alright. joshua marks.
josh is sixteen when the bombs drop. he’d been in and out of hch for most of his childhood and, mostly out of necessity, picked up some rudimentary first aid skills and medical knowledge. that comes in handy when he finds himself in a crumbling, immediately post-nuclear america. he helps out around the hospital as much as he can, acting as an assistant (mostly just watching over younger patients, the most he gets to administer is bandaids and the occasional stimpack) and helping where he can.
as time goes on, the doctors and nurses who go out to look for supplies or other survivors start either coming back Incredibly Sick or not coming back at all. the adults are desperate, and they start experimenting (as fallout scientists are wont to do), using very early ghouls as a model. they eventually develop a drug that boosts the immune system and eases the effects of radiation by way of increasing a person’s tolerance levels. the kids get it first, and josh is almost seventeen when he fully goes ghoul.
the drug works pretty well! it’s not perfect — a handful of kids were already on death’s door and it comes too little too late — but josh, a good chunk of the patients, and the remaining hospital staff are… more or less okay.
and then one of the head nurses goes feral.