A wall of black. Concrete with paint as dark as we could find or manufacture. On the wall are indentations, names. Carved into the wall, painted in with gold.
Yorrick "Sarge" Bartman, Sergeant of the Vault Breaker Corp.
I stared at those words. I couldn't stop recalling those final memories of the event back then.
I pounded my fists against that blast door.
I screamed.
I cried.
Blood was splashing against my face, staining my eyes. It ran down my arms.
How long did I scream and cry and hit and bleed....?
How long was that girl holding me back? With all the faulting strength in that feeble body?
Until I stopped hitting the door, she wrapped her arms around me and tried to pull me back. I wasn't sane. She seemed to react to that.
Her hand now is resting on my shoulder. It's a soft and white hand. Skin that seemed to never grow old. I look at my hands and see the wrinkles beginning to form.
That's right. All that happened thirty years ago, didn't it? I've become much older. Never really lost my edge. Only got better at what I did. Breaking into Vaults and recovering crazy tech from ages lost. I killed aberrations left and right with the best of the best gear.
I miss that rifle I had back then, though. I think about going to get it sometime, but I get cold feet about what I would see if I ever breached those doors again.
I look up from that soft hand at the face of the girl. A soft smile. Everything about her is soft. Her emerald green eyes. The hair on her head is a pale blonde. Almost white, really. Platinum? Maybe that's the right word for it.
Her lips are thin. Like she'd been sick and never got better. But the warmth and life that radiates from her contradicts that feeling entirely.
I never learned her name. She never could tell me. Not a word ever escaped those pale lips. Nothing ever was told to me about her. But she showed me.
She showed me that she worried.
She showed me tears.
She showed me terror.
I took care of her for a long time when we got back to the Vault Breaker HQ. From the Vault we escaped, it was about two weeks of travel through the Desert Sector to get back to the Igneol Domain.
Provisions were all lost when we escaped the Vault. I had to fight and procure just enough to keep us alive for that time. Whenever I left to hunt, she'd be inconsolable. Once I returned, she'd hang onto me like a lost child. Or a puppy.
When we returned, she slept for three days in my room. I stayed in Carlyle's room for that time. I wasn't able to go home until after she woke up and we could examine her.
I made sure to call Gage, though. He was worried sick. I didn't realize that we were in the vault for nine days longer than what everyone thought. The trip back should have been only three days with the whole group. Maybe five days if Carlyle didn't make it. But it took this girl and I two weeks.
The contract detailed that it would take five days to enter, scout, and retrieve all valuables. It showed all signs of being a Class 3 Vault. That's why I went along. They needed one of the best fighters readily available to make sure they could survive the aberrations in a Class 3. Couldn't wait an extra month to call in an expert Runner. I wasn't an expert, but I knew all there was to know about Class 3's.
Shit wasn't actually a Class 3, though. I couldn't say what I'd classify it as. It was just Hell. Those things were stronger and stranger than anything that had been seen before. There were more of them than in any other Vault ever recorded.
The tech in there was beyond our wildest imaginations, too. Wires, tubing, blinking lights, pods filled with fluid and weird masses of flesh and gore floating and contorting within. It was in one of those pods that this girl was found.
After examinations, we learned that she possessed a mixed set of DNA. She's a human, but had the same sequences found in various aberrations. Everything about her seemed human until we saw that.
There aren't any signs of her being a danger. She ate, slept, relieved herself, and even ovulated. After a whole year of study, they deemed that she was fine to live with me as her guardian.
I welcomed her into my home. Gage, my husband, did everything he could to prepare enough space for her. We had an extra room for when his mother came to visit, but she passed some time ago. We let her sleep there. Gage fixed it up and dusted it. It was a nice room.
My children were scared of her at first since she didn't speak. But after giving them some warm smiles and tender pats on the head, they warmed up to her.
My kids were only six and four at the time. Harper, the elder sister, was protective and wanted to make sure was seen as strong all the time. She took after me way too much. I always wished she would be a bit more calm like her father.
Her younger brother, Varun, was an interesting kid, though. He seemed fascinated with everything I brought home to add to my armory. I always made sure to bring it home, clean it, tinker, and tune before taking it back to HQ to have readied for my next deployment.
When his eyes locked onto whatever gun, blade, or armor piece I was working on, he'd sit and stare as I'd work with it. It seems like he'll be a fine man to join the Vault Breakers one day.
But as far as how my family felt about this girl I brought back, they treated her like she belonged very quickly. With time, she began to become more expressive. She'd showed emotions and reacted with various expressions to different events or conversations. She couldn't ever speak, though.
It wasn't for a lack of trying, though. My husband and I took time to arrange some lessons with a friends of ours. She taught at a school nearby and typically helped young children learn the basics of language and arithmetic.
The lessons never really took off though. Not to lack of effort, but the tutoring couldn't ever take off since she was physically unable to make sounds with her voice. It was like she didn't have one at all.
I took her to have some more exams performed with her consent and learned something that was missed initially. She didn't have properly formed vocal cords. The reason for this was unknown, but she didn't have the ability to produce sound the same way as use.
We eventually taught her a common form of sign language that we have here in the Igneol Domain. It's a bit different in other places, but she was able to learn it fast and get along with others quickly.
I couldn't be happier if I'm being honest. I taught her many things about how to live in this place and what we all do to survive. I taught her to communicate. I taught her what it was to have a family. She became someone important to me and my family. It's a shame we could never learn more about her. But really, that wasn't important to us anymore.
[I still remember Sarge. So strong and big. I still remember your sadness. You're still sad, though. Right?]
"Yeah, Del. I don't think that's ever going to go away. He helped raise me into who I am. He introduced me to my husband. He named my son. He saved both of us with his last action that we could remember him by. Not being able to thank him for all of that is going to stay with me forever, I think."
[Then I am going to have to try extra hard to make things fun tonight!]
"Tonight? Oh shit, yeah... It's my birthday. Sixty-three..."
[And still beautiful.]
"You're a joker, you know that? You never age a day. Still as pretty as when I pulled you out of that Vault. What I'd give for that."
[STILL. PRETTY.]
"Okay! I get it. But one day, you're going to need to use those looks of yours, you know. Get you a partner. You're totally capable of loving someone and being loved, you know?"
[Hey, hey, hey! I get it! Stop it with that! I'll get to that when I'm good and ready!]
"Hah! At this rate, you'll be meeting someone at my funeral."
[No fair! I've had my eyes on certain man, actually. Maybe I'll have to bring him as a date to the funeral.]
"Oh-ho-ho! Getting cheeky now, eh? And who is this man? I haven't met him have I?"
Del. Delilah. I gave her that name shortly after we brought her into our home. My kids wouldn't put up with just calling her "Auntie" the whole time. Delilah was my own aunt's name. She was a kind woman. Someone who cared for her family. Someone who would offer a shoulder to cry on. Someone who learned from everything around her. Delilah felt life the name that she should have. When I told her this, she cried. She hugged me and signed to me. [I love it! I'm happy as Delilah!]
I carried on with teasing Delilah for some time. She wouldn't ever give me the name of that man. At least not til she was ready to ask him out. Then she needed all the advice she could get.
Over many years, I thought about the time we spent together. I risked my life for everything I believed in. I wanted our society to flourish. And so I brought back a small piece of tech that did just that. The same time I brought back the girl that I'd give the name Delilah.
She was someone who cared for me. Someone who grew as a person and who would laugh and love with all of us as a family. She became a friend. And sister to me. And auntie to my children. She became a mother to her own. Delilah was someone who could live a full life filled with the warmth of those she loved. The same warmth and love she would give to us all. I love Delilah so much. I continued to love Delilah. For the rest of my life.
That life of mine was never dull since she appeared. Not ever. Not even til the day I died. She held my hand in hers. In her soft hands. With her soft smile. The first time I felt them, I was crying, screaming, and bleeding. Now, I'm still, calm, and happy. Happy that I died with this friend by my side.