Short stories are their own art form. They’ll require practice though, especially if you’re naturally inclined towards longer ones.
Anyway, I couldn’t sleep so I was jottling down some notes. (I wish I knew what to name the story though. “I married a supervillain” just doesn’t have the right ring to it.)
Vault-Tec welcomes you!
After a long and tedious series of airlocks, decontamination chambers, stairs, and elevators, you finally get into the bunker proper. Although judging by the size of the atrium-like space you’ve entered, calling it bunker isn’t making it justice.
You look around; it’s roomy, but mostly empty, metal walls giving distorted reflections of movement, a few doors on different sides, giving an impression of an entrance hall. There are some robots that look like wheeled ice boxes rolling around doing who knows what, but otherwise no one apart from your group is in sight.
…wait, no. Someone is approaching, a person with skin so pale it obviously fits underground and hair, in contrast, sun-bleached yellow, giving a somewhat monochrome impression with the black polo shirt and pants they’re wearing.
[K] nudges you. “We’re being haunted now?” he whispers. “This just keeps getting better and better.”
You hush him.
Sparkgap ignores you two, probably a smart choice. “Ah, there you are,” he instead says to the arrival.
“Welcome home,” they say.
“Good to be back. Anything happen while I was gone?”
“Wellll–”
“I know that tone. Out with it.”
“It’s not that urgent, but if you insist.” They shrug. “Excavation in Sector L hit a roadblock. The drones went haywire, so I sent a swarm to investigate, but lost contact with them as well, so I sealed it up until further notice.”
“That’s not urgent to you?”
“I know how to seal a sector, Val.” They give an offended look to Sparkgap. “I’m not saying it doesn’t need to be looked into, but not tonight.”
“Hm.”
“Also, Skinner’s locked himself into the genetics lab and refuses to come out. Blastwave’s being a hormonal teenger, but I can deal with that. Oh, and we’re running out of tranquilizers.”
“I need to do a supply run soon anyway,” Sparkgap says, throwing a sideways glance to your direction.
“Well, in that case, grab some insulin too. Supply hasn’t quite hit the alarm levels yet, but it’ll save you another trip in a month or so –”
“I’ll put that to the list. Anything else?”
“Not on the top of my mind, no.”
“As if you hadn’t memorized it all anyway.”
They have the audacity to actually look smug at that. “Dinner’s in two hours. Do you need me to –”
“Yes, thank you. I have work to do.” Sparkgap turns to your direction and gestures at them. “This is Nachtkanker. They’ll show you to your rooms.”
“Val, that’s not what I–”
“I’ll be in my lab,” Sparkgap says to them and leaves, walking hurriedly to the direction of one of the smaller doors.
“Val!” Nachtkanker raises their voice, but to no effect; then gives you an apologetic look. “Well, that’s him all right. Sorry about that. Is that all your luggage?”
Dear Diary, We Created a Plot Hole!