One year later.

As I was happily sleeping, I was suddenly woken up and blinded once again by that darn light.

“Don’t look straight into the light, pal. You’ll hurt your eyes. It’s just something you get used to down here."

"Come on over here, son. Come on! Walk to daddy!”

“Come to daddy.”

Guess it’s that time to play my role as a baby once again, god I can't wait till I'm older.

"Gu-gu-ga-ga-dada."

The very instant I ended my string of baby noises with dada, my dad's face brightened up a 100 fold.

“You can make it!”

“There you go! My goodness! Just a year old, and already walking like a pro. Your mother would have been so proud. Listen, kiddo, I know you don’t like it when daddy leaves you alone, but I need you to take care of yourself for a minute. You just stay here while daddy runs to his office. You’ll be okay, pal. I’ll be back in a bit.” He said before walking out of the room I was sleeping in moments ago.

About time he left me alone for a bit, haa.

A few seconds went by before an idea popped into my head.

Hmm, I suppose I have enough time to get my hands on that special book since he should be gone for a little while.

Upon finishing that thought, I opened the lock on the playpen door that I was in and walked over to my toy box and started rummaging through it in search of that special book.

Ahha, I found it.

Okay, let’s see what I’m working with here. Hopefully, my stats are the same as they were in Fallout 3 and if not, I hope they aren't too bad, otherwise I could be playing this life on hard mode.

Opening the book up, a holographic screen suddenly appeared in my vision, displaying my S.P.E.C.I.A.L. stats.

| S.P.E.C.I.A.L. |

Strength: 5

Perception: 5

Endurance: 5

Charisma: 5

Intelligence: 5

Agility: 5

Luck: 5

11 Points Left

Good, my stats are the same as they were in Fallout 3 and thanks to the Gifted trait, I got quite a few extra points to spend as well, an additional six of them to be exact. Alright where do I want to start... I know I need to put extra points into intelligence to make up for the decrease in xp gain from skilled so I'll increase intelligence to 12 to negate a decent bit of that exp reduction.

Now that I have that squared away, I’ll go from top to bottom. Strength can be reduced because that will be one of the primary S.P.E.C.I.A.L.s I will be focusing on while I’m living here in the vault. As for what number it should be, I'll reduce it down to 1 because I'll be able to increase it through a variety of means but mostly with weights and strength training and the proper cultivation of mass slash a large amount of protein intake.

I also might be able to produce hormones and performance-enhancing drugs later on too since the vault dwellers have to be able to produce their own meds and chems down here to have been able to survive for this long. And from what I've noticed from the times dad brought me anywhere in the vault, I didn't see the vault dwellers lacking anything whatsoever so they should possess the ability to produce a multitude of different chems and medicines.

Another idea I’ve come up with while I've been waiting to get older is utilizing stimpaks for their accelerated healing to reduce the recovery time needed for my muscles to repair themselves from working out. If that recovery time is short enough, I should be able to work out the same muscle groups daily, but that's just my hopeful thinking for now. Though, I'll definitely be putting it to the test as soon as I can.

The stimpaks could also have some additional benefits like increasing my bone density because when microfractures in bones are repaired, they increase the bone's density. If it can do that, there's also a possibility that it could strengthen my ligaments too. However, it will take quite a while to see if it possesses either of those effects, thus I'll have to wait till I’m at an age where I can start weight training before I can actually put any of this to the test.

With my strength reduced to 1, I'm left with 8 points to spend. So moving on down the list of S.P.E.C.I.A.L.s perception is up next. I don't think perception will be as easy a S.P.E.C.I.A.L. to train like strength. Therefore, I’ll dump 5 points into it for now and in the future I can try to come up with some sort of method to train it.

Continuing on to the easy one, endurance. I'll be making it a 10 because I will certainly need a ton of stamina to endure the amount of training and shit I’m going to be putting my body through in the years to come. It also helps to be able to take a few more hits than everybody else as well, especially in this world. Another benefit of allocating the S.P.E.C.I.A.L. points to endurance is it should boost my body's natural health regeneration, which means I can make even more gains.

After going over endurance's many benefits in my head, I put the remaining 3 points into it bringing its total to 8. Two points lower than my desired 10 but that's alright I'll be taking the points I need for it from another S.P.E.C.I.A.L. to get it to 10 in a second here. Once the 3 points were distributed, I moved on to the next S.P.E.C.I.A.L. on the list.

Charisma is a pretty useful S.P.E.C.I.A.L. later on. However, I don't think I'll need it all that much initially, seeing how I’m gonna need to be a hell of a lot more worried about surviving. Aside from that, I'm concerned about being able to kill rather than trying to talk to them to resolve something peacefully.

Something of which I doubt I'll be able to make happen often, even if I was to go down the speech/diplomacy route. I can also just improve my charisma in the future with the Intense Training perk and by retrieving the charisma bobblehead, but that's something I can worry about at a later date.

Yeah, I'm gonna have to take a pass on intelligence. Alright, time to look at Agility now. I’ll be reducing this S.P.E.C.I.A.L. too and taking 4 points from it for the simple reason that I'll be able to improve it through different methods. Such methods ranging anywhere from stuff as basic as running and doing cardio to more advanced exercises like gymnastics and working on my stretching to increase my flexibility.

Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site.

The moment I had the points taken out of agility, I put 2 points into endurance and continued on down the S.P.E.C.I.A.L. screen onto the last remaining one.

Finally, luck is all that’s left. I'm pretty happy with the current distribution, so I'll add the last 2 points to it, bringing it up to a total of 7. And once I do that, I'll review my current S.P.E.C.I.A.L. distribution again to really make sure I'm happy with their current numbers.

Distributing the points where they needed to go, I reviewed my S.P.E.C.I.A.L.s one last time and decided the distribution was fine. Ready to get this over with, I selected the completion button on the holographic screen.

| S.P.E.C.I.A.L. |

Strength: 1

Perception: 10

Endurance: 10

Charisma: 5

Intelligence: 12

Agility: 1

Luck: 7

0 Points Left

A brief second later, after finalizing my S.P.E.C.I.A.L. selection, the holographic screen poofed and disappeared. Upon its disappearance, I immediately felt an immediate influx of changes happening all across my body, a feeling similar to having pins and needles across one's body. This went on for a couple of minutes when it appeared to settle down before it abruptly ended. Standing up, the changes were immediately noticeable. My body, for instance, seemed significantly more sluggish than it was previously.

As if it wasn’t already bad enough being a 1-year-old baby, now I'm even slower than I was but it doesn't seem by much.

I'll have to try training so I can bring my agility and strength up to a somewhat decent amount, otherwise my dad might notice something odd. Although, I doubt I'll be able to raise it much since there isn't a whole lot of time I'm left alone to my own devices. Haaa, whatever, I'll just do what I can when I can.

Several seconds later, checking out my new and improved self.

Ohh that's pretty cool, I now have a sort of zoom to my vision and I can feel the presence of vault dwellers nearby. That extra perception is gonna be a huge advantage out in the wasteland when I'm old enough and eventually decide to venture out of the vault.

Hmm, my ability to recall information seems to have been improved drastically. I can now clearly remember all those documentaries and articles I’ve watched and read back in my old world word for word. As well as all the research I did on different companies and their products when I used to be really into how things ticked and were made with extreme clarity.

I can even recall quite a few different gun designs/schematics that will be very useful here, along with how to produce microelectronics from my old world. Although that latter one will be a long term goal since it won’t be all too easy making a lithography machine.

Hmm, nothing else seems to stand out to me immediately, so I'll roam around the room until dad returns.

As I was finishing that thought, a presence arrived at the vault door to our home and began opening.

*kshhhk*

"Ha ha ha! You’re quite the little explorer, aren’t you?" Dad said, seeing me running about outside the kid pen he left me in.

"Serves me right for trying to pen you in! Come on over here. I want to show you something!"

Following him, he directed me over to a small metal table that had at a picture frame atop of it with some text on it

“See that? It was your mother’s favorite passage. It’s from the bible. Revelation 21:6. I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end. I will give unto him that is athirst of the fountain of the water of life freely.”

"Gah."

“She always loved that passage. All right, come on. Let’s go see if your little friend Amata wants to play…”

Sigh, I can't wait till I'm older. It's so boring having to act like a baby.

As soon as Dad finished talking, he immediately picked me up and got a couple of miscellaneous things before he opened the front entrance of our home and exited it with me in hand.

He then spent the next several minutes walking through the gray vault hallways with me in hand to the overseer’s residence while also passing the occasional vault dweller going about their business on our way there.

When the two of us arrived at the entrance to the overseer’s residence, dad reached his hand towards a button located to the right of the door and pressed it, producing a ring in the overseer’s home a second later.

The both of us then waited for moments before I heard footsteps coming towards the door from within the home. And after another moment, the door opened, revealing the overseer with his daughter Amata in hand in about the same position as me.

“Good morning Alphonse I was wondering if your little Amata could use a playmate for the day?” My dad said, to which little Amata’s eyes brightened at the word playmate.

“Good morning James, I’m sure my little girl could use a playmate. Isn’t that right, my little muffin?” The overseer said while directing a question towards his little girl Amata, who started making happy gurgling baby noises in response.

Ahh, I’m going to be here for a while, aren’t I. Well, I better try my best to get her tired out so we can take a nap and I can go home early otherwise I’ll be here all day like my previous time.

“There you have it, James. My little Amata does indeed need her partner in crime, but I’m sure a playdate isn’t the real reason you’re paying us a visit today, now is it?” The overseer said, implying that my dad was here for other reasons.

“You’re spot on as ever, Alphonse. I need to discuss some things regarding your wife's treatment with you.” My dad answered in a somewhat serious tone of voice with a facial expression reflecting that he had something serious to discuss.

“Well, come on in so we can discuss what’s going on with my wife.” The overseer said to my dad while moving out of the doorway so we could enter his residence.

Dad then entered the overseer's home with me in hand and followed the overseer further into his home before the overseer said several seconds later.

“Ohh, before we start discussing my wife, we can put our two little ones in Amata’s play area so we won’t be distracted.”

“That sounds good, since what I need to discuss with you is relatively serious.”

The two dads then dropped both I and Amata off in her play area before they walked off into another area of the overseer’s home to discuss whatever was going on with the overseer’s wife.

I hope Amata’s mother will be alright, but if this world follows the events that took place within the game, she will die relatively soon. It's unfortunate, however there is not anything I can do to change or help since I’m currently a toddler and still have next to no medical experience whatsoever.

Although I do possess a decent bit of medical knowledge now, thanks to my ability to recall what I saw previously clearly, as if I had the book or material right in front of me. Regardless, the information I possess is probably nothing that can help the situation out too much, if at all.

I thought, watching the both of them walk off together.

A few seconds passed while I was thinking when I heard Amata moving behind me and making noises.

I suppose it’s time to do my job and play with Amata. Sigh. Hopefully, she will tire out sooner than the last playdate, but knowing my luck, that isn’t going to happen. Maybe the 2 points I put into my luck earlier when I was using the S.P.E.C.I.A.L. book will help with that some, but I have a feeling it won’t be of much help sadly, haa.

I then spent the next few hours playing with Amata and trying to keep her entertained while both of our dads were off in some other part of the home discussing. After half an hour had passed, I noticed Amata was beginning to tire.

Finally, I can take a rest. I'm so happy it didn't take nearly as long as last time, so I must be improving and getting good at this, I guess. Well, let me get her moved over to the cushioned area so we can nap and I can go home sooner.

Finished with my thoughts, I started bringing Amata over to the cushioned area. After a short bit of stumbling over and some baby noises from Amata, we reached the sleeping area. Ready to catch some zs, I laid her down on the cushions and grabbed one of the nearby blankets and covered her with it.

I then grabbed another and laid down next to her with a blanket of my own while her eyes started to close. Shortly thereafter, she was out like a light and I followed suit not too much later because I was quite tired as well from playing with her for the last few hours.

God knows when I found myself woken up again by my dear ole dad, James, to be brought home. I soon arrived back home and when I did and got put in my crib, I quickly fell back asleep.