UV lights were reduced, and the vault was immersed in the perpetual twilight that tortured us every day.
I carried on down a couple of flights of stairs until I reached my friends' dorm. I was greeted by my girlfriend Lucy, Matt my best friend, and his younger brother Peter. I pecked Lucy on the cheek and handed Peter a box of Cram I had 'acquired' from the stores. I sat on a bench by Matt's terminal, and Lucy lay on the sofa. Matt walked through to his room and Peter sat in the corner messing with the contrast on his Pip-boy. Lucy wished me a happy birthday and tossed me a bottle of quartz wrapped in an old vault boy poster. Proper Nuka-cola was hard to come by, let alone any special kinds. It had become a birthday tradition between me and Lucy, that we would give the same bottle of quartz to each other every year, a tradition that caused Peter a great deal of amusemant and confusion. "Why don't you drink it Mordy?" He'd chime every year, and Lucy would usually reply with something like, "because Mordecai thinks it'll be funny to give it back to me next year". Peter would then go and play on the terminal or Matts pip-boy, as he only turned ten last year. Matt came back through with a package wrapped in an old Ralphie poster. It was quite large and felt soft. I thanked him and opened it. It was a limited edition vault 113 hoodie. Which was permitted to be worn over the top of a jumpsuit, except on special occasions. I'd been trying to get ahold of one for months.

CHAPTER 2
I woke up early and felt awful. I couldn't see anything, and my head felt like I'd been repeatedly kicked in the face. I couldn't remember anything and felt sick. I rubbed my eyes, flicked on my PIP light and rolled over. I was lying next to Lucy.
Nice.
I crept out the room and into her bathroom. I did all my morning stuff and had a shave. I pulled on the first leg of my jumpsuit and fell over, hitting my face on the wall next to Lucy. She woke up, shouted and took a wild swing in the dark, hitting me in the stomach. I fell over again and lay on the floor. She turned on her PIP light and saw it was me. She burst out laughing. "What are you doing in my room?" I looked at her and cocked my head. "Oh, right. You mean like? oh. woah." She sat up and put on her bra.
Nice.
She went and did her thing in the bathroom and I finished putting on my jumpsuit. I found my vault 113 hoodie and put it on. It was the same blue as my utility jumpsuit and had a bronze zip down the front, which was framed by two yellow strips that ran all the way up, and around the large hood. The back of the hoodie bore a yellow 113 framed by a cog. I picked up my bandolier and strapped it over my shoulder, which was quite hard whilst I was wearing the hoodie. I checked the SEC's on the front, and spun my laser pistol into the holster. I put on my combat boots and went back to sleep. Matt came to pick me up for work about an hour later. "You look tired man!" He joked, and slapped me in the back of the head. "Yeah, didn't get much sleep." I smiled at him. "Wow" he laughed,"like for real? Wait a minute... That's why you took so long to answer the door!"
"No man, I was asleep"
"Oh Mordecai! Oh! I think your friend Matt is really hot! But I suppose I'll settle for you instead!"
"Yeh, funny, that's exactly what she said." I said as sarcastically as possible whilst trying to hit him In the back of his head.
We arrived at work about 10 minutes late, and crashed in front of the terminals and cracked open some homemade 'mordy-cola' we'd made to replace nuka-cola. (The name was Matt's idea).

CHAPTER 3
The northwest wing Had 3 different sealed vault doors, an inner 15 inch thick circular steel door that was standard on all west coast models, and two 75 inch thick titanium doors. My job was officially 'Vault life support and electrical systems specialist' or, a VSES. The doors didn't usually fall under life support, but I was the only person qualified to service them. Ever since the radiation levels cleared up to 'acceptable levels' we have serviced the inner door every day. But more recently, we have started doing a fortnightly service of the outer door. The security system required for operation of a 'Vault-tec titanium lattice class, anti-nuclear bulkhead, model 2060-B' was extensive if nothing else. To open one door, the other must be closed, and the room in between decontaminated. So when Matt and I head out to service it, we have to actually lock ourselves outside of the vault.
The service was extremely thorough. The door itself was actually two of the same door next to each other, that opened at the same time, there was then a large room between another two doors, and then the small standard door. One door by itself was more than enough to stop raiders smashing through (they'd tried) but each door was made of six interlocking triangular pieces,that were made of a lattice of titanium strands, just shy of 50 inches thick. The 10 inch gap between the doors was a vacuum, to stop alpha and beta particles, and the titanium lattice became electrified by about 100,000 volts when the door was closed. And if all this wasn't enough, two 75 inch thick metal plates with '113' printed on them, were dropped into place on both sides of the lattice. Each door was 210 inches of overkill.
We waited for the door to open, listening to the lock cycle. I brushed a hand through my hair and flipped the safety off on my laser pistol. The door slid open was a satisfying hiss, and we stepped into hell. My eyes burned and we sat down rubbing our eyes for a couple of minutes. It was my first time servicing the outer bulkhead, and the first time I'd seen the sun. I didn't like the sun. It hurt.
The bulkhead opened straight into the open and we could see for miles. Various settlements dotted the charred landscape. Which to my surprise, looked inhabited. We got to work, and finished before the rads gave us any extra feet. We were greeted by Peter who was drinking up his water rations whilst staring at the door. "Hey guys!" He said. We greeted him and dumped our kit in our lockers, then walked to the diner for lunch. Lunch was homemade chicken surprise. Have three guesses what the surprise was. We live in a concrete cave, just, think about it. We chewed out grey sludge that was slopped into our plates and pvssyd. "What do you wanna do later?" Inquired Peter. "Lucy" I grinned, Matt practically exploded and almost fell off his chair. Yeh, we're immature, but life's boring when all there is to do is admire damp patches in the concrete.
I started dating Lucy last year, after we took the G.O.A.T and I was feeling brave, but we'd been best friends since I could remember. Matt and her were my only real friends, and we spent all our time together. We were all surprisingly alike, Me and Matt had both lost our parents at a young age, due to a fire that broke out in the storerooms. We never talked about it.
"So um... I was thinking that later we should-" Matt was speaking but I wasn't listening. Lucy had walked into the room. She was covered in blood.