Now, if you have a decent enough memory, you likely remember me talking about this story having a main character. After reading all my blabbering in the last chapter, you’d be excused if you thought I was the protagonist of this story. After all, there have been no named humans yet. However, if you thought that, you’d also be mistaken. As much as I tend to self-insert myself in my stories—often unintentionally, believe it or not—there is no way I’d be this blunt about it.

No, this story centers around a young boy from the Bastion called Chris Schuler. If you knew anything at all about him, you’d certainly question my decision to put him of all people front and center. But so far, you actually know nothing about him, so let me enlighten you. To begin with, he looked utterly normal and, frankly, boring—both from your viewpoint and his contemporaries’ viewpoint. He looks like an NPC thrown into the streets of an open-world game. He was the human equivalent of background noise. Total silence, that’s something interesting, especially in today’s noise-polluted world. But Chris wasn’t that. He wasn’t especially quiet or anything. He was just some noise existing in the background of all the people in his life.

Chris had been born just a few months before the Event. In the years since the outbreak of the epidemic, most people had started just calling it the “Event.” This, of course, is quite the ambiguous name, so people went to great effort to clearly pronounce the capital E when talking about it. In fact, they started pronouncing the normal word “event” as just “‘vent,” and the fact that they’d butcher a regular word to fit their made-up generic descriptor into their language really tells you all you needed about these people.

To demonstrate the absurdity, consider the current situation: It was Chris’s birthday today, and it was going to be quite the ‘vent. And just a few months later, the Event’s eighteenth anniversary would occur, and there’d be a big ‘vent to celebrate the members of the Bastion making it this far.

As you can tell from that, it was in fact Chris’s eighteenth birthday today. Such a birthday is normally an event—excuse me, a ‘vent—where the person in question invites a lot of their friends and gets blackout drunk, arbitrary US drinking age be damned. In other words, to an eighteen-year-old it’s the coolest thing ever.

However, at the Bastion they made an even bigger deal out of it, even if it turns out to be infinitely less cool to the average eighteen-year-old. You see, unlike what you were likely used to with fixed school years, those didn’t really exist in the Bastion due to the smaller population. People were schooled until their eighteenth birthday, and then they chose a way to support the community. That could be as a teacher, a farmer, a hunter, a construction worker, someone working to advance the Bastion technologically or any number of other professions. Of course, they weren’t thrown in blind—most children found something they were interested in a few years earlier and have been helping out in those areas alongside the steadily decreasing amount of education they got. Chris, however, was just thrown between professions like a hot potato. Nobody could stand the apathy that he felt about practically everything, and getting him to do anything had always been a pain. And now he was to find an actual profession to follow for the rest of his life.

However, Chris didn’t really care about that. The way he felt about school and work was indifferent at best, and he also wasn’t really excited about anything that the future may hold. As far as he saw it, he’d be roped into whichever job had an open space he could fill. And then he’d do that activity and that activity only until he was physically unable to continue doing it. After that, he’d be at the mercy of others to provide for him. Of course, that was in the very, very far future and really not something an eighteen-year-old should concern themselves with. But Chris did so anyway, because he liked to worry about things. Or, to be more accurate, he tended to worry about things automatically, whether he wanted to or not. It just came naturally to him, just like how a fish naturally swims.

There was one thing on this special day that Chris was looking forward to. You see, he was a gamer.

Except, well, probably not by my standards, or your standards, or anyone else’s standards, really. You see, Chris had never actually played a video game. However, from an early age he’d been fascinated with video game magazines such as Nintendo Power. They made them out to be these amazing things. They were like movies… that you could control! Except, well, Chris hadn’t had much experience with movies either, so that’s not quite a valid comparison to make. In either case, he’d always been drawn to the descriptions and tiny screenshots and bad CG renders that could be found strewn throughout the pages of these cheap magazines, and he hoarded all the issues he could find.

Now, if Chris liked video games so much, why didn’t he just play them? Were there no consoles and/or televisions available? To that I say, you fool. You absolute buffoon. For starters, electricity was sparse initially, and if I say “sparse” I’m being quite optimistic, since in reality it was actually nonexistent. They did cut themselves off from the rest of the world, after all. However, by the time Chris could actually be interested in video games, they had managed to set up a way to harvest energy. Chris didn’t know much about electricity, or rivers, or really much at all about anything but video games, but he was always surprised that what looked like one relatively normal river could provide so much power.

Of course, even if electricity was available, that didn’t mean it was accessible. They only provided it to places where it was crucial, and video games were definitely not that. Some older members had told Chris once that there used to be a few screenings of movies for the whole commune in its early years, but they had stopped happening at one point. The Chief had declared to stop them, for apparently they’d been a waste of resources.

Additionally, the final nail in the coffin was the fact that all electronics break eventually, even when handled with the utmost care, and especially so when handled by a teen who spends most his days rereading old video game magazines. All recreational pieces of electronics, such as old CRTs or consoles, both things that are necessary to play video games, had been stored away in case their parts could ever be repurposed. As far as Chris was aware, nothing had ever come from that, so he was somewhat doubting its purpose, but there wasn’t much he could do about it.

Now, one important part of an eighteenth birthday is that the lucky now-to-be-adults could ask for something more extraordinary than usual. For instance, most people asked for specific tools to use in their future line of work. Others were more focused on short-term goals and asked for some of the sought-after rations the Chief had stockpiled since 2002. Of course, Chris, like many others, were curious as to how they had rations left over after that long time. There must’ve been a giant storehouse to house all that, Chris reasoned.

That made him wonder if the Chief had been wealthy back before the Event. Well, he must have been. He didn’t know much about the old currency known as “dollars,” aside from the MSRPs of old games and consoles he saw in ads and the like. But considering the sheer mass of rations that had surely already been used up, he absolutely must have had the money to buy something like a thousand GameCubes. Not that Chris would’ve spent his money this way if he could. He thought of all the many games he read about and how awesome they sounded. He was sure the Chief could’ve bought all the games in all the issues of all his magazines. But then again, maybe those rations had been dirt cheap and affordable to anyone who asked, and the Chief had simply asked a lot of times? It certainly seemed as though these things had been more accessible before the Event, if the older members’ nostalgic ramblings were anything to go by.

However, Chris’s wish was something else entirely. He simply asked for a TV and a console to play video games. He figured that, for an utterly uninteresting and untalented person such as himself, this one freebie was the best chance he had. And so imagine his joy when upon waking up and greeting his parents, he was notified that he’d been granted the opportunity to play a video game!

Note the “opportunity” in that sentence. As well as the singular “video game”. Yes, whereas for you it might be normal that kids get a console with a few games if their parents care enough and can afford it—and usually something even more extraordinary for their eighteenth birthday—Chris merely got limited access to one. You might think Chris would’ve been disappointed or angry at that choice, but to him that was already more than he could’ve ever expected. He was mentally prepared to be met with a shrug and just some rations on his big day, so it took some time for things to actually click with him. Yes, he got his wish, albeit a neutered version of it.

Initially, his parents were telling him to hold off on immediately going over to play. He had only been alloted a set time per week, after all. Seven hours, so as not to waste precious energy and not bring their precious few electronic resources even closer to breaking. It was a wonder the few CRTs they had still worked. Super Smash Bros. Melee fans these days go crazy over them, and now imagine this scenario of relying on ancient technology, but you can never hope to repair them or get any replacement parts. The televisions’ lifespans were running short. However, Chris was having none of that, being a teen whose biggest wish had just come true. After all, teenagers were known for a lot of things, but impulse control was not one of them.

And so, only a few hours after sunrise, Chris walked over to the designated community building. It was a nice day outside. Some birds were whistling among the overgrown street and he gave them a wide berth. Wings didn’t care about their fences, after all. He took a deep breath of the fresh air all around him, just reveling in his excitement. Unintentionally, he began to skip along the road, expressing his joy through his movements.

Soon enough, the large building came into view. Usually, this hosted things such as board game nights, but they had never been engaging enough for Chris. After all, he had tasted the sweet, sweet ichor of interactive video games and the freedom that was promised by them. And being eighteen years old, this meant he thought he was so, so much wiser than his foolish peers. Of course, they merely didn’t see the appeal of looking at mere descriptions and small screenshots of the actual interactive content, which was a perfectly reasonable stance to take.

He swung open the large double doors to the building with just a little too much vigor, immediately catching the attention of just about everyone inside, including the resident librarian/secretary/general “person who makes sure things go as they should.” Said librarian being a woman in her sixties who seemed to have been peacefully reading a book before Chris barged in. She shot him a glare, and immediately he felt like he’d shrunk a few feet under her gaze. After a quick inspection, that turned out not to have been the case, but he was glad to have checked, just in case.

“What,” she commanded. Now, normally the word “what” indicates a question. However, the way she spat that out, there was no uncertainty involved. She just wanted Chris to tell her his business and get out of her face, preferably as soon as possible. Chris felt the good mood he’d built up over his way to his holy grail slowly wither away.

“Well,” he began. He had trouble putting this into words, he felt so silly now, being stared down by this scary woman. “Well,” he began again. Or, really, it would be more accurate to say he continued durdling around the point. “Well,” he finally began. “It’s my eighteenth birthday and I’ve gotten permission to access a CRT with a video game console?” Now, normally nothing about that sentence would indicate it being a question. However, with the way Chris had mumbled that out, it was clearly meant to ask for her to stop scaring him down and show him where everything was set up.

The librarian just nodded and pointed to a door on the other side of the room. Chris nodded meekly and made his way there. At this point, I feel it’s worth pointing out that the librarian had dominated that conversation while speaking no more than one word. Next to the door sat a bald man in his fifties, reading a tattered comic book. Before looking up from his literature, he waved his hand dismissively. “Shoo, kiddo, can’t let you in here with the appliances.” He looked up from his comic, and immediately his facial expression turned from disinterest to “ah dang, not that kid.” He remembered having to scout through each and every household as well as the commune’s collection of appliances, trying to find exactly what the kid asked for. He’d asked why they couldn’t just give him some extra rations like they did whenever they were being asked for something unreasonable, but he’d just been told that it was especially important to reach the apathetic members of the group, whatever that meant.

The man put down the book face-down to remember which page he was at, and Chris couldn’t help but chuckle internally at this rookie mistake. This wasn’t going to be good for the book’s quality going forward. The man pulled out an hourglass from under the table he was sitting at. “Should be roughly seven hours’ worth of sand in this.” He couldn’t believe they even had to use one of their hourglasses just for this kid. If only he’d known that apathy could bring these kinds of boons…

Nevertheless, the guard grunted him through, and Chris could finally enter the sacred chamber. Said chamber being a sparsely-decorated room with a CRT and a Nintendo GameCube. Immediately, he got excited. He would’ve been ecstatic for any console, of course, but the magazines always talked about consoles like the Nintendo 64 as if they were these old things that were impressive only for their time, and the GameCube and PS2 were just blowing that out of the water. He was giddy that he’d be able to play a modern console. This, of course, is quite ironic, considering the year was 2020. Nonetheless, this was top-of-the-line considering the circumstances. Excitedly, he opened the disc drive, only to find nothing inside. He knew how to operate the machine by heart just from all the articles and ads he’d seen.

After looking around for a bit, it caught his eye, being buried under the console. He didn’t know what to expect back when he asked his request for video games. He mentioned one game in specific, knowing how unlikely it was for it to be here. And yet, there it was. The one thing he’d always wanted to experience. The box of Super Monkey Ball 2. For most other games, he’d seen the reviews. He’d read letters about how players experienced them. But Monkey Ball 2? No matter how hard he looked, magazines only ever had previews or the occasional ad for it. Never anything concrete. He knew about the original Monkey Ball from reviews, but this was something new entirely. Something he could go into blind.

With shaky hands, he picked up the box, marveling at the boxart. He slowly opened up the case, revealing a Super Monkey Ball disc. Not Super Monkey Ball 2. Super Monkey Ball. No 2, no two, no nothing. With a soft “bup”, the box dropped to the floor. All this excitement, all for nothing. And yet, they had the Monkey Ball 2 box. So clearly, somewhere here, there must also be a Monkey Ball 1 case housing the coveted Monkey Ball 2 disc. Either that, or the previous owner played musical chairs with their GameCube discs, putting the games wherever they damn pleased.

Of course, none of this stopped Chris from enjoying the game. In fact, he tried to reason to himself, it was better to play the first game before the sequel. But none of that could quell the bitter aftertaste. Except, well, only some proud part of him actually tried to assert that. In reality, his mind was being blown. This entire world that he’d only seen through tiny images was now before his eyes, how could he not be excited?

And excited he was. He controlled this tiny monkey in a ball through many exciting stages, completely losing track of time. He was so caught up in it that he didn’t notice the knocks on the door until the ground began vibrating with them.

Just as Chris got up to answer the door, the comic man burst it open. “Hey, kiddo, your time’s up,” he explained. “Time to go.”

Chris sighed wistfully. “Yeah, sorry, lost track of the time. I’ll come back tomorrow.”

The guard looked at him like he’d just told a hilarious joke. “Ha! Don’t think so. That was your time for the whole week, y’know?” Chris’s heart almost stopped as he realized the implication that it’d be a week before he could touch the GameCube again.