She remembered the parties after The End. It was a happy time —a 
time before fully comprehending a world without the anomalous. She 
drank for the first time since her college days — and it was a fine 
bottle of whiskey she drank. She couldn't remember the brand, only 
that it was fan-fucking-tastic. 


She cracked a small smile. She looked up at the trees — palm trees. 
They swayed back and forth in the wind. She stopped to look at it, 
letting the swaying of the trees send her mind at ease. 


She walked towards it, laid herself beneath the trees. She felt cool 
here. She felt at peace her, like some guru achieving internal 
harmony and peace. She knew this wouldn't last, but that didn't 
mind. It felt good nonetheless. 


wouldn't last 


Those two words echoed across her mind. It stung every part of her 
mind — stung the same way lemonade stings your open wound. 


She should have known that this victory wouldn't have lasted. She 
shouldn't have hoped — hope got her into this situation in the first 
place. 


"Thought everything would finally be fine for ya, wouldn't it?" she 
said under her breath, laughing at nothing in particular. 


Dr. Amanda Richards — former biologist for Site-43 — was now a 
general clerk for the retirement division of what's left of the 
Foundation. The division has to deal with tens of thousands of 
people all clamoring for retirement checks and benefits for their 
loyalty to the Foundation. Some of them had worked for the 
Foundation for decades — and in certain cases centuries, if you 
counted the robot ones. 


She looks over a file. Young man, late 20s early 30s. Got to Level 3 
status within 4 years of employment. That was a rarity — it usually 
took one that long to get to Level 2. She glanced over his record. 
Various awards for scientific progress within the Foundation. Then 
she looked at his human rights record, and refused to read anything 
further. 


It was there that she learned that the Foundation was more than an 
organization for protecting humanity. It was a mad house for the sick 
fucks of the world to have their outlet in a productive manner. 


It was working here that she learned of the ‘post-foundation- 
depression' — a phrase to describe those who finally understood the 
full ramifications of the situation. Everything they had fought for — 
every death, every test subject, every piece of goddamn work they 
all had fought tooth and nail to getting, every person who died for 
the ‘greater good' — was all for nothing. 


She tried not to think about it. She was good at that — her years of 
work taught her that. But as time went on, that ability began to wore 
off. As if, without those everyday monsters, they weakened. 


She was heading for a crash, and she knew it. 


Amanda was at a bar near the beach now. She dug her feet into the 
sand, feeling the cool sand bury her feet. She would have been okay 
if she just dug her entire body beneath the sand of the beach and 
just slept. She wouldn't have minded sleeping there forever. Till the 
end of time itself, in fact. 


She shook her drink around in her hand — a Bud Light. She 
grinned, realizing that it was the same way her father used to do it 
when she saw him drink. He used to drink a lot of it back then. It was 
shitty beer, but it was cheap and plentiful. He was the nice drunk of 
her family — he'd never yell when drunk, unlike his sober self. It was 
her mother that served the angry drunk archetype, even if she rarely 
drank. 


She took another drink of her beer, savoring the bitter taste. She 
remembered her father — a large, tall man with a permanent 


5 o'clock shadow on his face. An electrician by trade and part time 
coach for the local football team, he was a loud man with large 
hands. He worked hard, and drank even harder. Her mother was a 
factory worker with stocky shoulders and thin as a rail, and it only hit 
Amanada then how strange it must have been to see that short, thin 
woman work large scale industrial machinery. She smiled a bit. 


They're dead now. Both died in a car wreck two years ago. On the 
anniversary of The End, in fact. Life's strange, ain't it? 


Their deaths didn't matter anyhow. There was no use crying for 
them — they died, and she was alive. The world moved on. It didn't 
acknowledge them. 


the world moved on 


Amanda shuddered again, feeling that tingle up her spine. It was 
uncomfortable. 


The young man across from her fidgets in his wheelchair — a 
survivor of a monster. It was strange how after The End, ‘skip’ no 
longer entered into normal Foundation lexicon anymore — they 
weren't skips anymore, but monsters. Monsters didn't exist. Skips no 
longer existed. 


Amanda looks through his file. Kariuki Zuberi. African, 62", dark 
blue eyes, married. Just adopted. Former Agent of Site-19. Survivor 
of The Breach of 89', just when containment of 682 was being fine 
tuned. 


"Do you know when | will get my first retirement check? | — | haven't 
been able to find another job — not a lot of demand for crippled 
sharpshooter ya know?" 


Amanda typed into the office computer in front of her. She was lucky 
that the bosses hadn't sold the retirement division's computers yet. 
All non-essential assets were being liquidated. Before, she would 
have shuddered at the thought of ‘liquidation’. Now, it was just 
another fancy word for ‘selling things' — which didn't include people, 
thank god. 


November &, 
1989 


November 7, 
1999 


October 27, 
2004 


December &, 
2007 


December 1/3,Bishop to C8 


2007 


Chancellor 
D3 to D6 


Pawn F8 to 
E4 takes 
pawn 
Bishop |7 to 
J8 takes 
bishop 


Pawn C7 to 
C8, promote 
to queen 


takes queen 


ceded at the 
end of [DATA 


EXPUNGED] 
Opening of | Studies of 
the Berlin previous 
Wall by moves by the 
Soviet White 
officials. chancellor are 
underway 
have failed to 
produce 
useful results. 
Incident -| [DATA 
CORRUPT] 
Boston Red} Move 
Sox win the} followed three 
World Series. moves by 
White's 
bishop in an 
apparent 
attempt to 
capture 
Black's 
bishop. 
Records Records 
sealed by sealed by 
order of order of 
05-13 05-1, 05-73 05-7 
Records It is assumed 
sealed by that the pawn 
order of 05:7 that was 
promoted to 
queen was 


captured by 
Black's queen 
on December 
10th. 
Additional 
resources 


"You'll receive your first check on the 1st of April, Mr. Zuberi." 


He sat for a moment, his eyes widening as he remembered the 
order of months — something he regularly forgot about. 


"B-But that's four months from now! You gotta listen ma‘am, | need 
that check. My wife, she's also looking for a job, but is also having 
bad luck. Please, is there any way | cou —" 


"No sir, I'm afraid | can't do that. There's only so much money we 
can send out at a time." 


The man looked down, his hand up to his face. 
"This...this is the thanks | get, huh?" 


He put his hand down, and she saw his face. She could see water 
swelling up in his tear ducts. 


"| killed people. | burned down entire villages — to protect humanity. 
| kidnapped children from their parents — and parents from their 
children. | hurt people," he stopped, putting his face back into his 
hand in an attempt to stop crying. "! hurt people. | lost my leg trying 
to stop that oversized fucking lizard from killing everyone — from 
destroying the whole site. And this — this is what I get?" 


"I'm truly sorry sir, but |ca—" 
"Fuck off. Just fuck off." 


He backed out of the office in his wheelchair, with the same finesse 
as a Olympic gymnast. 


She sighed, mentally counting the event. It was the fifteenth time 
this day. 


She left the bar — she needed to get away from drinking for a while. 
She walked along the water now, letting the cool water brush up to 
her feet. It felt cooler now than the sand. She hated how the sand 
would stick to her skin after stepping into the water for a moment. It 
itched and it was generally annoying. 


She remembered the first time she went to the beach. It was a paid 
vacation by — what else? — the Foundation. She had been shot in 
the neck by an Insurgent during a raid on Site-42 — Site-43's sister 
site — and left her bed bedridden for a month after that, and another 
month of counseling due to the event. She didn't need it, but saw it 
as a good exploit for a vacation. 


She mostly stayed locked up in her room, eating and watching TV 
and occasionally doing something productive like attempting to get 
laid or binge watch some terrible Netflix show she'd forget in a week. 


As she walked, she saw a man. The man was walking with a small 
dog — probably a pug or something similar to that. It had a leash, 
less walking than being dragged along for a ride it really didn't want. 
It seemed tired and probably wanted a nap. 


being dragged along 


Again she shuddered and looked into the dogs eyes. She saw his 
boredom, but beyond that she saw something more important — 
fear. Fear of what, she did not know. 


"You are Mrs. Amanda Richards, yes?" 


She looked around the room uncomfortably, attempting to focus her 
eyes on something beyond the tiny little man before her. 


"Y-Yes sir, I-lam." 


"And you have been working for the Foundation how many years 
now?" 


"Thirteen. Thirteen years," she stammered out, feeling some sort of 
pride in that fact. Then she cringed, feeling shame at having 
admitted that. Why was she proud of that? It was like being proud of 
being a member of the Westboro Baptist Church or Nazi or a 
jaywalker. It wasn't something admitted outloud. 


"And you have been working in the retirement department for how 
long?" 


"Three. Three years," again she stammered out, feeling some sort of 
pride swell up in her, and again that shame. 


"What were you before the retirement department?" 


"| was," she said, then stopped. It took her a moment to recall what 
she was. The days and weeks and years all seemed to mix together, 
to the point where she couldn't really keep track of the days 
anymore. There were only two days on her calendar — work days 
and rest days. 


"Says here you were a biologist for Site-43. Experimented with 
SCP-3036." 


"Y-Yes, yes | did. Sorry, I-| don't know how | could have forgotten 
that." 


"It occurs. At any rate, | was requested to give you these — " the 
man stopped, handing Amanda a pile of folders. 


"What are they?" 


"Opportunities. For after everything is said and done." 


when everything is said and done 


She continued to look at the dog, continuing to be dragged along by 
its owner. Eventually, the owner stopped and picked the dog up. 


"Everything is said and done?" 


"When everything is gone. When the Foundation stops," he said, 
stopping halfway through the sentence, expecting Amanda to speak 
the other half. But she did not. 


"When the Foundation stops what?" Her questions were less 
directed at the man than at herself. 


"Stops existing." 


On a very superficial level, she understood the Foundation didn't 
need to continue existing. If monsters didn't exist, what need was 
there for a monster hunter? But for some reason, she could not 
register it on a deeper, more fundamental level. 


The Foundation not existing? How was that possible? The 
Foundation always existed, continues to exist, and will always exist. 
It was as ridiculous as saying the Catholic Church would stop 
existing, it just didn't make any sense." 


"The selections have been chosen based on previous work 
experience and credentials. | suggest you chose wisely." 


The man left her. 


Amanda tracked her eyes from the dog to the man in front of her. 
She tried her best to not scream. 


The Foundation? Not existing? 


Again, she thought about that. it was like some strange, aberrant 
thoughts that one has on drunk Friday nights, like the asking ‘what 
would happen if | stuck my cock in a blender?’ 


But the more she thought about it, the more she considered the 
possibility, the more true it became. The Foundation wasn't eternal 
— it wasn't something that existed since the beginning of time. It 
had a strict beginning and end. Maybe this was the true End — not 
the end of anomalies, but of the Foundation. 


It made her sick. She felt like she could throw up. But she didn't 
know why — shouldn't she be glad? Happy? Thrilled even? 


Maybe | don't wanna leave. 

That thought stopped everything in her body cold. That thought — 
that terrible, terrible thought — made her mind stop to a grinding 
halt. 


It wasn't true. It couldn't be true. This organization — this horrible, 


evil thing — killed hundreds of people, enslaved entire populations, 
used children as test subjects, installed third world dictators to help 
them, rigged elections for democratically elected countries — all for 
their horrible, evil agenda. 


But they were her evil organization. They had paid for her college, 
they had given her an apartment, they had given her a job and, most 
importantly, friends. 


She remembered Dr. Kirk — his assholish behavior never ceased to 
amuse her. Dr. Carol and the terrible sweaters she used to make for 
her (she remembered the sweaters for the Christmas Eve Party, and 
how much it made her laugh). Dr. Henderson, for his incompetence 
but general niceness but always made things worse for them all. 
The Director, who always cared for his employees, even if it was 
only so he could get a promotion. 


She remembered them all. She remembered, and it hurt. 
You'll never see them again. 
She tried pushing it away. 


You'll never see them. You'll forget about them, they'll fade. Dr. 
Henderson will probably be the first to die — he's old, been around 
since the 40s. Then there's Carol. She's soft, and probably won't last 
two months without her friends. She'll probably off herself. As for 
Kirk, he'll join some crime organization to try and fill the void. And 
you? You'll blow your brains out. And no one will remember you. 


The world moves on, you know? 


After a moment, she realized she was tearing up. She tried to stop 
herself from crying. 


They'll forget you. And you'll forget them. 
She couldn't stop herselt. 


The man walked away from Amanda, freaked out at the woman. The 
psycho bitch just screamed of the blue and started balling like a 


baby. Some people were trying to enjoy their vacation, you know? 


But Amanda, well, she saw something in him. She saw everyone 
there. 


She saw Kirk. She saw Carol. She saw Henderson. She saw the 
director. And there she saw the janitor, the psychologists, Vincent 
Anderson, Robert Bumaro, Dr. Clef, Dr. Bright, 682, 173, 3036, 


Meme, the 3155 instances, Dr. Kain, 076, Money, everyone. They 
all flashed on his face, all at once. 


And she missed them. She missed them all. 
She wanted to be with them so much. 


Every dream and memory and thought all wrapped together. She 
just wanted to be with them. 


She loved them as much as she hated them. 
She didn't want to forget them. 


Please, god, don't let her forget. 


Santa's New Home 


‘Twas another year's Christmas Eve, and most were asleep in those 
parts of the world engulfed in the night of the 24th of December. Ina 
certain house located in a certain city at night, a certain "intruder" 
crept and sneaked inside that house. He was a fairly obese man of 
pale complexion, with round chest and belly. Donned in red and 
white, he was silent and stealthy. In his hands, he carried an equally 
round red sack that rattled and jingled every step the man takes. 
This man was Santa, obviously. 


Santa looked at the Christmas tree in front of him, and rummaged 
his red sack. He took out a gift box, green in colour and wrapped in 
red ribbons. On the ribbon, there was a card labelled "For Fred". 
Santa bent down to the best of his ability, as if to place the gift box 
underneath the tree. But suddenly... 


"Hey there!" a voice cried.