The apartment smelled like stale pizza, dust, and overheated electronics. Adrian Vance sat hunched forward on his couch, elbows on his knees, staring at the television as the credits rolled across the screen for the final episode of Season Two of Fallout
The room around him was dim except for the shifting blue light of the TV and the red glow spilling from his PC setup across the living room wall. Empty soda cans littered the coffee table beside game cases, and a dog-eared paperback copy of The Stand that he had been “meaning to finish” for almost six months.
Outside, rain hammered against the apartment windows in uneven bursts.
The credits ended. Adrian didn’t move. “God damn it,” he muttered softly. Not angry really, annoyed the show was over.
He leaned back into the couch cushions, rubbing both hands down his face slowly before exhaling through his nose.
The post-Fallout depression was already setting in. Again.
His apartment looked exactly like the living space of a man who hyperfixated on fictional nuclear apocalypse every few years.
Game cases covered one end of the coffee table.A half-finished gunpla kit sat beside an empty energy drink can. Two shelves were overloaded with, military history books, sci-fi novels , Fallout collector junk, old PC hardware he kept “just in case”
The television reflected the glow of his desktop setup across the room. Three monitors, custom tower, red LED lighting flashing and enough cooling fans to briefly lift a small child off the ground.
Adrian rubbed a hand through his dark hair before standing. The floor creaked beneath his bare feet as he crossed the apartment and dropped heavily into his desk chair. The leather groaned.
His desktop wallpaper immediately filled the center monitor NCR Ranger armor standing beneath a nuclear sunset. Folders cluttered the desktop, FO3 Mods, NV Backup, TTW Stable Build, ENB TEST, Pipboy UI Stuff, LORE PDFs, FIX LATER
Adrian stared at the screen for a long moment, then grinned. “You know what?” He cracked his knuckles. “Fuck it.”
He opened Fallout 3. The launcher appeared. Then immediately closed again because nobody who modded Bethesda games launched through the launcher like an animal.
Instead Adrian opened Mod Organizer, a massive load order filled the screen. He already had most of the mods installed from old playthroughs.
Now he was just updating, reorganizing, and adding a few new ones because self-control was a myth, the next two hours vanished. Rain continued tapping softly against the windows while Adrian worked through his setup with the focus of a man disarming a bomb.
He updated, lighting overhauls, texture packs, weather mods, weapon animations, radio expansions, AI improvements, cut content restorations. Then added, a realistic subway overhaul, two lore-friendly weapon packs, an unnecessarily detailed ghoul retexture, a Pip-Boy interface replacer he barely remembered downloading months ago
“That one might actually look sick,” he muttered. The preview image showed, black Pip-Boy casing, dark red display, faded military aesthetic Adrian shrugged. “Close enough.”
Install. By the time he finished, the game barely resembled vanilla Fallout 3 anymore.
Perfect.
He leaned back in his chair proudly. “This,” he said softly, “is how Fallout was meant to be played.”
The apartment had gone quiet around him, only, the hum of his PC; the ticking radiator, distant thunder outside remained.
Adrian launched the game through the script extender. The screen flickered once, then twice. Static crackled softly through his speakers.
He frowned. “Please don’t crash.”
The intro loaded. Except… something immediately felt wrong.
Not broken, wrong. The usual green interface coloring had shifted into a darker tone. Muted red, like old emergency lighting.
Adrian blinked. “Huh.” Probably the Pip-Boy UI replacer. Still… he didn’t remember the preview looking this dark.
The main menu music skipped for half a second, a tiny hitch, then continued normally. Adrian’s fingers rested lightly on the mouse. The menu background flickered.
For one brief instant the ruined DC skyline vanished, a metal hallway appeared instead. Cold steel walls, dim red lights. Then it was gone, the normal menu returned.
Adrian stared at the screen, “…okay.” That got his attention. The logical explanation was obvious mod instability. He had over two hundred mods loaded.
At this point the game surviving startup at all was basically divine intervention. Still… the apartment suddenly felt colder.
He glanced toward the dark kitchen behind him, nothing there. Just shadows. The refrigerator humming quietly. Rainwater sliding down glass.
Adrian looked back at the monitor. “Don’t do creepy shit at two in the morning.”
Click. New Game, the screen faded black. Static crackled louder, then text appeared. Not Fallout text, different, sharp with military styling. White letters against a black background.
EXECUTIVE CONTINUITY NODE SEARCHING…
Adrian frowned immediately. “…what mod adds this?”
More text appeared.
FEDERAL AUTHORITY CHECK IN PROGRESS…
A low mechanical hum vibrated through his speakers. Deep enough he felt it in his chest.
The smile slowly faded from his face.
BIOLOGICAL SIGNATURE DETECTED
COMPATIBILITY: CONFIRMED
“…okay, nope.”
That one genuinely bothered him.
The monitor flickered violently. For half a second Adrian saw something reflected in the dark screen behind the text. Someone standing behind him.
He spun around instantly, nothing. Just the apartment. Dark, silent with the rain tapping softly outside. His heart hammered once against his ribs, then again.
He laughed nervously. “Cool horror mod, asshole.” But he didn’t sound convinced anymore.
The screen flashed again, more text appeared rapidly now. Aggressive.
EXECUTIVE CONTINUITY OVERRIDE PROTOCOL OMEGA
STATUS: DORMANT
PRIMARY AUTHORITY CANDIDATE LOCATED
Adrian stared at the screen. A strange pressure started building inside his skull. “What the fuck…”
The apartment lights flickered, once, twice. Then every monitor in the room abruptly went black. Silence crashed over the apartment, even the rain seemed muted now.
Adrian slowly stood from his chair, the darkness around him felt heavy and Wrong. Like the room itself was holding its breath.
Then a voice crackled softly through his dead speakers. Old, distorted and barely audible. “…finally…”
Adrian froze, the center monitor exploded into deep crimson light. Emergency red with a weathered eagle symbol appeared slowly across the screen. Wings spread wide that were old, scratched and half faded away.
Beneath it…
PRESIDENTIAL AUTHORITY RECOGNIZED
The apartment shook violently. Hard enough to throw Adrian sideways out of his chair. Glass shattered somewhere behind him. His ears rang with a high pitch wine… finally the floor beneath him vanished and darkness swallowed everything whole.