Legion World Forums LEGION OUTPOST Mission Monitor Board This is the way the World ends.

Part I

The new nurse paused in the last room at the end of the corridor. In her first week on the job, she’d had the opportunity to visit many patients. Most of the rooms were sterile -- literally and figuratively -- adorned with just a generic print of flowers on the wall, and the hospital-issued armchair for a single guest. This one was different.

A non-regulation credenza occupied the entire south wall, and on it was a cacophony of color that, upon closer inspection, resolved itself into dozens of toys and stuffed animals, arranged in rank profusion. There were the standard teddy bears, along with more unusual plushes: here a penguin, there a shark, and a few that were cute but not readily identifiable... a koala-like bear cub of some sort, a foxlike creature, and others. Standing among the stuffed animals were numerous action figures -- mostly of the super-heroic kind -- and a few other toys, such as a rather fierce-looking giant robot. At the end of the credenza was a generous stack of well-worn comic books.

For the first time, the nurse looked over at the room’s occupant: a boy, maybe ten or eleven years old. He seemed peaceful enough, as though simply asleep, but then she noticed the feeding tube, along with an array of equipment for monitoring his heartbeat and other vital signs. She walked over to the chart that hung at the end of his bed: STU RAT, it said. As she bent to pick it up, she heard the sound of someone entering the room, and turned around.

Part II

“Hello, you must be new here.” A doctor had entered the room -- a woman with a kindly demeanor and strawberry-blonde hair.

“Yes, I’m the new nurse -- Mira Dean. I just started Monday.”

“I’m Dr. Caroline Scott. You’ve met Stuey, I see.” She cocked her head in the direction of the boy.

Mira nodded, and looked more carefully at the patient’s chart. “It’s hard getting used to the shorthand on these charts -- how the patient’s first and last names are truncated to three letters each. Yesterday, I noticed that the chart for ‘Joshua Johanssen’ had been swapped with the one for ‘Josephine Johnson’ -- they were both labeled ‘JOS JOH.’”

Dr. Scott rolled her eyes. “It’s a problem. That nomenclature’s been in use here for decades. These days, with all the patients we have, it really gets confusing. Anyway, his name is Stuart Ratner, but we all call him ‘Stuey.’”

“He must have a lot of family and friends, what with all these toys.”

Dr. Scott smiled sadly. “He hasn’t any, that we know of. All of these toys were donated by members of the community and hospital employees over the years. Haven’t you heard his story?”

”No, I just moved here from Dallas last month. What happened?”

“You probably read about it a few years ago -- this happened in 2005, at the Bayside Expo Center. There was a big comic book convention, wizard-something-or-other, I think. It was a beautiful weekend in September -- there was no reason in the world to think anything would go wrong. And then, without warning, the ceiling collapsed over the most densely packed area of the convention floor. Hundreds of people were crushed.”

Although Mira had been a nurse for many years and had, for the sake of her sanity, become hardened in her own way to pain and suffering, she couldn’t help but gasp.

Dr. Scott continued. “More than fifty people died, and dozens more were gravely injured. I remember that day -- I was an attending at the time. We were overwhelmed. It was the worst I’ve ever seen. Anyway, Stuey was one of the children they pulled out. We got his name from a tag on his jacket, but there wasn’t any other identifying information. We couldn’t identify any of the other victims as relatives of his, and no one ever came forward to claim him.”

“How can that be? How could he not have any family or anyone who even knows him?”

“It’s a mystery.” Dr. Scott shrugged. “But he’s been here ever since. Strangers who heard about him have brought him all these toys and stuffed animals over the years, and even though it’s technically against our facility’s rules, we’ve sort of made an exception for him.”

Mira looked at the stack of comic books. “What are these?”

“Those are Nighty’s. He loves super-hero comics, and he reads them to Stuey every Wednesday night, when he’s on this floor.”

“‘Nighty’?”

Dr. Scott laughed. “Gary -- he’s the night shift nurse for L-ward, has been for years. Folks call him ‘Nighty.’ You’ll meet him soon, I’m sure. Anyway, Gary swears that Stuey can hear him -- that his fingers move or his eyelids flutter when Gary’s reading those comics to him.”

“Do you think that’s true?” Mira had been looking over the patient’s chart while the two were conversing. “From what it says here, it looks like he’s never come out of his coma. And I’m not a doctor, but… but I would guess the long-term prognosis isn’t favorable. Is it?”

Dr. Scott hesitated, and then answered with a sad smile. “No, I don’t think it is. He’s been like that for the last three years. But who knows? I know Gary is positive that Stuey’s aware of his surroundings on some level -- that there’s something going on in there. But, honestly, we’ve never had any indication of discernible brain function… we don’t believe there’ll be any improvement.”

Mira sighed. “Well, thank you, Dr. Scott. I-- I should be getting back to the nurse’s station -- I have some charts to review.”

“Why don’t you come back and visit next Wednesday, introduce yourself to Gary? I’m sure he’d enjoy the company -- and you can spend some more time with Stuey.”

Mira smiled.

Part III

The door closed behind Dr. Scott and Mira.

Silence filled the room, broken only the drip of an IV and the gentle hum of medical monitoring equipment.

* * * * * * * * *

Elsewhere: a furious rush of activity. People -- super-heroes, villains, unusual creatures of all description -- came and went, sharing their opinions, their thoughts, their hopes. Expounding the virtues of comic books, movies, TV shows, anything and everything. Posting.

Stu liked it there. They were his friends. And many of them, like him, had needed someplace to go after that afternoon in 2005. They’d needed to be tethered to the things that had brought them joy in life -- and so they continued, persisted, existing as words and feelings imprinted in alternating bands of blue and grey, set amid a field of stars.

But Stu had grown tired. His mind was alert, but his body was failing. It was, for him, time to move on.

Over the last couple of days, he’d held back, hesitated. Where would this World go after he was gone? What would happen to everyone? Would they follow, as well, into the unknown, as the World folded softly in upon itself, its posts, threads, and forums stacking one on top of the other until they all reduced themselves into a singularity, and then -- nothing?

But then he’d realized: something that is so real to so many for so long will always exist, somewhere. The role-playing threads, the inane one-word posts, the words that rhymed... they’d continue -- random electrons in a sea of synapses, perhaps, or windborne sand that coalesced, for a moment, into a coherent pattern. They’d continue.

So he made his last post: glowing, dancing numbers... 10000. Time Trapper at last, and at the last.

This is the way the World ends.

Drat! After all this time, I find out that I'm living in a glass snowball.

At least Stu didn't drop his drawers as he left.

Wonderful finale, Stu!

I'll drop mine for him, in salute: