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Underneath the decaying city of Necropolis lay the town’s sewerage systems. The cavernous underground corridors were home to roaming packs of cave rats, mole rats, and the occasional glowing feral, but the few ghouls who had broken away from Set’s sect to move away from his vicious leadership were content with sharing the space.
Lenny was a part of this peaceful underground ghoul mob. There were a few dozen of them in total, but his advanced age clung to his bones and dragged down his rotting skin in a way that didn’t seem to reflect his other brothers and sisters in misfortune. Pre-war, he was an accomplished medical doctor, and although the background radiation had turned him into something other than human, he hadn't forgotten his medical expertise.
Perhaps this was why the violence that Set demanded had repulsed him.
It had only been a few weeks since the group splintered from Set and his goons, and amidst the dampness and the rolling steam was the distinct smell of rot and fear, a palpable stench that carried on the air and hung in the back of the minds of the splintered group like a prowling deathclaw, all claws and teeth and venom-laden tongue shrouded in unknowns. The leader of the splinter group, a beanpole-thin old ghoul whose pre-war name had been lost to time.
These days, he went by the moniker of ‘Mollymook’.
“Y-you think Set w-will let us stay down here?” Lenny asked him through quizzical eyes and gritted teeth.
In response, Mollymook tutted. “Set still needs us, Len. He won’t send us away when Necropolis might need defending.”
As he turned away, Lenny was startled to feel the ghoul leader’s hand on his shoulder.
“Things’ll get better than this.”
Lenny almost snorted in his light retort. “Can’t get worse!”
The shadow of despondency brushed across Mollymook’s features then, his eyes somewhere far from Lenny’s gaze.
A few seconds passed before Lenny nodded in a wordless acknowledgement, and the two remained silent as they parted ways in the warrens. It felt wrong of him to mention the wanderlust that had settled in his gut, lest it disturb the manufactured peace that had settled there.
**
That fractured wanderlust never did settle, and when a stranger clad in a vintage cobalt-blue vault suit and a scrappy grey mutt the size of a lesser mole rat came stumbling into their warrens, it lit a fire in him with the smoke almost as thick as the stench of the sewers.
Lenny watched from a distance as the dweller spoke briefly with Mollymook before rounding a corner and disappearing into the half-dark, the canine obediently trotting behind him.
"What was that about?" Lenny asked Mollymook when he returned from the meeting with the stranger who had waltzed in from the surface.
The elder ghoul stood there for a few seconds, eyes half-closed, before answering. "Fame's it, Len. That wanderer wants to help us."
A few unspoken questions chased one another through his mind, but none were well enough to articulate, and so he greeted them with nothing more than a grumble.
"He reckons he can fix our water pump," Mollymook explained, and Lenny's face fell, the dreadful hole of the exit looking back at him with the promise of sunlight falling short on the chimera of his imagination.
"He says he needs the water chip."
Lenny stood silently for a moment, thinking, hesitation brushing his features like a lover's touch. There was no telling what the surface held for the ghoul, and if this man--this stranger--would even want his help.
His heart hammered in his chest at the thought of breaching the surface again and taking on the wastes. He was far too old, far too cowardly to do so.
No, it was better not to ask.
Instead, he watched silently as the vault dweller returned, water chip in hand, proudly telling Mollymook that they had fixed the pump.
Yes, this was the right decision. He would only slow the duo of dog and dweller down.
It was better to slink back into the shadows.
**
In the eighty years that had passed the ghoul by since he crossed paths with the vault dweller, he had settled well enough into the sleepy town of Gecko after the ghouls were chased from Necropolis, but the memory of the stranger who had saved the wastes had not once left his mind.
He had been a brave man, Lenny thought, to come down into the darkness and offer his help so freely. It was a shame that he never knew his name.
His only regret was that he had not been brave enough to offer his assistance.
That remained the case for so long that it was almost etched into his lungs as he breathed through each memory of remorse until one day, out of the blue, a descendant of that stranger came to Gecko. Lenny, far older and wiser than his younger self had been, was holed up in the town's medical clinic when he saw the woman walking down the street. She looked just like her ancestor: same build, same colour hair, same eyes.
It was absolutely unmistakable.
He called out to her, and she stopped. They talked for a while, and Lenny was pleased to learn that she was every bit as kind and helpful as her ancestor had been.
She told him that she was on a journey to help people in need, just like her ancestor had, and this time, Lenny had no hesitation as he asked if he could accompany her.
The smile that played on her lips was every bit as warm as her ancestor’s, and Lenny knew that she had been expecting the question.