Chapter Text
Annabelle had never run so fast in her entire life.
A continuous blast of the cool Boston breeze whipped fiercely into her skin, her locks of auburn hair waving wildly around her face as she bolted across a near-decomposing bridge and into the desolate ruins towering above her. She had absolutely no idea where she was or where she was going (the once extravagant skyscrapers lining the downtown Boston area all looked so similar when they were over two hundred years old), but she knew she was heading into the near heart of the city, where hopefully there were sane people that weren’t trying to kill her.
A bullet whizzed less than an inch from her cheek, her head snapping around to catch sight of the same group of lunatic cult-members that had been following her for damn near a mile and a half now.
Good news for her - she’d been the Fenway High track star.
She weaved through a chaotic string of abandoned vehicles and a few human remains, trying not to think about just exactly how long their bodies may have been lying there.
Her legs had gone numb long ago, the adrenaline moving through her veins and the very real threat of death chasing after her offering ample encouragement. Hell, she’d felt numb since the moment she tumbled out of the cryo chamber two weeks prior. They had told them it was for decontamination purposes; a precaution just in case any radiation had found its way onto their bodies.
‘It’s for the safety of the vault; for the safety of you,’ the Vault-Tec employee had explained, motioning towards an empty cell and helping her step inside. How the hell was she supposed to know they planned on turning them into human icicles for almost two centuries? She was a historian, not a scientist.
Maybe if the truth had been written on the chamber in hieroglyphics she’d have been able to decipher it.
Maybe.
As far as she knew, no one had walked out of that radiation bunker alive besides her. Not that she spent much time trying to figure it out. The moment the door had lifted to the claustrophobic container she had been trapped in she’d wasted no time in retreating to the surface, nearly crushing a functional Pip-Boy as she fled the iron-walled prison. She had heard about the hand-held computers on television but never actually had seen one in person before. The device felt heavy on her slim wrist but proved useful when she discovered the only way to release the industrial-sized vault door was by hooking the computer to the manual door control.
From within the black and grey pack slung on her back came a high-pitched whimper, her furry friend clearly frightened by the rapid movements shaking the leather walls around him. Of course, she had not been alone in the icy cavity; her three month old Golden Retriever had come along for the ride, stowed away in the confines of her backpack before she had followed her neighbors toward the vault entrance. They had advised to leave most personal items behind, especially animals, but didn’t bother to search her belongings upon her arrival to the vault. She still didn’t know how in the hell her hyper-active and extremely vocal pooch had managed to stay quiet throughout the events leading up to their freeze, but she was eternally thankful that he had, else she would be completely alone in this literal wasteland.
And now, here she was, sprinting away from a gang of psychotic murderers in nothing but a tight blue jumpsuit and a pair of cheap combat boots, their battle cries echoing off the ruins surrounding them. She glanced around frantically as she continued on, desperate for any landmark that made sense to her. Most of the signs for the shops and buildings had been destroyed from the looks of it, as did any suggestions of street names and direction. She hurdled over a miscellaneous pile of cement rubble that lay in the middle of the street and took a sharp left, hoping to lose the hostiles behind her.
That’s when she saw it.
The building was somewhat in-tact, more so than the rest, and she recognized the familiar neon pink trim around the windows almost immediately. She wanted to cry.
Uptown Bakery.
She used to stop there every morning on her way to work, picking up her usual tall cup of black coffee with a plain cream cheese bagel. The crew working the shop had known her so well that her breakfast would be ready before she even pulled up to the curb. She did, after all, only work a half mile away from the cafe.
The Old State House was just down this road.
She peeled right with more velocity than before, her sense of direction giving her a newfound energy that she poured into her strides. The familiarity of the area hit her like a freight train: through the destruction and darkness she could see the bustle of a downtown Boston Monday morning, complete with the bumper-to-bumper traffic and the screech of horns through the window of her one-seater vehicle. She dodged past a few cars that had been no doubt caught in that same traffic when the bombs had dropped. She wondered briefly if their deaths had been quick.
A sharp pain suddenly radiated from the curve of her shoulder blade, eliciting a sharp groan from her lips and bringing a weakness to her knees. Instinctively she reached for her backpack and pulled it to her chest, her puppy yapping loudly from the sharp ring of the gunshots. Her pace slowed as she heard the screams from the gang behind her, her head turning to gauge their distance from her. They were too close, not even 300 feet from her.
Her hand reached behind to inspect the area of her back, hissing sharply when her fingertips came into contact with the pain. When she brought her hand back and saw the bright red stain of her own blood, she gasped.
She’d been shot.
The brute’s cries grew louder as they gained on her, Annabelle’s adrenaline only carrying her so far. She could feel the pain start to radiate down her arm, locking up her joints and turning her muscles into stone. She felt a deep moan in her throat but could barely hear it over the sound of her own panting.
“Keep going, Anabelle,” she was practically screaming at herself, her pace quickening despite her body screaming at her to stop. “You’re almost there.”
Her body felt as slow as molasses but the buildings continued to move past at an even speed. The pain was coursing through her entire torso now, her fingers gripping her bag less out of necessity to keep her pup close and more out of desperation.
Another bullet made contact with her side, the burning sensation radiating across her body and pulsating through her veins as she cried out in agony. Her vision blurred and her head began to feel light as she stumbled slightly.
This was it.
Through the haze before her she spotted a broken wall, slung together most likely from various rubble and drift wood found throughout the ruins. Blurry movement she couldn’t make out shifted in front of the structure. Words came out of her throat, but she could barely comprehend what they were. The screams behind her only got louder and more garbled.
Finally, her knees gave out from under her. She barely felt her knees hit the gravel. The pain was everywhere now. As a last ditch effort, her fingers unclasped the pack in her white knuckles as her dog went flying to her right. “Good boy,” barely formed from her lips before a sharp blow cascaded across her back. The strangled sob that emitted from her throat sounded inhuman. A tight grasp flipped her onto her back and a blade was pushed to her throat.
“Y’think ya can run from us, Vaultie?” A hoarse voice gaffed in her face. Some kind of ski mask coated in blood. The mask started blurring in and out. “I’m really gonna enjoy this one-”
A shrill ring echoed through her ears. The pressure of the blade disappeared as quick as it came. Instead of a mask, a purple and orange haze spread above her. The yelling was gone. She tried to turn her head. Tried to find out why they were taking so long in finishing her off.
Her eyes slipped closed, slowly giving into the soothing darkness filling her body as the world faded away.
A dull pinch pushed into the frail skin of her forearm before peace found her.