Darkness. Such darkness was unknown to the man who stood in the massive steel doorway of Vault 13, as were a great many other things. The only light was a small lamp hanging over the vault entry computer. He had never smelled such smells: soil, rat droppings and the faint scent of water. In his rubber boots, he stepped out onto the rocky surface, alien to him, the only thing he had felt under his feet until now had been the cold steel and tile of the Vault. He touched ground with his right foot first, relieved to find that there was no large drop to the floor. He took a few more steps, while waiting for his eyes to see in the dark. All the years of perpetual daytime had all but eliminated his ability to see in darkness. Then, quite suddenly, the vault door rolled closed into it's place and he was left looking at the large embossed 13. He turned, startled, at the noise. He typed his code into the keypad on the computer. He heard through the small speaker,
" Sorry, but we can't let you in right now. Uh, technical problems. Try again later".
He got their message loud and clear, they weren't going to let him back in unless he had the chip.
He stepped back into the darkness. It was when he realized it was too dark to see, no matter how hard he tried, that he remembered his flares. He lit one and hoped it would last, since he had only one more. In the eerie red glow of the flare, he saw something that terrified him. Before he could tell what it was, he dropped the torch. Now he was scared. His hands shook and his heart raced. He slowly bent down and picked up the flare, still lit. He lifted it back above his head, and the light illuminated what must have been hundreds of red eyes hovering just above the ground among the darkness before him. He didn't know what they were, but based on what he had been taught in the vault, they were probably rodents of some sort.
To his left, out of the corner of his eye, he saw something that caught his attention. He turned and was further horrified to see a skeleton wearing a Vault jumpsuit, just like his, although largely eaten away by time and, presumably, the things with the red eyes. He bent down to inspect the skeleton. He saw a knife, somewhat rusted, poking through what was left of the jumpsuit. He figured he should take it, but was repulsed by the idea of searching a corpse. He did anyway. He also found some 10mm rounds for the pistol he was given from the vault armory. Remembering his gun, he took aim at the red eyes, still staring. He fired once and the eyes scattered instantly. But they did not leave. No, they still leered, jealously, at this intruder in their world.
He moved forward, navigating through the cave, to the exit he hoped was still there. He got lucky and found the exit, clearly marked by the distinct but alien glow of sunlight. As the Vault Dweller neared, he realized just how bright the sun was. In all his years in the vault, no light he had seen had come near to it's brightness, or even to its secondhand glow. As he moved forward, he felt the heat of the desert coming in through the mouth of the cave on a harsh desert wind. When he reached the mouth, while shielding his eyes, and came into direct sunlight, his pupils quickly and painfully contracted to pinpoints. For an excruciating moment, all he could see was burning white that scorched his virgin eyes. The hot air parched his mouth and burned in his eyes. When he was able to see again, he realized just how arduous the journey ahead of him would be. Before him stretched vast expanses of sand, rock and not much more, save for a scattered few pathetic looking desert shrubs. He took a drink from one of his Vault 13 flasks, and hoped his water would last the 150 miles his PipBoy said it was to Vault 15.
