Chapter 7: Rebirth

I continued to be pushed and pulled simultaneously and as soon as I had passed a certain point; I popped out of the dark space I called home for who knows how long and brought into the world again for the second time.

Though, unlike my previous relatively peaceful one, I'll be beginning anew on an earth that has been devastated by nukes, leaving hordes of mutants in its wake to run rampant and countless conflicts to take place between the major wasteland powers that rose from the ashes of atomic annihilation.

The very moment I popped out and started to open my eyes, I was blinded by the bright lights of the hospital room and upon that happening to me, I instinctively began crying out.

*Waaaahhh...waaaahhhh...*

Whilst I continued my cries beyond my own control, a smooth male voice said. "Let's see. Are you a boy or a girl?" 

"It's a boy, Jane. We've got a beautiful, healthy baby son." The male voice said very excitedly.

"Haa, ah haa, we did it Robert, we did it." An exhausted female voice responded, but just as excited and emotional as the male voice from right before.

As both of my new parents talked amongst themselves, my father cut my umbilical cord before he handed me off to a nearby nurse in the delivery room who cleaned me off and then handed me to my new mom

"My son, my beautiful son, look how adorable he looks." My mother, Jane, said very emotionally while looking at me with glistening blue eyes full of love.

"Yeah, he's a cute one alright. I'm sure he'll be just as handsome as me and will attract quite a bit of attention from the ladies, just like his old man had back in the day." My new father Robert said somewhat jokingly after coming back over from the other side of the room that had an assortment of advanced medical equipment spread about that I also now had a ton of knowledge as well as experience thanks to my medicine skill sitting at a solid 52.

"Ohh, is that so, Robert? You had quite a lot of female attention when you were younger. Is that right?" My mother responded with narrowed eyes, not at all amused by my father's joke.

As he started sweating bullets, I let loose a couple of gurgles before I began laughing at my dad's plight, conveniently disarming the situation for him in the process by overloading my mom with cuteness. After she came out of her cuteness overload, I spent a good amount of time in her arms before being brought away to have tests performed on me to ensure that there was nothing wrong with me and that I was truly a healthy baby boy.

When I arrived at the examination room with my father, he commenced the gauntlet of tests he had to perform to make sure I was healthy. A ways into the routine tests, he needed to draw a bit of my blood, so he retrieved a packaged heel stick from one of the nearby metal cabinet drawers and unpackaged it before walking back over to draw some blood from my heel.

However, as he attempted to draw some of my blood from my heel, my skin refused to let it penetrate, not even the first layer.

Uh-oh, my skin is too tough because of my endurance attribute and the perk I received from it reaching 11, I better think of a solution quickly. I don't want my latest parents to find out this early on that there is something odd about their newborn baby.

"Hmm, that's odd. Why isn't the needle going in?"

With the needle of the heel stick refusing to go past my body's defenses, he began examining the needle to see why it wasn't inserting into my skin. Whilst he was in the midst of examining the heel stick, I intuitively figured out how to turn my body's defenses off, or at least I hope so for my sake.

I could be imagining this, but I'm about 99% sure I can control my body's defenses.

He didn't seem to find anything wrong with it despite that he still disposed of that one and secured another one from the same drawer he took the first one from. As the seconds ticked on by my nervousness kept increasing and to the point, I was pretty sure I was sweating.

Shit, I hope I'm not imagining I have that ability. I really don't want to end up in a lab to be experimented on to find out why my skin is so tough. Nevertheless, if that ends up happening, it's not the end of the world. I'll just have to bide my time and come up with a plan to escape the situation. However, that relies on them not eliminating me outright, which I highly doubt they would do for obvious reasons.

As my eyes were taking on a sharp and dangerous look as I played out what I would have to do to ensure I survived and escaped that kind of hypothetical situation, more than likely with a whole lot of violence. My father, Robert, returned to me again with a brand new needle, which he attempted to insert into my skin for a second time… And after a split second, it popped through my skin and began drawing blood.

Phew, I'm in the clear, no lab experiments for me to go through… that needle is starting to kind of hurt.

Following another split second, I instinctively started crying out once again, beyond my control.

*Waaaaahhhhh…Waaahhhhhhhh…Waaaaaaaahhhhhhhh*

…

A number of minutes later, my dad looked like he was feeling like absolute shit for causing me pain, but at the same time happy because he could guarantee I had a clean bill of health. Now that my tests were over and done with, I got my name soon after being given back to my mother, Jane. That name was the same from my previous life that I decided to keep during the character creation process.

Once that was all taken care of, my mom and I thankfully didn't have to stay in the hospital for a day or two like we would've had to do in my previous world due to the technology here being so much more advanced and efficient. Thus, after all of the formalities were completed, the three of us were able to go home together.

While I was being carried out of the high-tech hospital, I was just born in by my mom, a massive and expansive underground city came into view with huge gray pillars strewn about supporting the underground city's ceiling and the numerous lights attached to it that were used to simulate day and night.

Good god, that's a hell of a lot more impressive sight than it was in the game. I can't even imagine the number of years it must've taken to construct all this.

As I was observing my surroundings in awe and getting a good look at the general area of the hospital and the various high-tech things strewn about my mom Jane continued carrying me in her arms in the direction of a relatively sharp and stylish silver four-door sedan with my dad Robert accompanying her by her right side.

Upon our arrival at the car, my mom got into the back seat with me while my dad got into the driver's seat where he said. "Alright, time to take you to your new home, little guy."

Right as he finished saying that sentence, he started the vehicle up with the press of a button that appeared to have an integrated fingerprint scanner built into it. And began driving out of the parking lot of the hospital and onto what looked to be a large concrete road with a number of different cars and trucks going in various directions to whatever their destination was.

Following my dad getting on what looked to be a main road, he drove the three of us in the direction of what would be my new home for the foreseeable future, or at least until I eventually set out into the wasteland. I spent the ride looking out the windows of the sedan at the huge multistoried buildings that surrounded the road we were driving down on all sides, taking in all the sites we swiftly sped by.

Not that long into the car ride, the events of today had caught up with me. So I closed my eyes for a moment and eventually drifted off into the land of dreams. Unknowingly putting a smile on my mother's face, who was concerned about me not falling asleep for such a long period after my recent birth.