I didn’t want to turn around.
Your lips are moving, but I can’t hear the words. You’re screaming something about Shaun. The glass of the pod is fogging up from your breath. No—wait. That’s not your breath. That’s frost. Because you’re not in the pod anymore. You’re outside it, looking in.
He tilted his head. Then he trotted past me and started barking at the air three feet to my left.
A hand on my shoulder. Cold. Weightless. And a voice—my own voice—whispering from behind my own teeth:
I staggered back. My pip-boy flickered. On its tiny green screen, my heart rate spiked to 180. And then, for no reason, a new entry appeared in my inventory:
But looking directly at me.
My wedding ring.
“Hey, boy,” I whispered.
But the pip-boy screen flickered again. A new quest appeared.
The pip-boy beeped one last time. Resolution: Both are true. And then the screen went dark.