The End Began in the Middle-12

As I write this, that girl's mother stands by. I am indeed very old now, and it hasn't been long since that wedding. Ken came and went a few times since, and he's back now. This is it. He knows it, and so do I. When I finish this, the last of my memoirs, I will go to bed that night and I will not wake up. I will expire, peacefully, in my sleep. As soon as the point of death is had, Ken will prevent my turning.

I don't know exactly what that means, and I don't want to know. I can't really stop him from eating my body, so I never bothered to argue that he shouldn't. Maybe he will. Maybe not. It's irrelevant for me to speculate. All I know for certain is that the one concession to convention about kingship--a worn thing symbolzing who is king, a crown--will be taken from my head and placed on my son's head. The mother of my grandson's wife will do the placing, and Ken will pronounce my son as king. "The king is dead. Long live the king." being traditional, that is what I expect will be the ritual phrasing.

Word went out of my approaching death and my son's succession. The households under my sword, as it were, are awaiting the news. Fortunately, they appreciate my son much as they do--did--me so I don't expect much trouble out of them after I'm gone; if there is trouble, it will be after those great-grandchildren are born and they turn out to be boys. Being ruled by mutant corpse-eaters may be a bridge too far for many of them, and they'll have to be dealt with.

I did not expect to live to 100, nevermind past that, and yet here I am- barely. The high technology I once took for granted is long gone now, and the digital world I once expected to be my Heaven has vanished. Instead I struggled--when not butchering men or monsters--to retain all the useful knowledge I could, and pass on that and the importance of its preservation to those after me. With an illiterate woman birthing my future heirs, I am concerned that they will be unable to read these words and thus come to understand the man that made their inheritance possible- or the world he came from.

Yes, I survived. Yes, I brought down a corrupt and degenerate world. Yes, I built up a robust and sustainable kingdom out of those ashes, but I am unsure that whom I pass this wealth down to will appreciate it or be able to preserve it against the threats that now exist. The end for me comes, and I have made my peace with that. What I cannot--will not--accept is that my legacy will be as easily reduced to ashes and dust.

All men die. Yet only when a man is forgotten is he truly destroyed. "Christopher I, King of Laketown" is far better than "Christoper Holm, some guy who wrote books and shot traitors" at being remembered.

Remember me.