It had started as a normal day just like any other in October 2077. Billie Holiday softly sang in the background as Jacob finished trimming bits off of his steel-colored hair. His pompadour hair was perfect in every way as he stepped back from the mirror. In the living room, he could hear newscaster Chip Clydesdale reporting about the weather as the family's Mr. Handy, Codsworth, passed by the door.
"Good morning, sah!" the floating, three-eyed, three-armed robot cried cheerfully. Jacob followed him into the kitchen. "Your coffee is ready-- 173.5 degrees Fahrenheit. Brewed to perfection! And the latest Bugle has come in. I've placed it beside your coffee, sah."
"Thank you, Codsworth," Jacob said with a small smile. "You've been such a big help--"
"Yes, he has," Barbara said, kissing her husband's cheek as she passed him. Her shiny red hair was bobbed, and she was dressed in her day-to-day work clothes. "I'll be heading into work early today, Jake, and Rosa agreed to watch James today."
"I wish she'd let one of the other neighbors do that," Jacob sighed. "She takes care of her son so well, working herself half to death in the process..."
"She needs the money, hon, we've talked about this."
"Yeah, I kn--"
Jacob was cut off as the doorbell rang. Barbara walked over to the door, looking through the peephole. "It's just that Vault-Tec guy wanting to confirm our spots. Deal with it, would you?"
The older man nodded, walking past the red sofa to the door. He turned the knob, smiling. "Good morning," he said.
A middle-aged man in a brown leather suit beamed at Jacob in reply, brown fedora tucked neatly on his head. "Hello, Mr. Collins! I'm a Vault-Tec representative here to confirm some information."
Jacob nodded and sighed. "What is it you need to know."
"Your family did receive its place in Vault 111 due to its military service, correct?"
"Yes."
"One adult male, one adut female, one infant?"
"Correct. Sir?"
The representative looked up from the clipboard he had been scribbling on. "Yes, Mr. Collins?"
"You've confirmed all of these things once a week every week for three months now. Please stop."
"I... I'll see what I can do, sir. Have a nice day!"
Jacob slammed the door. "I hate him."
"It'll be okay, hun," Barbara said, carrying a little baby boy in her arms. "I'll just walk him over-- what did he say?"
She look at the TV and motioned for Jacob to turn it up. He walked around the couch and fumbled with the knob, Chip Clydesdale's voice becoming louder.
"...followed by... Yes, followed by flashes, blinding flashes, sounds of explosions... We're... we're trying to get confirmation from... We seem to have lost contact with out affiliate stations..." Jacob watched as the man on the TV started to fiddle with a pen, nervously clicking it back and forth. "We do... we do have..." The man's eyes began to race worriedly around him. "Coming in, we have confirmed reports... I repeat, confirmed reports of... nuclear detonations in New York and... Philadelphia... My God." Clydesdale pinched the bridge of his nose before the screen went dark.
"We need to get to the Vault, now!" Barbara said quickly. She opened the door and ran outside, Jacob just behind her, racing, racing, racing towards the Vault at the top of the hill. Friends and neighbors were screaming wildly, crying, praying.
They reached a gate guarded by soldiers-- some in power armor, some not. "Collins family," Jacob spat, "we're on the list."
The soldier in charge nodded, motioning for them to move forward. "Ma'am! Sir! Over here!" Another soldier was motioning for them to stand on a platform where several others were already standing. As the family joined them, there was a flash of light, and cries of "send them down now." The platform started to move, slowly at first, then faster, until darkness enveloped them like light fills a valley.
-----
Jacob's heart was racing. He wasn't sure how, not completely, but they had made it. They and two dozen others had made it. Some of the others had mentioned there own families, but he wasn't worried about them, he couldn't be-- not with his parents up in Seattle, and Barbara's mothr and uncle--
He remembered then that they would all be okay. His parents had bought rooms in a Vault just across the street from their home, and that Barbara's family had been moved into Vault 76 in Appalachia. They were okay.
Not only were they okay, but his wife and son were okay.
Barbara cradled James in her arms, holding him tight as she still tried to process what had happened. Jacob's protective arm was wrapped around her shoulder as they followed one of the doctors into a decontamination chamber.
"Ma'am, you and the baby get into one of the pods to the left," the doctor said. "Sir, you go to the right."
Jacob nodded, reluctantly taking his arm off of his wife as he stepped into a metallic pod. The door slowly came down, and a robotic voice began to speak.
Occupant vitals: Normal. Procedure complete. 5... 4... 3... 2... 1...
A chill shivered up Jacob's spine, and he heard and saw no more.
-----
When he came to, the pod felt like the insides of an icebox. Frost covered the interior screem, and each breath could be seen as he breathed in and out. He heard, just barely, the voice say Manual override initiated. Cryogenic stasis suspended.
As Jacob's sight came to be more in focus and the frost started to recede, he saw two figures-- one scarred, one in a white suit-- standing in front of his wife's pod. Her door opened, and she weakly asked, "Is it over?"
"Almost," the scarred man said. "Everything's going to be fine. Just let us take the kid..."
The figure in white started to take James, and Barbara started to stammer-- something, sh stammered something, he couldn't hear it. Then, he heard her scream, "You're not taking James!" before there was the sound of a gunshot, and Barbara slumped over in her pod.
"Let's go," the scarred man said, walking ver to Jacob's pod, staring him directly in the eyes. He was bald and bearded, dressed in some kind of ragged leather oufit. "At least we still have the backup."
Then, the voice returned, saying, Cryogenic stasis reinitialized.
The frost returned, and Jacob saw no more.
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140,186 Literary Works • 673,037 Reviews
I HAVEN'T HEARD OF FALLOUT BEFORE, SO HOPEFULLY I CAN STILL REVIEW THIS XD
don't mind me just stalking all of your works hahaYeah and I doubt it's going to stay that way 0.0
haha xD this little sentence does give me some insight into his personality!
this robot sounds so cute xD I love his little "sir" pronunciation haha. Also, this is giving me Ray Bradbury vibes! I love how the coffee needs to be an exact temperature, that's actually a bit eerie how technologically advanced they are 0.0
Perhaps you could incorporate this more sneakily, like maybe how her clothes sparkled under the sunlight or something, can't think xD I would love to see her day to day work clothes! ^_^
WHAT IS HAPPENING WHAT I knew it wouldn't be so normal >.>
I do feel like everything is happening super quickly though xD okay but I just looked at the date, and you posted this awhile ago, and I know your pace and descriptions and all have improved SO MUCH since then, like I'm super impressed!! <333 so I won't say anything more haha cx
you could try replacing "said quickly" with just one, stronger verb! ^_^
ohhh, are these vaults like safe places in case of an attack? that's super heartbreaking that everyone has one, just as normal as owning a home. that just tells you what kind of a world they are living in now 0.0
You and me both Jacob :O
um that is very suspicious
WHAT.
oops just a little "o" missing in "over"
what is happening oh my gosh the vagueness of this is making me super interested (and also confused, but I don't mind that because it's just the first chapter and it's good to be vague to keep readers coming back xD)
NOOO CLIFFHANGER HOW COULD YOU DO THIS TO ME
I am so so so so confused on what is happening, so I definitely need to read the next chapter 0.0 (but that's a good thing, hope that didn't come off as a negative thing xD) the only thing I'd say is that everything seemed to happen super quickly. like we were in the house, BAM, nuclear attack, and Barbara is dead >.< but I know this was posted awhile, so I won't say anything more; just thought I'd mention it in case you're interested in revising this in the future ^_^
<333
Ack no idea you were going to go through literally everything xDDD
Fallout's a video game I enjoy sometimes... fun plots and characters uwu Just a couple of warnings-- there's a lot of cursing, and a fair bit of violence ahead
also thank you for reminding me about this abandoned project, I need to add it to my o do list xDAs for the pacing issues, I wanted to write this like the actual intro to the game, so it's... rushed, moreso than the game, maybe. Really should've detailed this and broken it up some more xD
Tysm for the review <33 I promise I will have some stuff out soon, it's just taking a bit more effort to write atm
Hello Comrade!
Ah yes I remember playing through this scene hundreds of times over, The silver pompaudor, Mr Kellog cereal. I also liked how you changed the characters names like James instead of Shaun and Barbara instead of Nora, fanfic or not you don't want to rip off the game entirely right? Anyway on with the review.
Cool how you accomadated Codsworths accent, also deja vu.
I see your going for a hostile character, or is that just temporary.
Nice how you added how the situation for thier faimilies, that wasn't done in the game. A nice touch. But I can't say much for Barbara's parents, their vault might crash or bug out knowing 76.
Memory fails me, I dont remember Nora stammering much but whatever, the story is in your hands. Also it would be cool if you described the gunshot, cause it echoed and resonated off the vault walls in the game in a really cool way.
Overall, It's great to see a fallout fanfic. I've seen skyrim fanfics on here but never a fallout one so thanks man. You got a few grammatical errors here and there but the other reviewers already covered that. The next chapter is already out so i'll review that next.
Keep Writing!
-brotherGeo
Thanks, glad you enjoyed it! <3
Hey Hey, I'm Staphsendingmenoodles, you can just call me Noodles, only if you want to. I am here today to give you my review. I see this novel (or chapter) is based on a game called Fallout. Yes, I heard about the game, but never really got into it; but I will try my best to critique you on your writing.
What I am critiquing is your description, scenery, grammar, and word replacements to make your story feel more alive to your reader or audience. I do tend to help and I do like dystopias, so I love horror, mystery, apocalyptic, y'know the stuff that can scare the crap out of you at night. A given example is 'It' by Stephen King, but enough about me! Onto the critique!
--
Ahh yes lovely start to the chapter! I also like old music so your character, Jacob has a nice taste in music, but this scene can be fleshed out more (I'm having a bit of a writer's block so bare with me!).
--" Billie Holiday softly sang in the background as Jacob finished trimming bits off of his steel-colored hair."--
What I would've said is this:"Billie Holiday's singing echoed softly in background as Jacob was putting on the finishing touches to his hair by trimming down the split ends." But I may be wrong and that's okay! The sentence is kept the way it is if you think your sentence is okay, so don't take what I said with a grain of salt. To be honest I would've added more to the scene by saying that "Jacob was humming to a song that was by Billie Holiday while he was putting on the finishing touches to his hair. Setting the scissors down on the sink, Jacob took a moment to look at himself in the mirror---" then blah blah description on how he looks like and blah blah all that, but still I could be wrong!
Sorry, I'm a description freak, so I feel like some scenes need to be felt and described more in a way the readers can picture how the scene could play out, so I hope it was okay if I give my feedback.
Transitioning into a different setting of a living place is difficult to describe but I can help, also describing his hair seems out of place if you're not going to describe about his whole appearance to your audience. What I would've said or made the transition more smoother was that after Jacob looked over himself, he made his way out the bathroom and into the living room.Describe the area around him, was the living room dirty or clean, was the living room small or big, was the walls of it wearing down and growing mold in the corners of the ceiling.
When you transition your character into the living room you don't have announce it. In my stance I would've just said,"the newscaster, Chip Clydsedale was heard reporting the weather as his family's Mr. Handy, Codsworth passed by." (But then I realized that was Jacob's robot and I messed up oopsie!)
The first sentence of your second paragraph is phrased wrong at the end of it. Instead of saying "cried cheerfully," just say chirped. Chirped is a word where the person is described as lively and in a cheerful way. It gives emotion to the sentence.
Anyway nice description on the robot, but I wished you described him in the first paragraph when he was mentioned, I was kinda confused on the "family's Mr.Handy." Anyway I noticed the "sah" part at the end of Codsworth's sentences, is his accent country (like a southern accent) or is it just part of his dialect? Robots usually never hold a accent unless they are programmed to make them talk that way to make their owner feel comfortable around them.
---
I noticed throughout some of your sentences, it seems you use simple sentences within this chapter. Simple means simpler and shorter sentences, no offense but I have seen this a lot on Wattpad, so it is normal, but I do like the balance between the short and long sentences, but the paragraphs are a bit on the short side (but that is only my pet peeve, so you don't have to abide to my pet peeves. If I am sounding aggressive in any way just tell me!).
I like how his wife intervened but instead of saying "said" use a different word like "cut-off" or "intervened", but I may be using the word intervened wrong, so don't take this too seriously. You kinda do this throughout the chapter but it's fixable. Some actions can be fleshed out more or rephrased more. Some parts I had to reread in able to make sense of it because I felt a bit baffled on what the sentence was referring to, but that's also an easy fix!
--
The solution! The solution within this chapter is rereading your own story out loud to yourself before posting to make sure it make sense or not. I also suggest to do some writing prompts to help you out on explaining (fleshing out) scenes, to give you more confidence into doing it more! I also want you to replace some of those "easy" words with more descriptive words, but don't use too much descriptive words unless you want to be writing or reading metaphors throughout your story. Oh also in able to find all these words, just look it up in a dictionary or thesaurus!
That's really all I have to say. Have a fun time writing and I hope this review helped!
-Noodles
Thanks for the review! I can't use imagery/description worth a crap until I bring in an army of friends to help me out XD
Yes, Codsworth has a programmed British accent that sounds like "sah."
Hello! I thought I would check this out.
It's definitely a suspenseful start to a story, and I'm sure there's more to follow afterwards. I noticed just a few small things that I'd like to point out quickly.
This should be a question, "What is it you need to know?"
There's a typo here in the second "adult".
The one thing I don't think is quite right about this story is how quickly the situation changes there. It's extremely sudden, with pretty much no transition. If a nuclear disaster was happening, it would have been reported at least a few minutes before, with the government sending out warnings before any cities got hit. However, the threat wasn't announced until it was happening, which is rather unrealistic, especially since nuclear war doesn't happen without a reason, and there's no mention of the threat of war.
Another letter left out here, and this time it's the "e" in "mother".
You've got a dramatic ending, which is a good sign that we'll see more of this story. Thank you for your writing!
- Shadow
I'm essentially just creating a written form of the game based upon the decisions as as the character made this particular play-through. It all happens at once, and because of how corrupt the government was... well, you'll see. It was bad.
Thanks for the review! <3