Mother Isolde handed her precious pelts to Brother Foster. The fur was looking worse for wear, but animals with intact coats were hard to find these days. Especially in the Sacred Crater of Atom, the blast site where they had been imbued with their mighty nuclear gift.

Brother Ward handed the sacred fork to the patchy-haired Mother, bowing low as she took it in her hands. She set the fork in the center of the fur before they sat in a circle.

They'd built their home here, devoting their lives to worship of Atom, their bodies miraculously intact after the original blast from the heavens. All they needed was the radiation they bathed in every day, and the Fork of Horripilation, their sacred artifact that connected them to the earth and the Glowing Sea and Sky.

On that day, as the six Brothers and Sisters joined hands with the Mother Isolde for their ritual, a storm raged overhead. As soon as Mother Isolde opened her mouth to chant, a jolt rippled through their joined hands, startling the group.

This was new.

Brother Griffith, the most skittish of the brothers, attempted to jerk his hands from Sister Layla's and Brother Ogden's, but it was as if they were glued together. Mother Isolde did not seem shocked—in fact, she seemed elated with curiosity as her eyes widened and she looked to the sky, chanting rising in volume.

A thunderclap cracked as if the very sky were shattering, and a jagged bolt of yellow lightning darted down from the clouds and struck the Fork. At the moment of contact, there was a blinding light and searing heat and only one thought flitted through Mother Isolde's head.

This is the second coming.

When the dust cleared, the scorched bodies of the Children of Atom with their patchy hair and tattered clothes strewn in a ragged circle, the storm ceased. In place of the sickly yellow clouds above that had been present since day zero was what could only be described as a hole in the world.

It yawned open like a massive mouth, the edge of the hole consuming the horizon and the maw of the crater. What was left, connected to the uppermost ledge of ground zero of the nuclear apocalypse, was the crisp clean air surrounding a lush valley.

To the left, a watch tower at the foot of snow capped mountains. To the right, a walled city on an outcropping of rock with a castle looming high above it. In the center, an epic battle raged, thousands of armored men and massive hulking creatures of all colours, shapes and sizes. Overhead, a gargantuan black scaled dragon shrieked, throwing napalm from its deadly throat.

And standing there, at the edge, one foot in the wartorn realm and the other in the irradiated one, was a very confused but very amused god. As he turned away from the warring factions that were quickly freezing to stare open mouthed at the sudden tear in the universe before them, he looked out across the sepia toned alien landscape.

He leaned on his staff casually, hand wrapped around the screaming face of madness carved into the top of it, and noticed a glint in the dirt by his feet.

"Oh, Forky!" he exclaimed, a grin erupting on his silver bearded face. He bent down, royal purple and gold armour clinking happily as he scooped up the Fork of Horripilation. "I'd bet gold to sweetrolls you're responsible for this delightful bit of anarchy, hm?" He ran the metal under his nose, the familiar inexplicable scent of roast beef wafting into his nostrils.

Sheogorath pocketed the fork and stepped fully into the Commonwealth, nearly gagging on the putrid smell of nuclear radiation smacking him in the face like a tidal wave.

He caught movement out of the corner of his eye, and noticed a very tall and very green man in a white lab coat staggering from behind a rock.

"Who... who are you?" the man stammered, his tongue barely working as he took in the sight of a fire-breathing lizard swooping through the air and off into the yellow sky.

The purple clad god bowed gracefully, complete with a flourish of his hand. "I am Sheogorath, Daedric Prince of madness," he bellowed and then straightened with a wink. "And other things. But I'm not talking about them."

The green man blinked at him, clutching the rock in fear. "Wh-what is this?"

"What does it look like, you useless sack of dung?" Sheogorath declared in a positively gleeful manner. "Someone managed to summon me, and in the process, tear a hole between two universes in the process! Isn't that just delicious?"

The man simply blinked, mouth moving but no sound coming out. He was clearly in shock, even more so as the countless creatures that had been battling it out in the valley began to move closer to investigate.

A high pitched giggle bubbled up from Sheogorath's throat, and he raised his arms to the heavens as if in thanks.

"Come, children of Skyrim, let us cause some mayhem!" he cried happily. "I love mayhem almost as much as I love eating. Oh, how I love eating," he moaned almost sensually, licking his lips as he began the trek into the new world. "My favourite thing to do."

Some time later...

Sheogorath hooted as the last vertibird fell to a sparkling green dragon, crashing into the junkyard below in a fantastic array of sparks explosions. Exposure to radiation had the beast growing gnarled and muscular, pus oozing from its twisted maw.

"That's eight hundred more caps, Old Ugly!" he cried, executing a perfect pirouette.

Hancock rolled his rheumy eyes, tossing yet another sack of bottle caps at his new friend. "How do you always know who's gonna win in a fight?" He adjusted his tricorn hat and leaned back in his chair, putting his feet up on the rotted crate in front of him. "It's uncanny."

Sheogorath tittered. "I am a god, remember, a Prince of Daedra, bringer of-"

"Madness, yeah, you've fuckin' told me a hundred times," Hancock cut him off, but couldn't hide the grin on his pock shredded face. "Well, the world was mad before you showed up, but it's a hell of a lot more interesting now."

He glanced down from the roof of his Mayor's estate in Goodneighbor, the little slice of the Commonwealth set aside for the misfits and outcasts. The humanoid felines and lizards—known as Khajit and Argonian respectively—fit in well, bartering and thriving in the black market trades of the apocalypse. The Khajit moonshine, skooma, was an exceptional hit amongst the ghouls, considering their high tolerance to human alcohol.

The dragon let out a gurgly wail before zipping down to take a chunk out of a snarling Deathclaw.

It was a new world. Again.