The First Breath of Louisiana

Date: 9.18.2224

Location: Vinton, Louisiana Borderlands
Status: Entered Louisiana | Alert | Moving Forward

The sign was smaller than I expected.

Rust-covered. Leaning slightly. Half-swallowed by weeds and time.

But I knew what it meant.

LOUISIANA.

I read it twice.

Just to make sure the road wasn't playing tricks on me.

After all these miles, all the dust, the radiation, the empty highways, the voices trapped in old machines, and the roads that tried to convince me I was walking toward nothing...

I was here.

I stopped.

For the first time in weeks, the ground beneath my boots belonged to a place that remembered me.

The air changed first. Texas had a dryness to it. A weight of dust and heat. Louisiana breathed differently. The humidity wrapped around me like an old hand on my shoulder. The wind carried moisture. The smell of wet earth. Mud. Vegetation fighting its way through whatever the old world left behind.

Then came another smell.

Sulfur.

Sharp.

Bitter.

Wrong.

It mixed with something else.

Death.

I stood there for a moment, letting the land introduce itself.

And Louisiana was saying two things at once:

I survived. But I paid for it.

Then I saw Brahmin .... Everywhere.

A herd moving slowly across open land, two-headed cattle grazing through fields that should have been silent. Their footsteps pressed into the soil. Their tails swatted away insects. Their low calls carried across the distance.

Life.

Real life.

A herd of Brahmin.

For a moment, I just watched. Because after everything I had seen, I forgot what normal looked like. The world was still making things. Where there are animals, there are people. Where there are people, there are stories. And all stories have an end. That thought came true faster than I wanted.

Near the edge of the field, something caught my eye. At first, I thought it was scrap. A chunk of old machinery. Then the wind shifted. It looked like a torso. a human torso.

Or close enough to make my stomach tighten.

The skin was gone in places. The frame underneath wasn’t bone.

It was metal.

Circuitry.

Synthetic components.

...The frame wasn't rusted.

The damage was too precise.

Too familiar.

My mind went somewhere I didn't want it to go.

I wanted to believe the Legion was too careful, too organized, too prepared for something like this.

Then I saw the markings.

I wanted it to be scrap.

I wanted it to be another piece of the old world refusing to disappear.

But the closer I got, the more the shape became familiar.

Samson.

I didn’t want it to be.

But Houston came back to me.

"Some of us don't make it."

He had told me the Legion carried risk. That not every one of them found a place in this world.

The frame wasn't rusted.

Servo bundles ripped clean through.

Whatever reached him didn't stop after he fell.

Something strong.

Something violent.

I Didn't think I'd see one who didn't survive. 

I searched the area. because I needed to know what was still nearby.

Then I found the head.

The face was damaged, but the markings were enough.

Pip-Boy Analysis:

Synthetic components detected.

Unknown model. Unknown manufacturer.

Damage consistent with extreme force trauma.

The first Samson I encountered had represented possibility.

This one represented the cost.

The wasteland has no use for reputation. It keeps only what endures.

I looked across the field.

The Brahmin kept grazing.

The world kept moving.

That was the strangest part.

Life continued beside death like they had always belonged together.

Whatever did this was close enough that I could not assume the danger had passed.

First priority:

Nutrition

I searched the nearby barns.

Old structures. Weathered wood. Rusted equipment. Places where someone once cared for animals before the world changed.

I found supplies.

Enough to Last a few days...

Beans... And More Beans and Water

That mattered more than curiosity.

Because curiosity gets people killed.

I packed what I could.

Checked my surroundings.

Listened.

Nothing.

Which sometimes means everything.

So, I made the decision to Key pressing on. 

Just leaving before the land decided to introduce me to whatever killed the Samson. 

There's a hint of Sulfur in the air. 

The smell is stronger now.

The air is heavier.

The smell followed me long after the field disappeared behind the trees.

Not smoke.

Not industry.

Sulfur.

Louisiana welcomed me with humid air, grazing Brahmin... and a warning.

I've learned enough not to ignore either one.

— Big Chief Mike Marcel