Steel door opens on a timed mistake Vault hums low like a breathing machine They didn’t call it choice, they called my name Designated Dweller, sent between Pip-Boy ticks with a borrowed pulse Maps the bones of a deadened land Every road’s a circuit burned Every town a failing plan I walk past rusted terminals Ghosts of factories still online Screens still blink, but no one’s home Just logic loops and warning signs Shady Sands trades blood for grain Junktown sharpens knives and smiles The Hub counts water by the drop And every mile costs miles I fight rats in concrete wombs Fight men who sold their names Fight the past still wired hot To systems playing ancient games Elevators fall like thoughts Bunkers breathe recycled lies Metal doors remember codes Long after memory dies They said the chip was all that mattered Like parts could fix the whole But every step rewrote the mission Etched it deeper in my role I face the glow, the gun, the claw The thing that thinks it’s fate Machines that learned to hate the flaw Of humans choosing late When I find what I was sent to find I learn what I’ve become The vault survives because one walks And never can come home I wasn’t built to save the past Or fix what came before I was marked, selected, sent outside To be the cost they store Designated Dweller, walking proof Of systems carved in stone I searched for water, found the truth Some futures leave alone
