Fallout: New Vegas' Mojave Baseball League [Retired]

[StLee 19]

Year 6: 2290 Mojave Series - Game One

 

Radscorpions Edge Sarsaparillas, Take 1-0 Series Lead

 

Westside rallied to tie the game in the top of the eighth, but Rob Mathis’ two-out RBI single in the bottom of the inning sealed the victory for North Vegas, 5-4. The Radscorpions now lead the Mojave Series, 1-0. 

 

Edward Simpson of the Sarsaparillas was named the MVP in the losing effort. He was 2 for 4 on the day with three RBI. Westside managed to outhit North Vegas 13-8, but could not find many extra base hits. 

 

The Radscorpions’ Ernest Emmons had the biggest hit of the day, leading off the eighth with a triple off reliever Michael Smith. Nelson Kirby popped out to shortstop, George O’Kill was intentionally walked, and Weldon Brown struck out, making it look like the leadoff triple might be wasted. However, Mathis slammed a 1-1 pitch between first and second base to give the Radscorpions the lead going into the final inning.

 

Gary Clark was the winning pitcher for North Vegas despite giving up the lead in the eighth. In just 1/3 of an inning, he allowed an earned run on three singles. Basket Zapp came into the ninth inning, striking out two, to earn the save. Rich Richmond was the starter. 

 

Smith was the losing pitcher for the Sarsaparillas. Will Stewart was the starter in the no decision.

 

[StLee 19]

Year 6: 2290 Mojave Series - Game Two

 

Ninth-Inning Error Dooms Sarsaparillas, Westside Trails 2-0

 

Rob Mathis again was involved in the winning run for the 2290 Mojave Series. Mathis reached on an error in the bottom of the ninth and scored on a pinch-hit walk off single to give North Vegas a 4-3 victory over Westside. 

 

Mathis hit a screamer right at Westside third baseman William Crum, but Crum could not handle it, allowing Mathis to reach on the error. Crum entered the game as a defensive substitute in the eighth inning. With Squirrel And up, Mathis stole second off reliever Carlos Colon. He then took off on the next pitch to swipe third base, too. Colon then intentionally walked And and Arthur Glass to load the bases with no outs. Following a strike out, pinch hitter Paul Grady singled to left center to end the game. 

 

All three of the Sarsaparillas’ runs came via solo home runs. Nelson Kirby’s lead off triple in the sixth was North Vegas’ only extra base hit. 

 

Despite the no decision, the Radscorpions’ Dave Davis was named game MVP. He allowed three earned runs on five hits with 11 strikeouts in 7.2 innings. Lee Burke, who gave up a walk and struck out three in 1.1 innings, was the winning pitcher. 

 

Westside’s Brandon Kerr started and gave up three earned runs on five hits with a walk and three strikeouts in seven innings. Colon suffered the loss by giving up the unearned run in the ninth.

 

[StLee 19]

Year 6: 2290 Mojave Series - Game Three

 

Glass Shatters Radscorpions, Westside Takes Game Three

 

Robert Glass’ two home runs helped boost the Westside offense in defeating North Vegas 9-3 in Game Three of the Mojave Series. The Sarsaparillas now trail in the series 2-1. 

 

Glass finished the day 4 for 4 with two RBI and two runs off solo shots. He homered in consecutive innings in the fifth and sixth. His home runs did not matter in the final result, but he did help to reinvigorate the Sarsaparilla’s energy for his performance, thus his game MVP honors. 

 

Dave Griffin added three RBI and Jeffery Thomason added another two to also help Westside to add to their five extra base hits in the game. George O’Kill was the best performer for the Radscorpions, going 2 for 4 with a home run, two RBI, and a run. 

 

Angel Polanco was the winning pitcher for Westside, raising his postseason record to 3-0. In 5.1 innings pitched, he allowed three earned runs on nine hits with a walk and five strikeouts. 

 

Nate Camp suffered the loss for the Radscorpions. He gave up four earned runs on seven hits with two walks in just two innings. Reliever Bobby Hutchins gave up four runs, three earned, on four hits with four strikeouts in 2.1 innings.

 

[StLee 19]

Year 6: 2290 Mojave Series - Game Four

 

Griffin’s Home Run Boosts Westside, Evens Series

 

Dave Griffin came up to bat against reliever Gary Clark with his team trailing 2-1 in the bottom of the eighth. However, Griffin knocked a fastball over the fence for a two-run home run and a 3-2 Westside victory over North Vegas in Game Four of the Mojave Series. 

 

Vincent Floyd led off the inning by reaching on an error by third baseman Chris Towns. Just like the situation in Game Two, Towns was a defensive substitute after pinch hitting. After Edward Simpson flew out to move Floyd to third base, Clark came on in relief of Radscorpions’ starter Rich Richmond. On a 2-2 pitch, Griffin then hit the two-run bomb. 

 

Will Stewart was the starter but had a no decision. In 6.2 innings, he allowed two earned runs on eight hits with two walks and five strikeouts. Michael Smith was the winning pitcher by striking out the side in the top of the eighth. Carlos Colon earned his fourth save of the postseason by pitching a perfect ninth. 

 

Ernest Emmons was the best performer on offense for North Vegas. He was 3 for 5 with two RBI and two steals. The Radscorpions stole five bases in the game, including two by Norris Carr who scored both of the team’s runs.

 

[StLee 19]

Year 6: 2290 Mojave Series - Game Five

 

Crum Crumbles Radscorpions in Tenth, Gives Westside 3-2 Series Lead

 

Last we heard from William Crum, he made a critical error in Game Two to cost his team a victory. Nothing says redemption like hitting a walkoff single in the bottom of the tenth to give Westside a 5-4 victory over North Vegas in Game Five of the Mojave Series. 

 

With Basket Zapp on in relief for the Radscorpions, Bob Franklin drew a one-out walk. After Jeffery Thomason reached on a fielder’s choice, just beating out the potential double play throw, he stole second. Zapp then walked Jason Williams to bring up Crum with two outs. Crum then hit the first pitch he saw right up the middle, easily scoring Thomason for the victory. 

 

The Sarsaparillas got the offense started in the first inning. Vincent Floyd led off by reaching on an error by third baseman Nelson Kirby. Edward Simpson then doubled to drive in Floyd. Dave Griffin followed up with a two-run home run, his seventh of the postseason and third of the Mojave Series, to give the Sarsaparillas a 3-0 lead. 

 

North Vegas answered in the second. With one out and a runner on first, Arthur Glass singled to move Robert Mathis to third. With two outs and Glass on second after a steal, Norris Carr singled in Mathis and Glass to cut the Westside lead to 3-2. 

 

The Radscorpions took the lead in the third. With one out, Kirby reached on an error. George O’Kill then followed with a two-run home run for a 4-3 lead. 

 

Westside quickly countered in the bottom of the inning. Simpson homered on the first pitch he saw from starter Dave Davis to tie the game, 4-4, the last runs before the tenth inning score. Simpson was the game’s MVP. He was 2 for 5 with a double, home run, two RBI, and two runs scored. 

 

Carlos Colon earned the victory for Westside by pitching the top of the tenth. Starter Brandon Kerr had a no decision, giving up four runs, only one earned, on four hits with nine strikeouts in seven innings. 

 

The Sarsaparillas won all three games at home.

 

[StLee 19]

Year 6: 2290 Mojave Series - Game Six

 

Radscorpions Overcome Late Comeback, Win in 12

 

George O’Kill drew a bases loaded walk in the bottom of the twelfth, and North Vegas survived a vicious come back by Westside to win Game Six, 6-5, in 12 innings. 

 

Despite the loss, Sarsaparillas shortstop Dave Griffin continued his postseason tear, going 3 for 6 with a double, home run, two RBI, and two runs scored to earn game MVP honors. He has now hit eight home runs in the postseason and four in the Mojave Series. 

 

Trailing 5-1 entering the sixth, Westside began its come back. Vincent Floyd led off the sixth with a triple off starter Nate Camp. With one out, Griffin homered to cut the lead to 5-3. 

 

In the ninth inning, Griffin singled to lead off of closer Basket Zapp. Robert Glass then tripled in Griffin to make the score 5-4. Bob Franklin followed with an RBI sacrifice fly to score Glass, tying the game and chasing Zapp. Gary Clark was able to get out of a jam, stranding runners at second and third. 

 

Westside also had a chance to score in the top of the twelfth, getting runners to second and third with just one out. However, reliever Bobby Lorn was able to get Simpson and Griffin to ground out to end the inning without any runs scored. 

 

In the bottom of the twelfth, Squirrel And hit a one-out double off reliever Ed Boyd. Ernest Emmons was then intentionally walked. After And and Emmons stole bases, Nelson Kirby was walked to bring up O’Kill. O’Kill then took four terrible pitches to end the game and send the series to a Game Seven.

 

[StLee 19]

Year 6: 2290 Mojave Series - Game Seven

 

Sarsaparillas Brutalize Radscorpions, Win Mojave Series

 

Westside scored nine runs in the first four innings to race out to a huge lead on its way to a 9-6 victory over North Vegas in Game Seven of the 2290 Mojave Series. It marks the first championship for Westside. 

 

Dave Griffin again went deep in a game, finishing 2 for 5 with a home run, two RBI, and two runs scored. His nine postseason home runs might be a record for a long time. Of course, Griffin was named the Mojave Series MVP and will probably earn the Mojave Hardcore Mode Postseason Award for 2290. 

 

The Sarsaparillas got things started in the top of the first off starter Rich Richmond. Vincent Floyd led off with a double. With two outs, Robert Glass hit a two-run home run for a 2-0 lead. 

 

In the second inning, Westside was able to chase Richmond. With one out, pitcher Will Stewart singled. Floyd then doubled in Stewart and advanced to third on the throw to the plate. Edward Simpson followed by hitting an RBI ground out for a 4-0 lead. Griffin then hit his ninth postseason home run and fifth of the Mojave Series for a 5-0 lead and the end of Richmond’s season. 

 

After the Radscorpions cut the lead to 5-1 in the bottom of the third, Westside pulled away in the fourth. Vincent Aerotech led off by reaching on an error, followed by Stewart also reaching on an error. With one out, Simpson singled to score Aerotech and give the Sarsaparillas a 6-1 lead. Griffin then hit an RBI single for a 7-1 advantage. With two outs, Bob Franklin hit a two-RBI single for the 9-1 gap. 

 

North Vegas’ best offensive output came in the eighth inning when trailing 9-2, but it was too little too late for the defending champions. Ernest Emmons and Nelson Kirby singled to lead off the inning. With one out, Weldon Brown walked to load the bases. Rob Mathis then drove in a run with an RBI ground out to cut the lead to 9-3. Arthur Glass followed with a two-RBI triple for a 9-5 score. 

 

Stewart earned the victory for the Sarsaparillas by allowing two earned runs on five hits with three walks and three strikeouts in seven innings. Carlos Colon pitched a perfect ninth for his fifth save of the postseason. 

 

Richmond was the losing pitcher for North Vegas. In just 1.2 innings he allowed five earned runs on five hits with two walks and three strikeouts. Hutchins allowed four unearned runs on three hits in two innings. The four unearned runs were due to consecutive errors by O’Kill and himself in the fourth inning.

 

[StLee 19]

The Historian: Part VI

 

At the beginning of this history, I mentioned that Lee was the creator of the Mojave Baseball League as well as a hero of the desert. I also mentioned that he was only a part of the league for six years before he disappeared. 

 

Like the Burned Man legend, there have already been and will continue to be many rumors about Lee's disappearance. I am one of the few people to see Lee in his last days in the Mojave, and I can tell you that many of the rumors I heard were nowhere near what the truth could be. 

 

I can rehash the same thing over and over and over. In all, I think it is easy to summarize it all this way: President Kimball wanted Lee dead. For whatever reason, Kimball saw Lee as a threat. And because Lee was a threat, the strong arm of the New California Republic took it out on the people of the Mojave. 

 

Lee also had another secret, a greater one that I am not so sure I fully understand. I am reading through all of these journal entries, and I cannot figure out if Lee is a great creator of science fiction or some sort of demigod walking among us. His journals all read like short stories and creative outlets. Yet, they also seem so real, like a fictional realism or a realistic fiction. That is where I don't know where the truth lies, and Lee will never tell me. I am confident that we will not meet again. 

 

As the Historian, I cannot be too sad that Lee's story has come to an end. After all, I could not tell this story if it were still happening. My nighttime secret that Lee may not have known was that each day was filed away, chronicling what I knew was going to be an important story. Somehow, though, I feel like I am missing the climax of Lee's life. How could he have worked so hard for all of these things and then just be gone when the noose has tightened? And the major question that has been eating at me over all of this time is why Lee made so many solo trips in the direction of Cottonwood Cove. 

 

When we traveled on foot or on slow-moving caravans, Lee kept his sniper rifle at his side and kept his eyes almost exclusively at the mountaintops. I once asked if he was worried about Legion remnants or NCR goons or some foul beast, and he answered, "Worse." After that, I never felt comfortable out in the wilderness. Never. 

 

I am focusing on a lot of the negatives of the situation. For that, I am sorry but this is a tragedy. The Mojave needed Lee, and he made a few wrong decisions in entrusting his power. But there were people who stepped in to Lee’s various positions with threats to President Kimball that things must change. For a short time, they did. 

 

Soon after the completion of the 2290 season, Lee met with the important people of the Mojave Baseball League and told them that he was in a dire situation, one where he thought the league could come to ruin if he remained as commissioner. Thus, he stepped down and named James Hsu as the acting commissioner. 

 

I have not mentioned Hsu a lot in my history of Lee. Hsu started as the general manager of the Nuka Cola franchise, which became known as Camp McCarran. After the Camp McCarran team was forced to fold, Hsu moved into the league office as an ambassador to the west and the NCR. Hsu also was loyal to Lee, and he did what he could with his contacts in the NCR to ensure that no kind of stupidity would tear the entirety of the people’s peace apart. In other words, Hsu was the guy making sure executive orders never involved assassinating people the Mojave residents were loyal to, like Lee. 

 

Outside of baseball, Lee had long before delegated certain private tasks to his most trusted allies. Though some of them were employed by the NCR, they were most loyal to Lee. Even the operations of RobCo, which had become mostly a technological leg of the NCR, were behind Lee. Networks were monitored. 

 

In all, Lee had removed himself from every important position he held by September of 2290. For that, he did not have much left, especially as I will detail in my next few entries. All the happiness was gone, like the happy times I remember before **** started hitting the wind turbine. 

 

Below: A picture of me in happier times.

 

[StLee 19]

The Historian: Part VII

 

Although Lee was considered a hero in the Mojave, he had plenty of enemies. He also held tight onto his mysterious past. One my favorite sayings of his was, “The best thing about the apocalypse blasting its way through is that people don’t have a past. And with no past they can recreate themselves a thousand times.” Indeed, in all the time I knew Lee, I had no idea what his family name was or where he was from. His accent was different, just a way of speaking I never heard before, but he was an enigma. 

 

His claims that he reinvented himself sometimes struck me as religious in nature. In fact, reading through his journal, I saw many entries that seemed religious in nature, though he did not speak directly of a God. However, like I mentioned before, his journal entries chronicled a lot of his actions and baseball business, but he also had a lot of undated materials that seemed to me to be fiction. I will share the most curious entries in my next update. If any of the things written in those journal entries are true for Lee’s life, then he is even more a demigod figure than I thought. Among the entries, there was an incident on a mountain in a place called North Carolina, a trip on an alien ship, and a shadow man pursuing Lee (or whoever the ‘I’ is in his journal) throughout his life. 

 

The more I think about it, the crazier and more acceptable these histories sound. I have tried to be as neutral in my reports here as I can. I have tried to keep facts as facts and not be a judgmental character in this narrative. This is my account of Lee, and I can only go by what I have seen and known. That is why I don’t understand why Lee left all of these undated journal entries to me. What the hell does it all mean? And why does he want me to know now? What grand secret can I derive? 

 

He did not answer all of those questions, but he did leave this as his last entry. Maybe it was his biggest clue. It was addressed to me: 

 

11.21.2290

 

To the Historian: 

 

I saw your future. Congratulations.

[StLee 19]

Yes Man

 

10.24.2290

 

Lee turned to me with that look he had right before he smashed in someone’s face.

“It’s all a damn conspiracy,” he said.

 

 

I thought he might question me again about what I may have shared, but by this time I knew he knew I was his and his alone. No one else in the entirety of the Mojave had any control over me.

 

“Look,” Lee said to me. “There are many things I have let you know because I always thought this place had a chance, but now I doubt it. I never should have trusted anyone but myself and the people who fought beside me, but I was a fool. Always have been and probably always will.”

 

He paused. “I don’t even know your name.”

 

I started to tell him, but he stopped me.

 

“No, it doesn't matter. Right now things are as bad for me as they’ve been, and I think I know who is behind it all. I can’t explain it. I just can’t. But if I disappear at all, just know it was not because I wanted to but because I had to.”

 

“What do you mean?” I asked. I was concerned.

 

“I mean that this is not just bad for me. I can handle being hunted. But it’s people like you and others I don’t understand. It’s people who think they have something going in the right direction, and then others come and jam a spike in their heart. I have a bad feeling that some things are going very wrong and that the people in the Mojave that I have worked hardest to protect are going to be the greatest victims. That’s why I think I might have to disappear.

 

“There is,” he hesitated, “a person who has been hunting me for a very long time. For years I thought he was nothing but a strange shadow, something harmless. Kind of like how you have been shadowing me for these past few years. But then I started to see that he was a tumor, something that needed to be eradicated. I knew that because he started spending a lot of time in the Mojave, a lot more than he ever had before. And I knew it was his work that caused a few bad events out here.”

 

“Who is he?” I asked.

 

“I can’t tell you. Everything can be revealed in time, but for now I don’t have much time. I may even have to fight again. I may have to cost people their lives. Or I may have to disappear for good.”

 

My concern was raised. He started walking towards the door and beckoned me to follow.

“I never let you see the Lucky 38 vault, have I?” He knew that I hadn’t.

 

We entered the area of the casino that I had never traveled to before. It was a hidden vault in the penthouse suite of the casino. There, computers cranked and belched out data. Below the walkway I could see an entire bunker of what looked to be a military training facility. It was empty.

 

At the end of the walkway, there was a lone Securitron robot. It’s video face was different than most of the others, set with a cartoonish smiling face. 

 

“This is Yes Man,” Lee said. “Yes Man, this is the Historian.”

 

“Pleased to me you!” Yes Man belted out in an upbeat and cheerful voice. “And nice to see you, sir!” I could tell Yes Man only spoke in exclamations. “Today is a fantastic day, isn’t it?”

 

Lee cut to business. “Yes Man, I have been having some trouble getting around to my usual locations lately. Have you noticed any strange activity on your network?”

 

“There has been lots of activity on the network! It is busy as a bloatfly!”

 

“But has there been any strange activity?”

 

“I’m not sure what you mean by strange, sir.”

 

Lee sighed. “Has anyone tried to hack you?”

 

“Tried? They succeeded, sir!”

 

“What?” Lee looked incredulous. I could see the blood rush away from his face.

“I said, ‘Tried? They succeeded, sir!’”

 

“Yes, I heard you. Why the hell didn’t you tell me?”

 

Lee looked at me, and I could tell he felt rotten. There was something he wasn’t telling me, but it was obvious Lee was in severe trouble.

 

“OK, OK, OK. Who hacked you?”

 

“The NCR, sir!”

 

“And how do you know it was the NCR?”

 

“Because he or she or it reprogrammed all of the Securitrons to follow only President Kimball’s commands.”

 

“Can you override it?”

 

Yes Man hesitated. Strange. “I would like to say ‘Yes!’ but the answer is ‘No!’”

 

“Does that mean there is no longer a failsafe? Kimball can command the Securitrons to do whatever he goddamn wants?”

 

“That is absolutely correct, Sir!”

 

Lee motioned to me to step back. I knew what that meant.

 

“Yes Man, is there anything you know about me from the hack? Are there any commands with my name in them?”

 

“There are many commands, sir!”

 

“Tell them to me.”

 

Yes Man went through a long list of places where Lee would be assaulted on site by the Securitrons. He would be “safe” in the Mojave region for the purpose of not turning the people against the NCR. However, if Lee tried to go anywhere west or approach any NCR-designated facility, he would be considered an enemy of the state with shoot to kill as protocol.

 

Lee thanked Yes Man for the information, pulled out his .38 special, and blasted Yes Man to nothing more than scrap parts.

 

[StLee 19]

The Curious Case of Lee's Journals

 

Below I have pulled out the last jumble of Lee’s undated journals. Some of the journals contain dates within them, but they do not fit into the timeline of Lee’s time here. As a historian, I am impressed with the approximation of the dates contained within the journal and what I know to be the history of time before and up to the Great War. I have subtitled Lee’s journals to what I think they are about.

[StLee 19]

Lee's Journal: A Strange Fall

 

When I was 13 years old, my family traveled to the East Coast to a mountainous area of North Carolina called the Blue Ridge Mountains. There we embarked on a mountain hike in a heavy tourist area. Being the typical spontaneous, adventurous teenage boy, I ignored the danger signs on the trail and entered a mountain stream that somehow spread its girth and multiplied its water supply into a full-blown 300-foot waterfall. Before that drop, there were miniature cliffs of about 5-20 feet waterfalls, all speckled with jagged rocks. While in the stream, I did not realize how slick emerged rocks could be. Instead of walking through two-inch deep water, I instead skated, fell, and then slid towards a cliff with a 12-foot fall. Other than the stars and the shadow man I saw when my head struck the jutting rocks below, I remembered nothing else until I opened my eyes one day and realized I was in ICU at a North Carolina hospital.

 

At first, I was nothing more than a floater, but my body did remember base actions, like breathing, swallowing, and blinking. My 13-year-old body also realized what it meant for a 20-something nurse to give me a sponge bath; that was embarrassing. It was also intriguing, especially since she was more than happy to wash me thoroughly after I regained consciousness. I’ll never forget that.

 

As time went on, my brain began to gain some of its old functions. I could again control my limbs, which gave the bathing nurse quite a shock the first time I reached out and grabbed her breast. I also remembered how to move my tongue and lips and push air out of my throat to make sounds. It took a while before those sounds formed words, but grunts were good enough to advance me to physical therapy.

 

Therapy meant pushing my body more than it wanted to, but there was an energy emanating from me I could not explain. I felt reborn and had the physical desires equivalent to a baby wanting to crawl. I clawed and pushed and accelerated myself not only to normal functions, but to strength and endurance atypical of a 13-year-old.

 

That’s when they sat me down and delivered the most shocking news of all. My body, which should have atrophied like a typical coma patient, was in a sort of stasis during my coma. My mind had shut down, my body had spun itself back in time, and all my faculties had indeed entered stasis. However, time had moved on, and, while in a coma, my body had never atrophied like a regular, normal person’s body would never atrophy. It just stayed as it had been before the accident.

 

My family had long abandoned me to continue with their lives. I was in fact sponsored as a medical marvel, thus leaving my family no choice in whether the plug could be pulled on me. Instead, medical students and brain experts and whoever else had any affluence who wanted to see me could view my body and notice the bizarre of the bizarre in brain trauma. You see, I had been in a coma for almost four years, yet I had not aged and my body had not deteriorated in any way. I was like a time capsule with a pulse. I woke up as a 17-year-old 13-year-old. Confusing, I know.

 

Other than the obvious problems that presented, there were other problems, future problems that I could not anticipate at that time. My body was actually aging but at a rate so slow that people around me were getting old while I was not changing much. My mind was advancing, my knowledge and wisdom growing, while I was still pimply and gangly and awkward. And everyone around me, everyone I knew in my life was gone, while I was, well, still a teenager. Was I immortal?

 

Yes, these were problematic, but there was an unseen effect of my accident. It’s something hard to explain, but I will try. My accident caused a paradox in time. I was later shown this paradox and had to make a choice at one point in time. What I mean is, I was shown this paradox by others unnatural to this place, drawn here because of other paradoxes.

 

When I fell, I shifted the timeline of the universe into an echoing string effect, like plucking a guitar string. My coma life became my reality. Yet at the same time my "self" entered the past and the present and the future all at the same time. And my consciousness emerged as physical beings, different iterations of me all existing in time at once. For example, while I fell off the cliff and smashed my head on a rock, another form of me stopped on the edge of the cliff and walked out of the mountain stream, going home with his family, my family, and living a normal life. Yet another form of me never entered the stream. And farther in the past, another form of me never went to the mountain. My future selves grew up and old and died at various times, and I could connect with all of my other lives, especially in my sleep. My consciousness resonated out to see and experience almost all things.

[StLee 19]

Lee's Journal: Thoughts of a Crazy Man

 

When I got shot, the paradox blew up. More futures and pasts and presents were given birth. It was the second time in my life I had experienced brain trauma, except this time was different. In my veins I felt that I had become immortal. My body would forever be that of a man in his early thirties. I would have full control of the existence of earth and the universe itself. Why else would They come for me again? 

 

A house of cards was built. The house fell. An empire surged. An empire died. He who burns shall rise again. Singing singing songs of ancient texts, ancient worlds. I was, I was falling, but only when I was sleeping. That ghoul. He called himself “Zombie.” He sang that song. College. I was never in college. Freak. Are you a genius? Why are you such a freak? How could you know about that time? You weren’t there. London Bridge fell down, fell down, fell down. His name was Hisler. His name is Hitler. Mother Russia rules you all. All cars come from China. Radiation King? You mean Fallout King! And the bombs and the bombs. In your head in your head you are still falling. The Shadow Knows. Shadow Man. Who is he? What is he watching? You’re just a boy! You can’t buy a gun. Welcome to the army, son. Now call your mother to come get you. Please! Please don’t kill me! Boy, put that weapon away. Please, Mom, just one candy bar. Here lies the sleeping boy. No, he isn’t dead. He’s just like Sleeping Beauty or Han Solo. Wake up! Wake up! WAKE UP NOW!

 

Every time I slept, I would float through the different lives until I could focus and stand on the ground and smell the scents of the air and feel the wind on my face and then I was no longer this me but another me and I could control all things around. Well, in a way. I could interact with people, but the laws of the universe interfered and kept me from actions. But the words. IT could not silence me. So I spoke and I told and I gave hints when I could not be direct.

 

I see you sleeping, Mr. President. I see you seeping. Why didn’t you listen to the Shadow Man?

 

[StLee 19]

Lee's Journal: The Shadow Man

 

After the accident, he was everywhere. He wasn’t wearing a brimmed hat and trench coat like those old comics. He was a shadow of self. When I first saw him, he was an imposing figure. He stood over my lifeless body and just stared. I was certain he was the angel of death, my guide into the afterlife. But he wasn’t. He was me. Watching me. Why would I do that? Why would I enter the paradox into endless cycles of repetitive being by going to that moment in time?

 

He was me, but he also was not this me. That is impossible. A person cannot be in two places simultaneously. But a person being lodged loose from the lines of time can indeed be in another place at another time in his life. I was a 13-year-old boy bleeding atop jagged rocks. He was an older version of me who could never gain true physical form. He watched. I bled. He moved on. I remained the same.

 

He kept his shadow for that time and most of other times, but sometimes he changed or was just a different version of me. Sometimes he took on a glimmer of color and spoke, whispered, really.

 

“Do you want to know when you’ll die?” he would ask the unsuspecting stranger. “I’ll tell you when,” he would lie.

 

He lied to them all. Never, not once, did he tell the true date. He had all of the information they could use. He could tell them about all things in their lives. But he would not tell them their true death dates. For those who wanted to know, he told them a time far into the future. Yet he manipulated the future and made sure that the date stated was not only not true, but the true date of death of that person would be soon.

[StLee 19]

Lee's Journal: Unpredicting Futures

 

I was 23 years old, real time. I was 13 years old, physically. During the day I was a student. Because of my accident, I was behind my peers, so my 23 was equivalent to the typical 19-year-old. In other words, I was an underclassman.

 

“Are you a genius?” one of my classmates asked me. We were five minutes into a history class, but the professor was not there yet. He had the hairstyle and fashion of a person who would forever follow yet forever be put into a position of leadership. Good-looking, from a wealthy family, and not an original thought in his head.

 

“Why do you ask that?”

 

“Since you’re a kid. How did you get into college?”

 

“I’m probably older than you.”

 

The Shadow Man stood next to me. He was watching, whispering. “Tell him what you know,” the Shadow Man said.

 

My classmate laughed at my joke.

 

“It’s true,” I said. “I have an aging disease. I haven’t aged since I was 13.”

 

“That’s cool.” He didn’t believe me, but what else do you say to a person who has a disease?

 

The Shadow Man whispered to me. “There were other side effects, too,” I said. “For example, I can see into the future.”

 

“Uh, huh,” he said.

 

I started writing down a note. “The teacher will walk in at 2:07,” I said. “He will say this. Exactly.” I handed him the note.

 

At 2:07, our professor walked in huffing and puffing. He paused and shouted out, “Sorry I’m late. I was in a car accident and totaled my car.” He breathed hard again. My classmate looked at me. His eyes were bulging from utter surprise.

 

After class, the classmate approached me with more questions, all about the future. I tried to shrug him off, but he wanted to know. He was a believer. Finally, I agreed to tell him, but I had to ask him the Shadow Man’s questions.

 

The first two questions were general questions about his major and family background. I wasn't sure what the purpose was other than maybe to see if he was sincere in his answers. Then I got to the third and most important question to the Shadow Man.

“Do you want to know when you’ll die?” I asked.

 

“Will I be young?” he asked. I could see the future now. The Shadow Man quit whispering. There were three near futures possible here if I just said one thing. It was sudden, but then I felt like I was the Shadow Man in color. I whispered to my classmate, “You must answer the question first.”

 

“OK, then. Shoot.”

 

“You’ll be an old man. 84. You’ll die of a heart attack.”

 

“Oh, whatever. I don’t care if I die when I’m 84.”

 

He started to walk away, content. He looked back at me. The future was near. I whispered.

 

“What?” he shouted back. Future one finished.

 

“I said, ‘Look both ways.’”

 

He was puzzled. He hesitated. He had heard that expression before but couldn’t remember where. Future two had passed.

 

He turned and began to cross the street, still thinking. The bus carrying a visiting university’s baseball team plunged into him, killing him instantly.

 

The Shadow Man stood there watching. He had not meant to, but he had given me his power. Now not only my dreams could manipulate the past and future. The Shadow Man was angry.

[StLee 19]

Lee's Journal: Past, Present, or Future?

 

I awoke in a room with nothing but a soft mat and pillow. There were no doors or windows or even a chair to sit on. The Shadow Man was sitting there shaking his head when I woke up. He was flashing, like a blinking stop light. Physical shadow. Emptiness. Physical shadow. Emptiness. He was flashing and then changing from a shadow to a person. He was becoming something with a shape. Was that me in the future? But then he was changing more. Not just me but a child. A woman. An old man. A boy. He was flashing into being hundreds of others. I thought I was alone as some freak of nature, but could there be others who could manipulate time, too? It could explain a lot.

 

Time passed and the Shadow Man flashed one last time and then was gone. The wall of my enclosure opened. No one entered, so I exited. On the outside I saw nothing but one long, metallic hallway. There were no signs of life, at least not there, so I started walking, not knowing what to expect.

 

At the end of one of the paths, I came to a door that had a sign reading, "Open to the future." I opened the door and found an empty auditorium. On the stage was a single chair with a spotlight focusing on it. I walked around the auditorium and could feel a presence there but saw no one. When I got to the chair, I felt something pulling at me, something so feint that I could almost hear it telling me to sit. Then I listened and sat. Before me, shadows came to life. Thousands of them in the audience. They were sitting there and they were observing me.

 

"Who are you?" I asked.

 

"Who are you?" they parroted.

 

"Where am I?" I asked.

 

They asked the same.

 

They would not answer my questions, so I started talking and telling my story. The fall. The Shadow Man. The manipulation. Was I Villain? Was I God? If I am God, who are they? Is this Mount Olympus? Or some form of the afterlife? Am I on the island?

 

For each word that I said, a thousand words echoed and small light started shining and spreading and engulfing me until...

 

I was back in that empty room. This time, though, there were doors leading in all directions. Each door had a sign. "Others." "Past." "Present." "Future." I opened the door to "Others" first.

 

Inside was another room. There sat a young boy dressed in peculiar gear. He was wearing what I could best describe as a burlap potato sack, though it was much different. When I looked at myself, I realized I was wearing the same thing.

 

"Who are you," I asked.

 

"Tommy," he said.

 

"Do you know where we are?"

 

"No," he said. He sounded defeated. "But I feel like I've been here a long time."

 

"Where are you from?" I asked.

 

"Scottsdale, Arizona. You know, where the Giants train. Are you one of them?"

 

"I don't know what They are."

 

"Oh, so you're not." He looked relieved. "I'm tired of them. They always confuse me."

 

I could tell Tommy was different than me, but I was not sure what was going on. After talking to him a long time, I learned what I needed to know. He, too, had memories of being somewhere else and then being here. We later moved not to where we were but when. Tommy was in 1956. I was in 2010. There was more to the paradox than I could know.

[StLee 19]

Lee's Journal: There and Back Again

 

Tommy wasn't the only one. I met people. Many people. All with pasts very different than my own. Some of the people were even more peculiar because they did not claim to be from the past. Granted, the past people were interesting, like the woman pilot who claimed to be the first of her kind. And the author Bierce. He had interesting stories to tell. I even met a president's daughter named Theodosia, or "Theo," for short.

 

However, the more peculiar people were those who claimed to be from the future. Indeed, the "Future" doors took me to those people. There was the laser gun designer, the aeronautics engineer, the American-born captain in the Chinese army, the eloquent mutant, the Vault-Tec assistant CEO, the vault dweller. At the time, these people were science fiction characters come to life, and for them, I was just as peculiar as any other. None of them, neither past nor present, had the Shadow Man as a companion.

 

Then there was the "Present" door. After I had exhausted all of the other doors, I opened that one. The flash again engulfed me, and I woke up on a beach. It was shortly after sunrise, and there was no one else around me. I looked around to gain my bearings. San Diego? No, the sun was rising over the water. Atlantic Coast? In the distance I could see buildings, so I walked towards them. What was this language? Where was I? I had a hotel key and a business card in my pocket. My clothes had returned.

 

I discovered through a series of questions and puzzled looks that I was in a place called Busan, South Korea. No one knew exactly where the hotel was, but one enterprising soul used his cellphone to call the hotel. I was then led to the correct place and entered the room. Inside the room, I had stashes of traveling gear, cash, maps, and a travel plan. It was like I had been busy, but I had no memory of anything but being on that...alien ship.

[StLee 19]

Lee's Journal: Warp to the East

 

Once They took me, "he" seemed to lose me for a long time. In time, I was invisible. For a while, anyway. I became a little more visible after a few incidents. What can you say when you are standing upon the banks of the Mississippi and above you Chinese missiles are raining down onto the land? I know what I did. I **** my pants.

 

Two days after the bombing, I came to. Was I passed out? Killed? Taken again? I couldn't remember, but the potato sack on me told me what I needed to know. I was saved from the bombs, only to be back again and lying on a metal table in a metal medical room. A nurse with cherry red hair and tits trying to punch her in the face walked in, saw me, screamed a startled scream, and ran out.

 

Not even five minutes later a barrage of people in security uniforms and suits burst into the room.

 

"Who are you?" the salt and peppered one with the deep gray suit and a gold lapel asked. He looked to be a CEO of some sort.

 

I blinked. I could not ****ing remember. But I did remember something. Something about bombs. "Bombs," I said.

 

A man in his early 20s wearing a camouflaged soldier's uniform stepped forward. "What the **** kind of name is Bombs?" he spat.

 

"Huh? No, that's not my name. My name is..." I searched through my memory. The boy. The boy. "Tommy," I said.

 

"Tommy, how the hell did you get in here?" another suit-bearing quinquagenarian asked.

 

"I-I don't know. I was working on a shipyard in St. Louis when bombs started falling. It's the last thing I remember."

 

"You were outside when the bombs fell?" the CEO asked. "So you're contaminated? Get the Doc out of the goddamn bar right now!"

 

All of the people in the room stepped away from me. It was as though I were a monster. Contaminated. Is that contagious?

 

The doctor came in after a few minutes with a Geiger meter. Clean, the results said. But then the key question came up.

 

"This vault has been sealed shut for over two months. How did you get inside?"

 

"Like I said. I don't remember. Where am I?"

 

"Not in St. Louis. This is Baltimore. Vault 76, to be exact."

 

"So I made it into a vault after all," I said aloud. "Got denied out west a year ago."

 

"You get around, don't you?"

 

"You could say that," I said.

 

As time passed, I was accepted in the Vault. The vault was much different in feel from what I expected a vault to be like. In fact, it felt as though there was something in the air. My codename for the Vault was Cupid's Lair. Sex and sexuality were alive and rampant there more so than any place I had ever been before. As a person who appeared to be about 19 or 20 years old, I was quite active.

 

Of course, like everything else in my life, as good as things were, they could not last. Though I had forgotten about my past, in time it came barreling through my life again. Just under ten years after entering the vault, still only a short time after the war had ended, I woke up from a rather intense dream to find myself in another place in another time, and again I had to go through the process of rebuilding my life and appearing to be an amnesiac. Someone or something was seriously ****ing with my life.

[StLee 19]

Lee's Journal: Compassion for Tommy

 

As my journeys throughout the wastes progressed, I thought on that young man I met on the mothership. I projected him onto people. When I met a Tommy, I had compassion for that man because I remembered that scared boy and it was my own way of making amends for what They had done to him, for plucking him away from his mother. 

 

It's funny because, like any Tommy I met, I also had compassion for every Jerry I met, too. When I was a boy, when there was still such a thing as TV, there was a cartoon with a cat and mouse. I would watch them hammering, maiming, intimidating, bullying, horrifying, and tormenting each other for hours. And yet, at the end of each episode, I could feel that they were just two pawns on the universe's chess board. They actually had compassion for each other, but the directors and artists forced them into violence. Strange, but that cat and mouse shaped the way I always approached the Tommys and Jerrys in my life. 

 

Only one Tommy ever took a shot at me. I actually didn't find out his name was Tommy until after I had already put a .22 between his eyes. On his person, he had a love letter with a really well-done drawing of himself and the girl. The love letter was written by her, addressed to "My sweetkin Tommy." I buried that young man. Too bad the Vipers got to him before I did. Maybe he and his "sweetkin" could have been together forever. That young man was the only one I bothered to bury in all of the wastes. For the others--not named Tommy, of course--I had to kill out there, they were coyote and fireant feed.

[StLee 19]

Tommy Torini

 

10.29.90

 

Lee was busy after the news of Yes Man. He was checking on contacts and looking into what he could do to "make it right," as he kept telling me. I was nothing more than a follower, but I could feel that Lee had been making plans that did not include me. In summary, my tale of my time with Lee was coming to an end. 

 

However, I had to make another trip with Lee. Well, I had to make many trips, but this is the only one worth recounting in detail. It was a short trip in the Strip to the Tops Casino. In the Tops, we went into the presidential suite where I remembered as the place where Lee said he ended Benny's life. Benny, of course, was the man who shot Lee near Goodsprings so long ago. Lee had been talking about Benny lately. How Benny did what no one else could do to Lee. Get a drop on him. No one else, he said, but that mysterious stranger he was always fearful of out in the desert. 

 

Tommy Torini, of course, was the third owner Lee had known, including Benny and Swank.  Lee didn't tell me why we were visiting Tommy, but he wanted me to tag along on some of his business, so I went with it without question. 

 

Tommy was in the presidential suite waiting for us. He greeted Lee and gave him a hug and he nodded in my direction. 

 

"The man with the plan," Tommy said. "What can I do for my buckaroo?" 

 

"Trying to tie up loose ends," Lee said. "You had any visitors with a scheme of any sort?" 

 

"I'm on tops of the Tops, baby. Everybody and his French girlfriend has a plan, know what I mean? Like you and your play thing right here, fetch my drift?" 

 

"Sorry, Tommy. No time for play. Some **** is going down. Need some answers." 

 

"I get it, Master Lee. You have some karate chopping to do. That's your thing, and I'm your Ace King. So what can I do you for, exactly?"

 

Lee motioned us all to the bar. We sat there and the bartender complied by uncorking a bottle of whiskey and pouring us all a drink. I let my sit, Tommy took a quick sip, and Lee spiked his down and turned the cup upside down.

 

"Didn't know you were so fond of whiskey," Tommy said. 

 

"Tommy, I've had some troubling news lately, and I need to find out how deep the rabbit hole goes." 

 

"Don't know what a rabbit hole is, but if it smells like pussy, I'm game for a crawl." 

 

"To put it simply, I'm not welcome in the Mojave like I used to be, so I'm trying to make it right. I want to know who came to you and what the plan is." 

 

"I can talk around her?" Lee nodded that it was OK. "You mean a plan other than the one you and the ghoul gave me?"

 

"What are you talking about? Which ghoul?" 

 

"Jerry Nicks. The one that hooked up with the old owner here after the bombs fell. You know, you told me all about it." 

 

"I told you? I don't remember that." 

 

Tommy fiddled with his eye patch. "You OK, baby? Maybe some sleep can do the body good." 

 

Lee bowed his head and then looked at Tommy in the ... eye. "I don't remember talking to you about a plan. And I don't remember being with a ghoul. It's been that kind of week. Can you remind me of the plan."

 

"That's funny," Tommy laughed. "You don't even remember that you told me that if anyone asked, even you, not to tell? You rockin' without a guitar, baby." 

 

"Well, in this case, it looks like some of the plans have gone awry. I've got securitrons with my name on the top of their attack list, so it would be good to know what mines I'm stepping on before I step foot off the Strip."

 

"Mines are the damnedest thing," Tommy said. "My mines minded their own damn business, until Papa had to bring home some food for us starving children. Then they didn't mind their mine business anymore. Papa went boom. So I know what you're saying, baby, about the mines. 

 

"Say, baby girl, all quiet and mysterious. I ain't ever caught your name and I most certainly ain't ever caught your game." 

 

I didn't know it, but Tommy was using one of his old tricks of diverting a conversation. Lee held up his hand to show that it would not work. 

 

"Tommy, this is more important than you know. What was the goddamn plan?" 

 

"It's funny," Tommy said. "When you came walking in here with the ghoul, I thought you was coming with a hit man. When that ghoul started doing all the talking and you just sat there for the most part other than whispering your whispers, I thought I was going the way of the house cat, declawed and gutted. But then your older than the bombs ghoul started telling me about the problems you been having with the NCR. Well, I've been having me some problems, too, with all these taxes rising and it looks like the NCR is trying some funny business to shut us all down. But then you knew that. Whispering your creepy ass whispers. 

 

"So when the ghoul starts laying out the plan for assassinating the President, well, I changed a little. I was scared you were going to knife my second eye out. But killing the President? I wish that you had come here to knife me. But I'm your ally, Lee, and I ain't gonna question nothing you do out here in the Mojave. You the boss." 

 

Lee interrupted. "That was the plan? To assassinate the President?" 

 

Tommy cocked his head. "You done gone cuckoo, mon frere." 

 

"Tommy, Tommy, Tommy. There are two of me, don't you see? One who loves and one who kills." 

 

"Which of you is the one here today?" 

 

"The one who loves, Tommy. The one who is trying to make this all right." 

 

"So you talking two of you as in two different people, or are both of you rattling inside your head right now having an arm wrestling match for who's playing the game?" 

 

"It's complicated," Lee motioned for another drink. "Now what I need to know is how far in motion this assassination plan is and what is needed to do." 

 

"We got a meeting with the Prez in two months, my man. Casino council. Guess old Sassy Cassie forgot to mention that to you. The ghoul got me some undercover plans to get a weapon in hand and a way for my man to get in and out undetected. It will be a super shock for all, two fingers and pinkie, if you know what I'm saying."

 

"Who is the key in making the assassination happen?" 

 

"Why yours truly, of course. I'm the only sweet talking jibber jabbering love bucket they got in this whole casino business. The rest are a little anally reticulated, you know?" 

 

"Don't kill him." 

 

"Why, baby? Your killing self and the ghoul made a great argument why. Now why are the loving you and sweet tits right here who is creepier than the whispering you going to tell me not to do it?" 

 

"Because if you do it, you bring the full wrath of war down on this area. In time, if the NCR oversteps its bounds, the people here can fight them off. If you kill the President, everybody in the desert becomes an enemy of the state, and the people aren't going to have a chance against sneak-attacking rangers and securitrons. Killing the president is bad. Really bad." 

 

"Au contraire, my bearded man. Killing the president makes my life hella easy." 

 

Lee drank down a second glass of whiskey. "I'll make it right. I'm going to go after the puppeteer. Don't kill the president." 

 

"I made my decision, Master Lee. I love you and all, but I can't follow the Mr. Love you on this one. I want my bad ass superhero back." 

 

"Then you got him." Lee slammed the glass on the bar, shattering it into large shards. He picked up one of the shards from the bar and jammed it into Tommy Torini's neck. Tommy sputtered, his good eye with the look of horror at what Lee had done, and then dropped to the ground dead. 

 

Lee turned to the bartender. "It's in your best interest not to tell anyone who did this." The bartender nodded back.

 

Lee then turned to me. I, too, was in shock. "One day you will understand. In the meantime, get me that goddamn ghoul." 

 

"Who?" I said. I didn't know who he meant. I had never met a ghoul named Jerry Nicks. 

 

"He calls himself, 'Zombie.'"

[StLee 19]

Lee's Journal: Teenager on a Cliff

 

I saw myself in a dream. Back to the past I zoomed in my dream to that moment on the mountain. I was still in the stream. I still slipped and slid my way down towards the cliff. I still saw the Shadow Man watching me. But then I stopped on the edge of that cliff. I don't know why, but water rushed past me as I stood up and walked out of the water to the dry rock near me. My family, standing on the plank bridge above me, was in exasperation, their mouths all agape in unison.

 

I walked out of that water, but that man was there. He came out of the shadows, too. He was not very old, and had a trimmed moustache and goatee, just like I have now. His eyes, his hair, everything about him looked familiar. I was standing on a mountain with my family in shock from my near-death experience, and this man whom I recognized but did not know walked up to me out of the shadows. The teenager me in that dream was not sure who the man was, but I most certainly knew him. He was me. Today as I appear. He was the me who walks in the wastes trying to make this world a better place. But this version of me was not the same. He congratulated me for surviving. He pointed at the cliff and told me how lucky I was. He led me to the cliff to look at the jagged rocks waiting below had I not escaped that rushing river.

 

Then he pushed me.

[StLee 19]

Lee's Journal: Dream a Million Dreams

 

Night after night, year after year, it was the same. I was me in a different setting, a different life, in places I had never seen or never even existed in the first place. And every time, the Shadow Man would be there. He always looked exactly as I do now. He was not me, though. I could never be him. He was my evil twin, as far as descriptions go. He would kill a different version of me, except that in time, he was not so successful.

 

You see, he was killing version of me after version of me, but it occurred to me that most of the deaths were in the form of easy victims. Teenage me. A version of me taking a bath. Another version of me trying to help schoolchildren out of an overturned bus. Each time that the Shadow Man would emerge from the shadows, the version of me I was dreaming through would recognize him as myself. That was the initial shock. And then he would just murder that version of me right there.

 

Dreams can be celestial messages. These dreams were warnings of some sort. Everything seemed to be fragments of millions upon millions of alternative universes. The Shadow Man may have very well been looking to be the only one of us left, just like that movie I remember watching from when movies still existed. It was about some guys who were battling for immortality of some sort, but they had to murder all the other people with the same power, which in turn made them more powerful. Was that what he was doing? He was killing each alternative version of me for him to be all-powerful? No, that made no sense. Would I not be more powerful, too? But...I was. I had some of his powers of vision. Of alternative futures. Of future manipulation. Maybe that was what he was doing. He was seeing each version of the future, and he decided that each person needed his future changed, just like I had done to others in the past before I turned away from that power.

 

Each morning I awoke from my dreams angry. Each day I sought out the unjust, the bully, the murderer, the evil. I could not find the Shadow Man, but I made it my mission to bring peace back to a land where the governments of the world had failed. I would make peace by snuffing out those who did not pursue or value peace. Violence for a peaceful endgame. That is how I became a warrior of the wastes.

[StLee 19]

Lee's Journal: The Shadow Man Returns

 

He waited until the chaos of it all was gone. Why not arrive in the middle of the night when I was exhausted from three straight days of battling Vipers in the wilderness and I slept a deep, deep sleep? He could have slashed my throat and been done with it.

 

Instead, he used different tactics. He had people chip away at me, looking for my Achilles Heel, perhaps. The number of people willing to serve him was astounding. They came at me over and over, and again and again I quelled their thirst. But he remained in the shadows. He would not reveal himself, which reminded me of the dreams. When he did reveal himself out of the shadows, that was the time when he struck.

 

Battle tactic advantage: me.

[StLee 19]

Lee's Journal: Return to Sender

 

Everything that led me up to this point in my life was created upon a mountain in what was once North Carolina. I had no idea what that place would look like or be like post-war. Hell, I really had no idea where exactly in North Carolina I had to go, but I knew that I needed to go there. To that place. Where I was created. To see him. The Shadow Man.

 

This will be the final battle of my heroic adventure. This will be the final words I write, ever. In this case, I must return to the place where both the Shadow Man and I were created. The place where the lines of universes were shaken so bad that millions of universes suddenly intersected. Only there could I hope to destroy the Shadow Man.

[StLee 19]

Lee's Journal, 11.2.2290

 

A long time ago, long before the Great War, there used to be this style of game called RPGs. In those games, your characters would level up and level up, fighting more difficult monsters and bosses until they reached the very end, the final boss, where the game would then be over after winning and saving the world. 

 

Today, I am on my way to fight the final boss. Game almost over.