Vault-Tec saved her

What coping skills?

Journal title: I couldn't pull the trigger

It's been a full two days since...I thawed out. Yesterday I checked the rest of the houses and found the Mayers stash of drugs, and spent the day in Lisa's house just taking drug after drug, hoping I would overdose. I, at that moment, had made up my mind I wanted to be with mom and dad again. But the drugs weren't doing shit. They all wear off too quickly, and I don't have the means to combine them so that I can take a single large dose at once, so I...I sat with my back against the wall...barrel to my temple. I was all ready! I didn't deserve to live while everyone else had died; this wasn't my time.

But...I couldn't do it. I tried three god damn times, and I couldn't. I screamed and emptied my only clip into the wall in my frustration. That's where I fucked up, though. Seconds later, I remembered that mister handy was in town, and Lisa's house was only across the street from min...his house.

The moment I heard his voice coming across the street, I didn't even register right away that it was; in fact, codsworth, I just...I felt like a trapped animal, my heart once again in my ears pounding away. I quickly...and wrongly assumed he was inside the house before he actually was and...jumped out the damn window. I was on the first floor, and most of the glass was gone, but... that's going to leave a nice scar. I got up to run, blood running down my forearm, and took a hit of a drug I found... I'm glad I did. I still don't know what the drug is, and it's post-war, but within a second of doing that, my world slowed down, and I was able to think clearly, seeing it was, in fact, just codsworth.

After I came down( that drug does not last long, maybe a few mins at most), Codsworth chastised me for using a random unknown drug I found and asked where Nate and Shawn were...We talked. He confirmed what I figured out that it's been about 210 years since I've been frozen. We spent most of the day today boarding up Lisa's house and getting a fire going so I could have some freshwater. Codsworth explained that concord has some people in it and that after 210 years, the world is recovering to the point they even have a working metro now. You can get to the most prominent areas in....the "commonwealth"? from the metro.

Journal title: I found a dog

I'm not coping all that well; it's been a few days, and despite knowing I should ration everything I have, I just keep munching and taking all my drugs, not wanting to come to terms with what happened. But reality has a way of kicking you into shape. I'm totally out of food and have no choice but to go to concord in search of these people codsworth told me about. I don't have much to offer people, but my dad was a great survivalist and taught it all to me. I can build shelters/beds/hunt/farm and make water safe to drink that has to be useful now, right?

I'm going to hit the gas station first to see if anything of use is there.

I am not starting a new page for this update. I'm at the red rocket and found a cute german shepherd here. He had no collar or owner around, so I'm taking him with me(mainly because he helped kill the molerats). The red rocket doesn't have much, just a few empty bottles I can use to store water and a cap stash? Why? are people collecting them? They are useless. I did also take the $100 I found in the register. It's not much but better than nothing. I know the metro was just a few feet from the red rocket, so I will hit that first before going deeper into concord.

Journal title: That fucking hurt

I've never been shot before. And I knew it would hurt like a motherfucker but god damn. So let's see, yesterday, as I got closer to town, I heard the unmistakable sound of gunfire and given I planned on checking out the metro first, it was a good excuse to.

It's here I found out what the cap stashes were for. They use the dumb things like money. I mean, heck, a bottle of Nuka cola was 20$ with tax making the cap worth $1. You couldn't buy anything for a dollar in my time. I'm...glad, though? Because every two bullets were one cap, I got 10 10mm bullets for...I suck at math; hang on...$5. HA! Dad would cry and buy as many as he could. So in the metro, I noticed two things. One, My heart was racing, and I had a pit in my stomach, and despite it being October and not that far underground, I was hot. And two there were two trains One to...diamond city? It's a station I saw on the pipboy; I'll have to check it out one day; maybe someone can help me find...can locate an over 210-year kidnapping case...Anyway, um Jesus, my arm, typing hurts. After I was done, I went back into the streets, and the shooting had died down a bit. Walked onto the main road, gun ready to find...looters? Raiders? I don't know.

I saw a guy with a...robotic eye? Upon the balcony of the museum of freedom shooing at the... I'm a call them raiders, shooting at them. When he saw me, he yelled out, "UP HERE! MOVE!" I wasn't fast enough as a raider that came up behind me got a shot off, going right through my bicep. The guy on the balcony thankfully killed him for me. I grabbed the armour off the raider( did NOT fit what did I expect?), took a stimpack and when inside. He helped me. It's only fitting I returned the favour.

So many more people than what I expected...christ, so many more raiders than I expected. I want to say there were at least a dozen of them. It took a while, but I managed to get up to the dude, thanks to the dog. He and a small group were held up in the third-floor main office. They called, well he, called them "minutemen." I couldn't help but just shrug at the name; it sounds like a good cause, though. Preston said his name was; said the raiders would be here soon with backup and asked for my help. Noted that there was a set of prewar power armor on the roof... tremendous, but I don't know how to use that. I mean...Na...he showed me for laughs one time when he was still. Anyway, what choice did I have? As we sat coming up with a game plan, you could hear yelling outside, so it was now or never. And Ohhh boy, was I glad I put that suit on. Even if moving around was...clunky and stiff.

I learned a new term that day, "deathclaw," and man, oh man, did it live up to its name. The power armor allowed me just to jump off the roof and use a minigun as a riffle, very cool; what wasn't very cool was, as I downed the last raider, the ground under my feet shook, and the sewer gate blew off into the sky. I quickly faced this Godzilla-looking thing that wasted no time charging me. It took every last 5mm bullet in the minigun to kill it. When done me and dogmeat( i guess he had a name after all) went back to the group, where I asked a straightforward question. WHAT. THE HELL. WAS THAT THING. Preston said he would explain more after we got back to sanctuary...which was fine; I didn't want to be on the streets after dark anyway.

That's where we are now. It's currently 8 pm. We got back about....5? And spent the last 3 hours making beds for everyone and cooking up...good god, deathclaw steaks, ugh. As we sat around the fire, we talked. I explained how I was...basically, a thawed-out popsicle. He only believed it after Codsworth confirmed( thank you for the robot's inability to lie) that's when he explained a bunch of new stuff to me. He said the giant flies/mosquitoes/deer I've dealt with so far were called (in order) bloat flies, blood bugs, and radstags. There are people called "ghouls" that are pretty much like burn victims unless they are feral. Like in my time, he said that if you are brave enough, everything is mostly safe to eat. I...I can't write anymore today. I need to sleep.

Journal title: 16 Days

Today marks 16 days since I've been...thawed out like a piece of meat. It's also been seven days since I helped the minutemen get to sanctuary, but... Being so close to the vault, it's eating at me. I can't stay here, and sanctuary is so far out of the way from...well, everything. We've scavenged everything we could from here and concord, and it's still no help and Marcy, god, I want to fucking stab her. I told Preston I was leaving and asked him not to tell anyone what he knew of me. I also said I wouldn't be a stranger, but I needed to get out of sanctuary...find somewhere else to live/set up. Ha, maybe I can find a spot to start a proper...what did he call a settlement? That's what he wanted to do here, but I can't do it here. I just can't.

I'm going to leave tomorrow morning at first light. I'm not sure if I want to walk or take the metro. Codsworth will come with me, keep me company, he said. That's fine.