The Glowing Sea was not really a sea at all if a sea is defined as a body of water. No, this sea was a body of radioactive land that is testament to the ignorance of man. This was to be the final solution... the best answer that could be offered by men to settle differences over a diminishing supply of natural resources. I suppose that if men can't commit to creating new ways to live and survive then it is only logical that we blow the shit out of everything and commit to die. That's all well and good except I ain't dead yet. I'm out here on the edge of this Glowing Sea hunting Deathclaws, Radscorpions or anything else I might be able to skin out and sell for caps. I live here. This is my home and as horrible as that may sound to some, this is the only life I know. My name is Trapper Walsh and this begins my story.
I don't remember my real Mom and Dad. They were killed when I was just a baby in a roadside ambush. I was there of course and I should have died right along with them and would have were it not for my guardian angel. A kind old soul happened to come my way when I needed him the most. This would eventually be the man I would come to know as Pops and his wife would become my Mother. They were my family and they loved me no less than if I had been born to them. Pops was my mentor and he taught me not just to survive, but thrive in a world gone mad. Mom taught me love, compassion and how to find joy in the most desperate times. There was no quit in my parents. They did not know the meaning of the word. For an orphan found laying in a ditch...they were a Godsend.
As a young boy, I would stay at home with Mom learning about plants, raising a garden and how to make medicine while Pops was out hunting. In time as my legs grew up under me, Pops began to take me hunting with him. We would bring back our kill and all three of us would begin the task of butchering the meat and tanning the hide. Nothing would be wasted. What we ourselves could not use would be preserved and packed. Every Monday Pops and I would haul it down the east side of the mountain to within a half mile of an old highway where we would camp for the night. At daybreak Pops would begin to scan the north end of the road with his binoculars till he could see the caravan was cresting the hill, then we would pick up our goods and meet them at the road. You could trade with these people for just about anything. What they did not have could be brought in the following Tuesday. I did not know it at the time, but the whole process was quite an education. My parents were giving me a future I could believe in.
On my 16th birthday, Mom had prepared my favorite meal of radscorpion steaks, mashed tatos, siltbeans and mutfruit pie. As we were finishing the meal Pops looked me in the eyes and said "Walsh, your Mother and I have something we need to tell you. Let's go sit in the living room". Mom and I went to the living room while Pops went to his bedroom. He came back with a box and sat down in front of me and said "I am sure that you have noticed that your Mother and I do not look like you. We do not look like anyone we meet at the trade caravan either". He then opened up the box and pulled out an old leather hat and a name tag that said "WALSH". He then told me about the ambush on the road and how he found me laying in the ditch when I was just an infant. The hat and the name tag had belonged to a man he found dead near me wearing the uniform of a Minuteman. A woman was also found near me. They assumed these were my real parents. Mom and Pops then explained to me that they were what normal people call ghouls. They had been alive since before the Great War, over 190 years ago and that the blast from the nuclear weapons is what had altered their appearance. It had also given them unnaturally long life. Where radiation is deadly to humans, it was actually healing to ghouls. It was a lot to take in.
I let Mom and Pops know that I did not care. They were after all the only family I had ever known. I loved them just the same. Pops then began to explain that because they are ghouls, they have to live away from humans. Humans do not tolerate or allow ghouls to live among them. They explained that before they found me they had actually lived in the Glowing Sea since no humans would come there because of the radiation. When they found me, they moved up on the mountains to the west of the Glowing Sea because I was human. Pops gave me the hat, the name tag and one of his old .45-70 rifles then told me "Walsh, you are a man now. We love you but it is not right for us to hold you back from what you might have been otherwise. You deserve an opportunity to seek out your own kind and decide for yourself what manner of man you will become. Go around the Glowing sea to the north, then head east. You will find a place called Diamond City where there are many humans for you to observe. Choose your own path my son, but do know that your Mother and I can never live among humans".
The following morning I kissed, hugged and told them both I love them. I then went out to find these humans. "What kind of people must they be if they would not allow my parents to live among them?" I wondered. As I walked down around the Glowing sea I could not help but to have a feeling of bitterness toward these people and I have not even met them yet.
More to come....
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Damn good story man!!!
Thank you. Part two is up.