Chapter 1: The Last American Believer

Some days, it feels like I’m the last one in America who remembers where we came from—and what we used to believe in.

Sometimes it seems like I’m the only one left who feels the true heartbeat of this country—the wild legends, the impossible dreams that once fueled us. Everyone else has traded our homegrown heroes for borrowed gods and pop-culture knockoffs, forgetting the spirit that made America roar.

Without the protection of our own American legends, we've lost a hundred times in a row on the world stage.

Every international contest, every test of spirit and fate, we fall a little harder. TV screens flicker with defeat, newscasters mumble apologies while the world laughs at the United States. There’s a weight that presses down on everyone, like the shadow of forgotten giants. I feel it in my bones, in the way my hands shake when I hold the old family photo albums, wondering if I’m the only one who still cares.

The entire nation stands on the brink of being wiped out.

There’s a hush over the cities and the heartland—a kind of waiting, like the silence before a tornado. In every diner, every pickup truck rumbling down the interstate, folks glance nervously at each other, knowing something’s about to break.

At this critical moment, I am chosen.

I never expected it to be me. Yet here I am, holding the hopes of a fading country in my hands, feeling the ghostly grip of generations before me on my shoulders.

I look at that wild-eyed monkey with a face full of fur and a mouth like a thunderclap—the one everyone mocks.

He’s right there, grinning like he’s in on a cosmic joke, fur bristling, eyes sparking with mischief. He doesn’t fit in with the muscle-bound gods and polished heroes—they look like they walked out of a museum. But that monkey? He’s got the same wild spark I see in old baseball cards and roadside diners, the kind of troublemaker you’d want on your side in a bar fight.

I throw his name out there, voice cracking, like a Hail Mary pass in the fourth quarter. It echoes through the arena, raw and defiant.

In the next instant—

The Great Sage returns, and all the gods fall before him.

Time seems to reel, the air crackling with electricity. It feels like history itself takes a breath, remembering what America once was—what it could be again.