“That bitch is going to get you killed, Silas,” the nurse growled, wrapping the bandages tightly. “This is the third time you’ve been injured this week, and it’s only Tuesday.” “Sarah, it ain’t that serious. I’ve gotten worse injuries working on the reactor. I’m a big boy, y’know,” Silas sighed, letting the disgruntled nurse work. “YOU WERE SHOT, SILAS!” Sarah shouted. “I HAD TO PULL THREE 10mm BULLETS OUT OF YOUR CHEST!” “Well, I ain’t gonna let the head of security get shot. She’s important, Sarah.” Silas looked around the room. He had seen the inside of this medical bay many times before, and he knew it wouldn't be his last. “She does—” “Silas, you are just as important as she is. No one else around here knows how to fix the reactor, and if that goes bad, we all die.” Sarah cupped his face firmly, forcing him to look her in the eyes. “Not only that, you’re important to me. I don’t think I could survive the rest of our time in this vault without you, Silas.” Silas sighed. “Don’t be so dramatic. You’d do just fine, Ma'am.” Sarah growled again, her composure fracturing. “I’m in love with you, Silas! I’ve been hinting at it for YEARS now, and you are about as oblivious as you are charming.” “Oh, well, uhm… Sorry?” Silas offered, sounding more confused than genuine. Sarah sighed, rubbing her temples. “Whatever. You’re patched up. Now… get out of my office, and don’t come back unless you are dying.” “Sarah, I…” Silas muttered, climbing down from the examination table. “OUT!” the furious nurse shouted, pointing a trembling finger toward the door. Silas slunk through the doorway, out of the clinic, and the door slammed shut behind him. “Well, I oughta get back to my work… I got pretty distracted…” Silas groaned, realizing he had left his shirt in the clinic. He’d go back to get it when Sarah calmed down. Silas knew how Sarah felt; he always had. He could see it in her body language. But he just wasn’t interested, and he thought if he ignored her long enough she would take the hint. He was wrong. Dating inside the vault was a terrible idea, plain and simple. When you were trapped under miles of rock with the same population, a bad breakup wasn't just awkward—it was an inescapable containment hazard. You couldn't cut ties when you were guaranteed to bump elbows with your ex at the breakfast commissary, the water chip terminal, and the local clinic. It was safer for everyone if he kept his head down and focused on the machinery. The heavy steel door of the medical bay faded into the background as Silas started his long walk down the residential corridor. Without his shirt, the cool, recycled air of the vault bit at his bare skin, making the fresh white bandages across his chest feel tight, stiff, and itchy. Passing vault residents gave him wide berths and lingering stares. Some looked at the blood seeping through the gauze, while others just shook their heads. In a closed ecosystem, gossip traveled faster than a radiation leak. They all knew he'd been out with security again. They all knew he'd taken more metal for a woman who wasn't even family. He took the rusted metal stairs down toward the maintenance area. The ambient noise changed instantly. The quiet, domestic hum of televisions and chatter from the upper levels was swallowed by the deep, industrial thrum of the reactor core. Down here, the air tasted different: metallic, heavy with the scent of ozone and hydraulic fluid. Water dripped from condensation lines overhead, splashing onto the cold steel grating beneath his boots. As Silas' foot finally hit the bottom step, the flickering overhead fluorescent lights cast long, distorted shadows down the maintenance tunnel. The structural walls were weeping rust, and several warning panels were pulsing a dull, rhythmic amber. The vault was aging, decaying from the inside out, and the weight of keeping it breathing rested entirely on his shoulders. A relationship was a luxury he couldn't afford anyway. If he lost focus, if his hands shook while calibrating the coolant lines because of some petty heartbreak drama, the whole station would become a tomb. He rounded the final corner, bracing himself for the heat of the generator, but stopped short. He collapsed onto the couch he left down there and cried until the world faded to black.
Silas was surrounded by darkness; he tried to feel around, but found nothing except… Water? There was about an inch of water underneath his feet. A screech followed, and two bright, purple eyes bored into his soul. And a voice from the darkness: “Brenda.” Silas shot up from his couch; he had to check up on Brenda. He’d had visions before, and they’d never failed him. He sprinted up the stairs, pushing through the pain; he had to save Brenda. Reaching the top, he peeled around the corner and slammed into the door to Brenda’s room: it was supposed to be automatic. He knew that his body would be bruised from the impact, but he couldn’t stop… not now. He swiped his executive override card; the door scraped open. Sarah stood over a sleeping Brenda, scalpel in her hand. Silas, being prepared, had grabbed his Vault-Tec-issued Flamer: He’d only ever used it for incinerating trash when the incinerator was broken, but he knew it would pack a punch if needed. “Sarah, drop the knife,” Silas barked. Sarah jerked around, clearly shocked not only to see Silas but also the Flamer in his hands; she put her hands up. “S-Silas!” “I should’a known somethin’ like this was gonna happen; all you’ve ever done was complain about how close I was to Brenda!” Silas shouted. By now, Brenda had begun to stir. “What the heck… Why are you guys in my—” then Brenda saw Sarah’s knife and reached for her own rifle. “Sarah nearly killed you… I happened by and saved you.” Silas gritted his teeth, hoping not to need to share the details. Sarah growled and slashed at Brenda, who was frozen from shock. But Silas reacted first. He bashed Sarah in the back of the head with his Flamer, knocking her to the floor, unconscious. “Oh, for cryin' out loud… You saved me!” Brenda gasped, her voice tightening in shock. “Well, yeah, you’re the head of security! You’re important around here.” Silas carried Sarah's dead weight down to the holding cells alone. While he stood watch outside the iron bars, Brenda sat at the terminal, writing the official log of the incident, but locked it to system admins only to avoid prying eyes… prying eyes who like stirring the pot. “Say… Silas, how’d ya know, then? How’d ya know I was in trouble?” Brenda asked, looking up from the terminal with a slight, puzzled tilt of her head. “Oh uhm… She made a comment earlier, and I had a nightmare, so I wanted to check on you,” Silas muttered. It wasn’t a lie, but… not the truth either. Brenda narrowed her eyes, studying his face for a long beat before her gaze dropped down to his chest. The white gauze was completely ruined, soaked through with fresh crimson from the strain of his sprint and dragging Sarah down the steps. "A nightmare, dontcha know," Brenda said, her voice dropping into a skeptical hum as she stood up from the console. She looked like she wanted to push for a real answer; security protocol absolutely demanded it, but the sheer amount of blood on him made her stop short. "Well, whatever it was, I owe you real good. But uff da, Silas, you're bleeding all over my floor. Sit your butt down before you tip right over." “I’m fine, Brenda, I just need some Med-X and a Stimpak.” Silas pushed; he didn’t want to sit down because he wasn’t sure he’d be able to get back up if he did. Brenda sighed, a sound loaded with stubborn, Midwestern exasperation. "Oh, for Pete's sake, Silas. You've got more holes in ya than a brick of Swiss cheese, and you're tellin' me you're fine? That's a load of baloney." She stepped out from behind the terminal and unhooked a locked medical lockbox from the wall using her security credentials. She popped the latches and pulled out a standard Vault-Tec Stimpak alongside a small vial of Med-X. “You don’t have to remind me, Brenda. I feel the crushing weight of being a mechanic every day I wake up.” Silas let out a sigh of his own, but finally plopped down in the chair: defeated. Brenda's demeanor softened, though she kept her brisk efficiency as she pulled up a rolling stool. "Yeah, well, we appreciate you bearin' that weight, even if we don't say it enough," she murmured, carefully pressing the Stimpak against his thigh and triggering the mechanism with a sharp hiss. As the medicine flooded his system, taking the edge off the burning agony in his chest, she reached for a pair of medical shears. "Now hold real still. Let's see what kind of mess we're dealin' with under here." “Still just the same bullet wounds from earlier, crazy ol’ Mr. Abernathy. What was he rambling on about again? That we’d been replaced with androids?” Silas chuckled as the Stimpak took the edge off, the holes beginning to close up. “I reckon he might need to be seen by…” Silas looked over to the still unconscious Sarah in the cell, suddenly feeling bad about slamming a giant flamethrower into the back of her head. Brenda paused, her hands freezing on the blood-soaked shears as she followed his gaze over to the heavy cell door. For a second, the only sound in the block was the low, steady hum of the vault's ventilation network. "Yeah, well, old Abernathy isn't the only one losing his marbles, it seems," Brenda said quietly, her voice dropping its usual bouncy cadence. She set the shears down on the medical tray and reached for a fresh roll of sterile gauze. "Don't go feelin' too bad about that bump on her head, Silas. She was standing over my bed with an active scalpel. If you hadn't brought that heavy trash-burner down on her, I'd be colder than a Minnesota winter right about now." She began wrapping the clean fabric around his chest, pulling it snug. "As for Abernathy... honestly, with the way things are breaking down around here, I almost wish we were replaced by androids. At least they wouldn't get their hearts broken and try to slice up the security staff." “That’s quite the understatement, Brenda… I think we should get one of the Ms. Nannys to run the clinic; they are at least slightly less likely to get jealous, heh.” Silas finally had let out the breath he’d been holding. "Never been so thankful you were a park ranger, Brenda. That medical training might be needed with Sarah locked up." She tied off the bandage with a sharp, neat knot and patted his shoulder. "There. Good as new. Well, mostly." Suddenly, a low groan echoed from the dark interior of the holding cell. Sarah was starting to stir, her fingers twitching against the cold concrete floor. Sarah slowly rolled over, clutching the back of her head with a sharp wince. Her eyes flicked open, wild and disoriented, before locking onto the heavy iron bars of the cell, and then onto Silas and Brenda standing together in the dim light of the block. "Silas..." Sarah croaked, her voice trembling with a mixture of raw betrayal and lingering fury. She dragged herself up against the cold wall. "You... you chose her? After everything? I saved your life today! I pulled the metal out of your chest!" Brenda stepped forward, her gentle demeanor instantly hardening into the strict, commanding posture of a vault authority figure. "That's enough out of you, Sarah. You brought this on yourself, dontcha know." “I didn’t choose anyone, Sarah, literally. We’re in here tighter than a tin of sardines; I ain’t makin’ the mistake of dating. I’ll wait until reclamation day, but until then… I’m happier all by my lonesome.” Silas squatted down, eye level with Sarah. “It was never a competition, and it was never a ‘You vs. Her.’ It was always gonna just be me. I hope you can realize that…” Sarah stared at him through the bars, her lips trembling as the harsh reality of his words sank in. The furious fire in her eyes suddenly died down, replaced by a hollow, crushing humiliation. She looked away, pulling her knees tightly against her chest and burying her face in her arms, completely silent. Brenda opened her mouth, then closed it. Whatever she'd planned to say to Sarah could wait. "Well," she whispered, gesturing toward the exit corridor. "Now that she's settled down a smidge, we oughta get you out of this damp block before you catch a chill." Silas stood up slowly, the fresh Stimpak fluid tingling in his veins as it finished knitting his skin together under the tight gauze. He took one last look at Sarah, huddled in the corner of the cell, before turning to follow the head of security out of the holding block. The heavy cell door hissed shut behind them with a definitive, metallic thud, sealing the silence of the corridor. "Uff da," Brenda breathed out, rubbing the back of her neck as they walked down the concrete hallway. "That was a whole mess and a half, Silas. Thanks for coming to my rescue back there, truly. But we still need to get you squared away." “Yeah yeah, I know. I think I just need to finally sit down and take a rest; I haven’t slept in days… I’ve been having so many nightmares…” Silas sighed as he walked along with Brenda. Brenda slowed her pace, looking over at him with genuine concern softening her features. "Well, no wonder you're entirely tuckered out, then. Running on empty while fixin' a whole nuclear reactor is bad enough without the bad dreams keeping ya up." She guided him up the stairwell toward the residential sector, keeping her voice low. "Tell ya what. We are going straight to your quarters for some real shut-eye. Security can handle the morning shift patrols. But Silas..." She paused at the top landing, her eyes locking onto his. "When you wake up, we're gonna have a real chat about those nightmares of yours. Deal?" “Even if I told you ‘bout them, Brenda, I don’t think you’d believe me, because even I hardly believe them,” Silas sighed as he followed behind Brenda. Once they reached his room, it almost seemed foreign. It had been weeks, maybe even months, since he slept in his room. He usually slept down by the reactor to keep an eye on it, but he didn’t argue much when his head finally hit a pillow for the first time in ages. Icy water lapped around his ankles, the darkness alive with the echo of his every breath. Twin purple eyes burned through the void, unblinking, impossible to escape. “Reclamation Day draws near,” the voice hissed, resonance curling like smoke through the black. “When the hour arrives, you will know. The truth cannot hide forever. Answer me when I call.”
It had been a week since his last nightmare, and Reclamation Day had arrived. All the dwellers of Vault 76 were finally ready to leave the vault and reclaim America—or that’s what the Overseer said to do. Silas, naturally, had followed Brenda out of the vault. He gave her a firm hug and a soft goodbye, and then he was off into the remains of West Virginia. From what he could tell so far, things looked pretty normal still. He knew where he had to go: home. Carrying his Flamer, he began trudging down the road toward his father’s garage, the same place where he was raised, and where he was taught the teachings of the Wise Mothman. Lost in thought, he heard a shout, followed by a loud bang, and he felt like he got punched in the shoulder. Silas knew he had gotten shot; he looked up to see a strange, burnt-looking man with glowing, green crystals growing from his skin. He couldn’t waste any time; he didn’t have time to ask questions. He lifted his Flamer, pointed it at the man, and squeezed the trigger, dousing the assailant with fuel and roaring flame. The screams the thing let out were horrid, not to mention the smell, as it was reduced to a charred outline on the asphalt. Silas knew he was defending himself; he knew he hadn’t done anything wrong, but he felt sick to his stomach. He doubled over, clutching his stomach, and emptied its contents right there on the side of the road. He heard more shouting and hollering; there were more. “Shit… I don’t think I could take on more of those things, not without using a Stimpak first…” He grunted as he ducked into the garage. He had made it, but for how long? He began hearing more gunshots, more guttural shouts. He knew his time had come; he could see his mother again. Silence. Awful silence. Then a familiar face turned the corner, and Silas jumped up and ran over. “Brenda! What the hell are you doin’ here?” “Well, ya saved me, so it was my turn to return the favor, dontcha know?” Brenda returned her rifle to her back. “Tried to holler for ya, but those weird critters were firing at ya, so I had to take cover!” “I should have asked you to come with me, but hell if I would have known that the world was gonna be ‘this’ different. What the hell even was that thing?” Silas half-shouted, gesturing toward the opening of the garage. “Whatever it was, it looked sick. Maybe the bombs created a new disease that’s spread ‘round. We gotta keep each other safe, just like we did in the vault!” Silas leaned back against a stack of rusted tires, letting out a shaky breath as the reality of her words settled in. His hand instinctively pressed against his side where the bullet had grazed him, the fabric of his vault suit sticky with fresh blood. He looked deeper into the shadows of the garage. Dust motes danced in the pale sunlight cutting through the cracked windows, settling over old tire iron racks, half-disassembled engines, and a workbench covered in tools that hadn't been touched in over twenty-five years. It was exactly how his father had left it, but the atmosphere felt heavy, almost holy. Tacked to the back wall, right above a heavy-duty drill press, was a tattered, hand-painted banner depicting a massive set of black wings and two glowing purple eyes. Brenda followed his gaze, her eyebrows knitting together as she stepped further into the workshop. "Geez, Silas... what's with the spooky bird decorations then?" “Well, uh, that’s a long story, and it ties back to the nightmares which I also ‘conveniently forgot’ to tell you about,” Silas offered an awkward smile, clutching his bleeding shoulder. “But I think I danced around the subject long enough; I think I owe you an explanation…” Brenda dropped her pack onto a dusty workbench and unzipped it with a sharp rip. "Oh, ya betcha do," she said, pulling out a fresh Stimpak and a clean roll of gauze she'd grabbed before leaving the vault. She walked over, gently pushing his hand away from his bleeding shoulder to inspect the damage. "But explanation or no explanation, you gotta sit your butt down before you leak right through that nice blue jumpsuit. Let me clean this up first, and then you can tell me all about your spooky bird friend." Silas unzipped his jumpsuit, exposing a patchwork of old scars and fresh wounds across his torso and arms; evidence of years spent patching up both machines and himself in equal measure. He winced as Brenda pressed the Stimpak into his skin, the cool rush of the fluid instantly numbing the burning ache in his shoulder. He watched her work, the familiar, methodical rhythm of her bandaging him up bringing a strange sense of comfort against the backdrop of a broken world. He took a deep breath, looking back up at the hand-painted banner. "It ain’t a bird, Brenda. It's a moth. The Wise Mothman..."
Brenda paused, the roll of clean gauze hovering mid-air as she stared blankly at him. She looked from his face, up to the tattered banner with its glaring purple eyes, and then right back down to him. "A moth," she repeated slowly, her voice dropping into a flat, deeply unimpressed Midwestern drawl. "You're tellin' me you dragged yourself half-to-death across the county, got shot by a glowing green fella, and bypassed a broken security lock... all because of a big bug, dontcha know?" Silas couldn't help but let out a dry, tired chuckle, though it made his chest tighten. "I told ya you wouldn't believe me." "Well, oh for Pete's sake, Silas, can ya blame me?" Brenda sighed, shaking her head as she went back to wrapping the gauze around his shoulder, pulling it firm. "Back home, we swat moths with a rolled-up newspaper. We don't go making banners for 'em." "He isn't just a bug, Brenda," Silas said softly, his tone losing its humor as he looked around the silent, dust-covered garage. "My dad... he was part of something before the bombs fell. They followed the Mothman and begged for his wisdom, and my Father chased his wisdom after shipping me to the vault." He met her gaze directly. "You know he put me in that vault the night before the bombs dropped because I had a nightmare the previous night, the same nightmares I’ve been having for the last month." Brenda tied off the bandage with a sharp, neat knot and sat back on her rolling stool, crossing her arms. The skepticism was still heavy in her face, but as she looked at the sheer exhaustion in his eyes—and remembered how he had arrived at her bedroom door exactly a split second before Sarah could strike—the sarcasm began to drain out of her. "So..." Brenda murmured, glancing warily at the dark corners of the ceiling. "This... Wise Mothman. What exactly is he telling ya to do, then?" “I… I don’t know, Brenda. But so far it’s always been warning of tragedy; it’s how I knew the bombs were coming, how I knew Mr. Abernathy was gonna shoot, and how I knew Sarah was gonna attack you.” Silas sighed and slouched in the chair, the new bandages finally being done. “It’s happened since I was a kid, just after my Ma passed away in some car accident that I was too young to remember.” Brenda stared at him, the silence stretching long and heavy between them. She wanted to logic it away—to tell him it was just a string of wild coincidences or stress-induced hallucinations from too many hours spent breathing reactor fumes. But she couldn't ignore the math. Three times he'd known exactly when blood was about to spill. "Well, geez," Brenda said quietly, her shoulders dropping as the hard edge of her security demeanor melted completely away. "A car accident... I didn't know that about your Ma, Silas. I'm sorry." She looked back up at the black wings on the wall, the tattered fabric shifting slightly as a draft whistled through the garage. "If this thing has been your guardian angel all this time, I guess I can't talk too much smack about it. Especially since it's the only reason my throat isn't slit right now." “Don’t you think it’s weird how I’m fine despite how many times I’ve been shot or stabbed in the Vault? Or how often I’ve been next to the reactor?” Silas jolted upright, practically jumping out of his chair. “It’s been this way since I was a child; something insane would happen, and I’d just be fine!” Silas walked over to a rusted, dusty shelf and picked up a wrench with R. Wilson engraved on it. “This wrench, this very wrench, my dad tossed it to me; I didn’t catch it, and it nailed me square in the face. Guess what happened?” Brenda braced her hands on her hips, her eyes tracking him warily as he paced around the dusty floor. "Well, spit it out, Silas. What happened, then?" "Light bruising," Silas said, turning the heavy metal tool over in his hands. "No broken nose, teeth intact, and a small headache. My dad just stared at me like he'd seen a ghost. That was the night he took me out to get ice cream as an apology, then took me down to Point Pleasant for the first time and introduced me to his buddies Jeff and Charles. Claiming that I’ve been ‘touched’ by the Wise One." Brenda looked at the fresh white bandages she had just wrapped around his chest, noticing how clean the bandages she applied were; he was just shot not even an hour prior. "Well, holy crow, Silas... that's a bit more than just a lucky streak, dontcha know." “I’ve been watched over my entire life by an entity that I don’t even really know about. I was only six years old when I got shipped off into the vault.” Silas zipped back up his jumpsuit. “I didn’t have anyone there, no parents, no aunts or uncles. I was shipped off to a concrete box all by myself.” As Silas picked up his father’s old toolbelt, faded scars and fresh cuts stood out along his hands, quiet evidence of a life spent repairing machines and enduring the hazards of the Vault. He removed his own toolbelt, the one assigned to him after his G.O.A.T. exam, letting his tools clatter to the floor. Then he fastened his father’s belt around his waist, filling its slots with the tools he’d watched his dad use when he was a kid. He blinked back unshed tears and rubbed his face before turning to face Brenda and grinning. “Let’s go find my Dad.”