2277/08/17 - Life Forever Changed

It looks like I've found my old journal again. I think, given the circumstances, I'll be making these entries a lot more often. As much as I like the idea of Amata sneaking into my room in the early morning, I was hoping it would never involve the news that my father had somehow left the Vault and that Jonas had been killed for possibly helping him escape. Let me tell you, that's the kind of information that wakes a person up very quickly.

Thankfully, she had come up with a plan, and one much better than the usual kind she has that ended up with security escorting me down to dad in the medical bay. She gave me her father's pistol and told me there was some kind of secret way from his office down to the vault's entrance, and that she'd meet me there as soon as she could. I grabbed what I could - including my Red Ryder and my old baseball bat - and headed out of the bedroom I had known for the last nineteen years for the last time.

Apparently, the Overseer had told vault security to find and detain me, because officer Kendall was already heading toward my place. Before he could get to me, a pack of radroaches came at him. From what the PA system was saying, the vault had somehow become infested with them since the night before. While his attention was on the roaches, I was able to take a swing at his helmet like I was hoping for a line-drive. All the strength seemed to just.. come out of him. He just fell over and didn't move. I killed the roaches so they wouldn't go after him, but.. I'm not sure if he's even alive or not any more.

The next person I met was Butch. I was ready for him to try something, but he looked more scared than I'd ever seen him. I took a certain satisfaction in that - he'd always been afraid of bugs, especially ones as big as a radroach - until I found out that some of them had gotten into his mom's apartment and that she was having trouble fending them off. No matter how much trouble he'd caused me over the years, I wouldn't wish a life without his mother on even him. We found her slumped in the corner of her room, roaches biting at the exposed parts of her arms.

Now, bugs don't really bother me, but seeing her like that got to me. Once the group of them were dead and bleeding on her carpet, Butch helped her to her feet. From here, it's almost as if nothing had happened to her. The first thing on her mind wasn't to thank either of us, it was to find another glass of vodka. Just business as usual returning to the DeLoria home. Butch was falling over himself thanking me.

He pulled this yellow leather jacket out of his closet. It had a big, angry cartoon wasp sewn into the back, kind of like the snake design on the back of his gang's stupid jacket. He claimed he'd been wanting to ask me to join, but that Wally and Paul would have thought he'd gone soft. I would have told him to keep it, but it did look pretty sweet, and yellow is my favorite color. He told me to keep going, and wished me luck on getting out and finding my dad.

I won't go into much detail, as the thought still makes me a little sick to my stomach. Suffice to say, when I passed the dining hall, I found a bunch of radroaches.. feeding on Mrs. Taylor, dead on the floor. They hadn't even known I was there when I started killing them. I didn't even know I had an anger like that inside me. I started kicking them, stomping on them, bringing my bat down in these big overhead swings. By the end, my arms were tired and there was green blood all over the floor.