PROLOGUE: MOTHERS AND MELTDOWNS
Those four mothers had to do the unspeakable, leave their children in the middle of an unmitigated disaster in hopes of preservation. The women held each other's hands as they watched the five chrome lead-lined cradles lower into the shelter. Two of the cradles conjoined, for a set of twins. The blast doors slam closed as soon as the cradles pass through. The safety lock hisses grow quieter as the cradles quickly wiz downwards. The mothers look longingly before one of them says;
“We have to hurry, loves. Otherwise we may not make it in before it’s too late.”
The other women nod in agreement, and they storm towards the evacuation tunnel into the shelter. Pushing past fleeting neighbors and scientists. The halls are dimly lit with tired fluorescents. It’s almost as if the lights are beginning to fall ill to the radiation as well. The shrill crying of others’ children makes the narrow arched hallway all the longer for the women. The yellow emergency lights flash on and off as the first stage of the meltdown takes its devastating toll. As the four mothers round the final bend in the tunnel they see their worst fear; the entrance to the shelter and the three thousand people waiting in between. The sirens wail almost as loud as the mothers as the realization their infants will have to survive without them. The Kraken Power Plant is now in its second stage of its legendary meltdown. The metal taste is settling in the mouths of the ones who will mark this as their final resting place.
The tunnel shakes for a moment, silence ensues. Soon after, an enormous rumble. People scream out of fear for what that could mean. No windows to look out and assess, no outside communication, nothing to give these poor civilians any indication of the impending doom swimming its way towards them. One of the mothers wretches just missing another's shoes. As if they were certain of an explosion coming to slam several thousand corpses against a concrete wall, the women grab hands. No prayers, no hope, no words escape their lips. The trembling stops. No explosion to follow.
Suddenly, after that fleeting moment of contentment, a burning sensation sets in. Just about everyone in the tunnel, standing before the shelter doors which are most definitely not going to be opened at this point, begin to absolutely cry desperately in pain. The flesh, reduced to a mere liquid, quickly starts to melt off the muscles which also strips from the bone with ease. The blood begins excreting from newly made radiation induced burn holes. Intestines, brains, heart, organs of all kinds plop to the ground before again being atomically disrupted. The taste of metal has grown into a sound. A deadly frequency shredding everyone in a twenty mile radius at an atomic level. Except for one person. One of the mothers lays there disfigured, semi disemboweled, but that motherly persistence lives on. Her baby is alive, and that’s enough for a mother. The tunnel, now a shallow river of blood and disintegrating human guts, succumbs to its mortality as well, the support beams and facets begin to crack and melt. The archway begins to crumble inward blocking the entrance, and as far as the people inside know, the only exit. The Tomb of Kraken now settles in its long term resting place, while the radiation spewing from the Nuclear Core wreaks havoc on the surrounding areas.
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Once the meltdown is through, a soul won't touch the hallowed grounds for years. The radiation ripped apart the people of Krakentown, but the science behind it ripped apart the nation. The country collapses with only its brittle weak legs holding it up without its then defining pillar of “Perfect Nuclear Fusion”. It severed itself into three main deviations. The confederacy reverted to its own Nationalization, known as, THE REPUBLIC. What remains of the habitable North became THE FREE STATES, holding on to that fleeting hope that the States will one day again Unite. As for the South West, it’s become completely and entirely uninhabitable, at its center is Ground ∅ , where the Kraken Power Plant made its home. That portion of the nation is referred to as THE OUT.
Aside from the impacts it had on society, its effects on Mother Earth is really where things got frightening. Citizens of the area surrounding the plant became mindless wandering humanoids that grow volatile with age. Limited research has been surveyed for they have the tendency of exploding with irradiated fluid launching itself like acid at anything or anyone that gets near. Once harmless creatures and animals like Sheep, Prairie Dogs, Javelina became vicious territorial beasts, not to mention the ones that already were scary as shit. Gila Monsters grew thirty-times bigger, now equipped with radioactive acid ducts as well. Coyotes now stand on two legs with viscous glowing teeth and claws, and hunt in enormous packs of ten or more. Rattlesnakes now roam in tunnels six feet in diameter. Their rattles can be heard from 2 miles away. The worst of them all, The King of the Desert. The Vinegaroon, a disgusting bug once perceived as a mix between a scorpion and spider, now often towers over six feet and runs faster than sixty miles per hour. Their ear piercing scream can render someone with long term hearing damage. They don't hunt, they dont kill with brutal force, they just bite. The bite leaves you with the putrid odor of vinegar, it's all you taste, it's all you smell, and that's the intent. Within twelve hours, a swarm of Vinegaroon larvae will track that scent and drink the sweet vinegar blood cocktail their mama prepared for them. Anyone who makes it more than twelve hours begins to melt from the inside-out as the vinegar acid burns its way out of you, in which one would most likely die and become food to the vinegaroon larvae anyway. What's worse, your corpse becomes the new nest for the next batch of bug babies.
The Kraken Power Plant disaster alters the course of history forever, humanity is back in the middle of the food chain, more and more comes out of Ground ∅ that people can’t begin to explain, and soon enough, it’ll be the focal point of the new Civil War.
It’s been ten years since the Kraken Melted down, and recent radiation level indications as well as technological advancements have given way for access to the OUT. THE REPUBLIC marches its militaristic forces straight into THE OUT in search of creatures for their RADSOLDIER Program. A science project being calculated and orchestrated by the dreadful leader of THE REPUBLIC, Rapture, A foul, irradiated, creature that resides completely confined deep within REPUBLIC territory. This project is THE REPUBLIC’S futile attempt to capture and repurpose living beings corrupted with radioactive mutations.
Just as Rapture’s Army leads their expedition into THE OUT, THE FREE STATES send in a covert team of highly trained cybernetically enhanced humans to extract what is believed to be several life forms still alive deep below the Power Plant’s location. Specifically in what is now known as THE TOMB, The Kraken’s main designated Fallout shelter. The two opposing sides are about to clash in uncharted territory to both parties, which will cascade into the beginning of a war that decimates America into extinction and beyond.