From the Ashes- Afire Love part 2

hindsight

The sound of the alarm was deafening. It's incessant blaring in the background was enough to drive someone mad.

The gunfire in the background didn't stop, either. You watched your fellow soldiers strike down enemy after enemy, clearing the way to the reactor. You were just thankful the child managed to stay hidden from them.

They gave you the "honor" of placing the bomb. And detonating it. Suddenly, you were in the clouds above, Elder Maxson standing on your left, and the child on your right. The child's pleading eyes. Maxson's cold gaze. But there wasn't much of a choice.

A circle of flames grew around you and the boy. You couldn't move. You couldn't save him as the fire drew closer and closer and ignited him. You could hear the screams in the back of your mind. The little body collapsed on the floor, his clothes burnt and his skin charred black.

Then it closed in around you. You watched it inch towards you. "No," you said. You were stuck. You tried to pick up your feet, but they wouldn't move. "No, no, no."

You remembered Maxson. You looked at him, He stood with his hands behind his back, watching as the fire came closer to you. It was right under your feet now. The heat on your face.

Maxson remained standing, watching, waiting. You tried to reason that maybe, he was stuck too. But then he turned around and walked away, into a dense fog. He disappeared.

"Hey!" you yelled after him. But it was too late to do anything. The flames had caught onto your boots, creeping up your legs, torso, neck-

"Fuck!" you yelled, sitting up.

You were on the vertibird, laying down on the platform in between the two doors. You looked around. You'd come a lot way from the bunker, or at least the ruins of it. The morning sky was green and hazy, the trees began to thin, and the ground was a reddish color. You'd just entered the glowing sea.

Your sudden movement caused Haylen to jump. "Sentinel?" She was seated next to you, her legs stretched out. She leaned back onto her hands. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah, I just..." you scratched the back of your neck, searching for words. There were more important things going on, you didn't want to concern her with this. You let your hand slide down your neck, and you could feel your pulse throbbing below your skin. "Just a dream."

"Do you want to talk about it?" The scribe pulled her legs in and folded them under her, facing you completely.

"It's okay, thanks though. We're almost here, anyways," you said. You pointed your finger towards the Crater of Atom looming in the distance.

"Oh, sure," nodded Haylen. "Just let me know if-"

"Anywhere specific you're needing to go?" the pilot interrupted her over the intercom. You looked between him and the scribe. She ushered you to go and talk to him, so you stood up and rested your hand against the back of his seat.

"Okay, see the crater?" You pointed to it through his window. "Head over to it, and just keep going south. I'll tell you when we're there."

The pilot didn't answer, just nodded his head and turned the vertibird right.

You made a pass over the crater. "I've been there before, you know," you told Haylen, reflecting on your first time in the glowing sea.

"I remember," she said. "How was it?"

"Insane." You breathed out the words. "Danse and I tried to talk to these people, but they're... strange. They worship the radiation or something." You leaned against the back of the passenger's seat, folding your arms. "And that was just these people. There was an even bigger nut job at the Sentinel Site, where we found those warheads. And then, there was that time Danse got attacked by a deathclaw down here..."

"What?" Haylen gasped. "Why didn't I know about that?"

You smiled. "This guy we're going to see? He fixed him up." Then your face fell as something dawned on you. "I guess we were lucky. See, he's really smart, he's from the Institute. He knew a lot about synths. So if Danse were, you know..."

"He might not have been able to save him," Haylen finished. "Yeah. You did lucky, in a way."

It was silent for a moment as the two of you thought to yourself. Finally, you spoke.

"If we'd known then, none of this would have happened."

You turned back around, looked out the pilot's window. Up ahead, you could see the small clearing in front of the dusty hills.

"Right there," you said, pointing to the clearing. You were close enough to make out the entrance to the cave.

As the vertibird touched down and you jumped out, you heard a distinct crunch below your feet. You lifted it back up. Below it was a thin, brittle bone that now lay in two pieces. As you raised your eyes, you saw more of them leading up the small hill, each one bigger than the last, scattered in the dust. Several feet away from you sat a massive horned skull. The deathclaw.

"I'm following you," the scribe said. She held a small revolver in her hand, but you could tell her grip around it was relaxed.

"It's in here," you said, leading her up the knoll, towards the cave.

A hot breeze picked up, and red dust and sand began to fill the air. "Shit," you cursed, feeling the grains cut into your skin.

The wind kept picking up speed, and by the time you and the scribe made your way into the rocky crevice, the world outside was consumed in red.