I have some wood furniture in my finished basement that started getting these white blotches everywhere over time. Does anyone know what this is and how to remove it without making the wood look worse. If I’m able to clean this up can I coat the wood with something to help prevent it from coming back ?

(This case was sent my way via this post asking for case suggestions from my international readers since I focus on International cases.
So I would like to thank xzwkimin for informing me about this case. And as this case is from a country that I skipped over during America's Series, that means I am delaying the Japan case and going backward to do this one
There is also a very lengthy 1 hour long video on this case by Jackie Flores which I used as a guide since it was helpful. But rest assured, I did my own research, used by own words, included additional information and didn't just copy her.
And as you my expect from that prior statement, this is a huge case so information is surely missed so like always your own research is encouraged in case I missed anything.)
Ámbar Cornejo Llanos was born on February 14, 2004, in Villa Alemana, Chile to her mother born in 1982 and father Ulises Cornejo. Ulises was mostly absent and seemed to have separated from Denisse before Ámbar was even born. Not long after their separation, Denisse began dating a new man named Juan Carlos Pérez Aguirre, a friend of Denisse's since before Ámbar was even born. This relationship would result in them having two children and thus Ámbar having two step-siblings although one tragically passed away at 4 months old due to malnourishment brought about due to improper care. After the death, Denisse would fall into a depression, heavily drink and neglect Ámbar and her surviving brother. It got to the point where their school requested the two be removed from Denisse's custody as they were visibly not being taken care of. The request was granted and the two were removed from her custody and held in an Institution for minors.
Ámbar Cornejo Llanos
Denisse Llanos Lazcano
In 2009, Denisse had her final break up with Juan, their relationship was a dysfunctional on-again-off-again relationship with constant break ups and reunions but eventually, their final break up would come. Also in 2009, Denisse had improved enough for a court to deem it safe for Ámbar and her brother to be returned to her care. After the break-up, Denisse and Ulises appeared to reconcile and Ulises grew close to Ámbar.
On September 27, 2012, Ámbar confided in two of her school teachers that one of her friends had been sexually assaulted, after they called her friend's mother, she broke down and admitted that she had lied and was in fact talking about herself. Ámbar was taken to the police to give a statement and she told them that whenever her mother took her and her brother to visit Juan back when they were dating, Juan would sexually assault her during these visits. Juan was arrested and on November 25, 2013, The Oral Criminal Court of Viña del Mar sentenced him to three years imprisonment, ordered him to pay and cover the entire cost of the trial, prohibited him from even having any contact with Ámbar or her family, and had to disclose his address to the police. The court also again, took custody away from Denisse and sent her to live with Ulises for a few months, The no-contact order went both ways as Denisse was ordered to have nothing to do with Juan either so long as she wanted to raise Ámbar. Eventually, Ámbar was returned to Denisse's custody after she obeyed this court order.
Ulises, viewing Denisse as an unfit mother, and since he saw her as manipulative wanted to keep Ámbar. When Denisse found out, she prohibited her daughter from ever visiting her father and tried to manipulate her into disliking him, saying that it was his fault and that he was trying to break up their family. Ulises would also send money to the family for Ámbar but Denisse would often, not tell her when the money arrived and simply pocket and spend it for herself.
Denisse's plan to turn Ámbar against her father backfired and the older Ámbar got, the more strained her relationship with her mother would become. They would constantly argue and one time, Ámbar had a friend over when she and Denisse had another argument and Denisse moved to strike her daughter. Ámbar and the friend ran to another room and locked the door but Denise was so angry over whatever the fight was about that she hit the door with enough force to break it open. The only reason that Ámbar never defended herself was simple, according to friends, Ámbar told her that since Denisse gave birth to her, she was obligated to respect her mother and could never raise a hand to her.
Soon Denise would date another man, the landlord of their apartment, Manuel García Queirolo. Tragically, Manuel wouldn't be any better than Juan. Whenever he heard that Ámbar was showering, he'd use his position as the landlord to go to a room on the second floor that gave him a clear view through the bathroom window so he could watch Ámbar. Ámbar would eventually find out and inform her mother to which she told her and her brother to just not shower unless she were home. But beyond that, she took no action, she didn't even stop seeing Manuel. She actually did the opposite and got mad at Ámbar for being the subject of Juan and Manuel's lust. The worst of Manuel's depravity wouldn't come out or be known by others, even Ámbar until years later, that will be discussed further in the write-up.
With all this tragedy and her dysfunctional and abusive home life, one may expect Ámbar to have been troubled. But on the contrary, all her friends said she was happy, outgoing, kind, would do anything for them and loved to engage and share her hobbies with them such as dancing. Ámbar was deeply liked by all her classmates and was very popular. She had managed to not be defined by all that was going on in her life.
In late 2019, Denisse had found her next boyfriend, a man named Hugo Humberto Bustamante Pérez with the two moving in together in relatively short order. Ámbar was not very keen on Hugo and how fast their relationship was progressing, she also felt uneasy about him as well and how he looked at her. Ámbar told one of her friends about her mother's new boyfriend and her friend felt his name sounded familiar to the two looked him up and did not at all like what they had found.
Hugo Humberto Bustamante Pérez
Hugo Humberto Bustamante Pérez was born on March 28, 1965, in Quilpué as the third out of four siblings. His father worked as an electrician, and his mother a housekeeper with domestic violence a frequent occurrence in the household. His mother was described as neglectful while his father was actively abusive and had him put to work at the age of 8 to sell fruits and vegetables at markets. To escape his father's abuse during his most violent outbursts, he would go stay at his grandparent's house. At the young age of 13, he would fall into a drug addiction, starting with marijuana before escalating to opium and cocaine.
At the age of 15, his father kicked him out of the home so he went to Mendoza, Argentina and lived with a classmate. There he claimed to have travelled all to Bolivia, Peru, Spain and Brazil. He returned to Chile at the age of 18 and began stealing goods to sell back as well as trafficking drugs. When he was 20 he would, with the help of an accomplice take part in a scam where he would get on a bus, gain the trust of the passenger sitting next to him, offer a drink laced with sleeping pills and then steal their belongings as they passed out in the street. He would also attempt this on beaches as well.
Several times, Hugo would attempt to start romantic relationships but none of them would last particularly long usually breaking up almost immediately due to a lack of commitment from Hugo. For legitimate income, Hugo got into bodybuilding and according to him, he owned a nightclub. On May 27, 1987, Hugo was arrested for the first time on a charge of theft but he doesn't appear to have suffered severe consequences for this. He later began another relationship but this one seems to have lasted a little longer with them even having a child and Hugo getting employed as a serial guard. But they broke up shortly after the birth and in 1989 Hugo was arrested for nine counts of robbery, four counts of theft and 5 counts of armed and violent robbery earning him a 10-year prison sentence.
Hugo had a rough stint in prison, with his drug habits routinely sending him to a hospital in Valparaíso and often had extra security and shackles because he once tried escaping during a transfer. In 1992, he suddenly had a mental health crisis and was admitted to a mental hospital for 25 days. In 1995 he was granted parole but was sent back to prison 8 months later after violating it. He was finally released after serving his sentence in 1999. After serving his sentence he again attempted to turn his life around, getting a job painting and repairing cars and saving enough money to open his own store. He also took an interest in yoga and spiritualism. At a yoga class, we would meet 49-year-old kindergarten teacher Verónica Vásquez Puebla (born in 1955) who had a son named Eugenio Honorato Vásquez.
Verónica Vásquez Puebla and Eugenio Honorato Vásquez
Unlike Hugo's prior relationships, this one actually appeared to be promising. Eventually, Hugo asked Verónica for money for "home improvement" and initially she wouldn't hesitate to give her money away. Tragically, Hugo would begin squandering the relationship and would become abusive and temperamental. So on January 8, 2005, he came to ask for money, money that he had never paid back any time prior, Verónica finally said no having now wanted nothing to do with him.
When met with this reply, Hugo was left enraged. In his fit of rage, he grabbed a baseball bat and struck Verónica with it before strangling her. All the commotion had woken up 9-year-old Eugenio after being witnessed, Hugo set his sights on the child and began strangling him as well. Now that both were unconscious, he shoved a cloth down Verónica's throat, tied her hands and feet together and slit her throat. Afterward, he finished them by wrapping their heads in plastic wrap and tying a plastic bag around their heads. He then got a metal drum and hit their bodies repeatibly with a cane and breaking their bones so he could better fit Verónica and Eugenio's corpses inside. Then to hide the smell of decomposition, filled the drum with water, line and plaster before sealing it. He then proceeded to ransack Verónica's house to look for the money he had asked for and left once he found it.
He left the barrel in Verónica's home for a few days and blew her money on his old habits, that being drugs, drinking and prostitutes. Eventually, despite his methods to mask the odour, the bodies inside the drum began to smell. To deal with this, he bought a house with a patio and transferred the barrel to that property. He then asked his father if he could help him dig a hole in his yard. The hole was two meters deep and one meter wide. He asked the movers, moving in his furniture to help move the drum to the back of his house. Hugo was almost caught right then and there because liquid began leaking from the barrel but Hugo said that he worked in the food (specifically French Fry) industry and that it was a chemical from making the product. After everyone left, he buried the drum in the hole he had his father dig. Verónica's brother noticed she was missing and called her only to be answered by Hugo and said that she had gone on a spiritual retreat. Eventually, he and her family went looking for her and found her identification documents in a ditch. Hugo was again called and simply said she was bored with Verónica and hung up.
On January 26, Hugo's new neighbours called the police to report the smell and when they arrived, despite how confident Hugo was that he'd get away with it, and despite all the work he put into hiding his crime, he confessed immediately. The police placed Hugo under arrest while they excavated his yard and recovered the drum and the bodies. Tragically, the news broke at the same time as Hugo's daughter began making plans to reconnect with him. This murder gained Hugo the moniker of "The Drum Psychopath"
The police outside Hugo's house.
The police in Hugo's yard
The drum.
Hugo spent his first few months in a mental hospital where he boasted to the doctors about his economic situation and martial arts talent. Hugo's trial took place in November 2005 held by The Guarantee Court of Villa Alemana, and he was handed down a sentence of 27 years imprisonment with his release date set for January 26, 2032. Hugo would now be one of Chile's most infamous criminals and was the subject of an episode of "Mea Culpa"
Hugo being brought to court
Hugo was even given interviews while in prison, in one of these interviews he was asked if he would ever kill again if released and he would tell the interviewer that he didn't know because "I am not the master of destiny". He also told the interviewer that he was triggered by a whistling sound in his ear and he said that it was like watching a movie while he was killing Verónica and Eugenio.
On April 29, 2016, Hugo was put before a parole board and even though Hugo publically said to an interviewer that he was uncertain about whether he'd kill again or not, and even though the prison itself told the judges in charge of the parole hearings not to release him, they outraged all of Chile by granting him parole regardless on the basis of him serving 10 years, learning an actual skill he would use at a job while in prison and good behaviour meaning, legally, they had no reason to deny parole and he was released amongst 788 others. Hugo was despised by all the locals he was now living with, no employer would hire him for any more than a day so he mostly worked odd jobs. Even those who reluctantly admitted that Hugo was nice, added that he still seemed odd and one of his neighbours said "When he looked at you, it felt like he was undressing you with his eyes"
Neighbours would even put up flyers all across the area warning residents about Hugo and to make it clear to Hugo that he wasn't welcome. Parents even refused to let their children go outside alone now that Hugo was back and living alongside them and women wanted to be driven to work and driven home from work instead of walking. Even the mayor of Villa Alemana had ordered an extra police presence in the neighbourhood he moved into.
As soon as she finished reading up on his lengthy and disturbing history, Ámbar was left horrified. Denisse had had 4 partners, one sexually assaulted Ámbar when she was 8, the other was a blatant pedophile who would stare and watch her shower and now her newest one was a man who killed his girlfriend and her 9-year-old child. The only one of Denisse's partners that she actually treated with disdain and contempt was Ámbar's father who cared for and had her best interests in mind. Ámbar explained this all to Denisse who got mad at her daughter and started another fight since she saw Ámbar as judging her newest boyfriend without getting a chance to meet and know him. She even told her that everyone deserves a second chance despite barely knowing Hugo herself at this point.
Seeing as her mother remained stubborn, Ámbar went behind her back and wrote a complaint letter to the apartment's manager requesting that Hugo be banned from the premises. This complaint found its way to the public and soon the other residents of the apartment learnt that Hugo was living with them and essentially, they all came together to demand that they all leave and take Hugo with them. Leave they did but Denisse took Ámbar's brother and moved into Hugo's own home. But Denisse, now on the verge of hating Ámbar for not accepting her relationship with Hugo, punished her by abandoning her underaged daughter and having her live alone in the apartment with a very minuscule amount of money.
After only a week, Ámbar would have to leave the apartment and would go back and forth between staying at various different friend's houses but none were able to let her move in full-time. And she couldn't move into her father's place because he lived in Northern Chile and that would involve abandoning her brother and mother with Hugo. In December 2019, Ámbar moved in to live with Manuel's daughter who was old enough to have her own children and for Ámbar to refer to her as an "aunt". She was described as a much better mother figure than Ámbar's own mother and she was completely ignorant to Manuel's crimes so Ámbar felt safe around her and didn't hold her father's actions against her. And by this point, Denisse disowned Ámbar in all but name. She ended up having to repeat a grade and the school and teachers took note of this and tried to call Denisse 6 separate times for a parent-teacher conference only for her to get aggressive toward the teachers for even calling her at all.
The only interactions she would have with Denisse would be when child support was sent and Ámbar still all these years later had to go to Denisse's house to collect the money in person before her mother spent it all herself. And often she wouldn't even go inside, she'd just knock on the door, Denisse would give her the money without saying a word and close the door. And even if she didn't behave that way, Ámbar steadfastly refused to ever step foot inside Hugo's home. The latest payment was sent on July 29, 2020, when Ámbar told her "aunt" that she was going to head over. After three hours had passed Ámbar had yet to return home from Denisse's and wouldn't answer her phone her respond to any messages. Her Aunt actually called Denisse who blatantly didn't care about her daughter's disappearance and actually hung up the phone. Afterwards, the police were finally called.
Both the police and the entire neighbourhood dismissed the possibility of a runaway and together with the police, the entire neighbourhood began a search effort for Ámbar. Ulises also heard of what had been going on in Ámbar's life as well as her disappearance and immediately travelled to Villa Alemana to join in on the search and of course call and confront Denisse who would never answer or respond. Even when the police themselves showed up, Denisse refused to cooperate or help and ignored even those tasked with finding her daughter. Some witnesses even said that she just stood on her porch and drank a beer with Hugo while others tried finding her daughter
The police would put several flyers all across the local area appealing for information, questioned every neighbour they could find, and together with the Red Cross, firefighters and local volunteers searched the nearby grasslands, bushes, forests, mountains and so on utilizing sniffer dogs, drones and even thermal imaging cameras with the searches continuing into the night. A witness would also come forward and say that in the morning he drove by Ámbar and saw her crying as she walked away. One of Denisse's neighbours also said that in an unusual course of events, Ámbar actually entered Denisse and Hugo's home instead of waiting outside and that she didn't leave. This statement was supported by a CCTV camera showing her walking toward their house but never walking away.
Ámbar's missing notice
This time, simply ignoring them wouldn't work. On July 31, A large group of neighbours went to Hugo's house and waited for him to come outside so they could all gang up on and confront him and some wouldn't even let him go back inside. Hugo acted strangely amicable this time and even invited them to come inside and said the police could even bring in search dogs. Hugo even confidently stated, "If I had a body in here it would smell, Don't you think a body that's been here for 2 days would smell". This statement had the opposite effect of what Hugo had intended since as of now, most people thought Ámbar may still be alive.
Since he gave consent, everyone agreed and entered his home on August 3, including police with search dogs and although no human remains were found, they did find clothing with traces of human blood which were seized to be analyzed by forensics. The blood would end up being a red herring as it was old and belonged to Denisse. Even though Hugo seemed to have been in the clear for now, having just invited police onto his property and them finding nothing, he decided to, on August 3, with Denisse, leave Ámbar's brother in the care of one of his sisters and then the two would just flee and leave the area without notice. By now the search expanded to find them, as suspects to be arrested.
On August 6, photos were uploaded on social media showing Hugo and Denisse at a camp ground in Lilu Lilu trying to find someplace to hide, police also pulled CCTV footage from a store near the camping ground and saw the two buying clothes, hats and sunglasses in an attempt to hide their appearance. The police searched the nearby woods and found the two relatively easily and began interrogating them separately.
Hugo and Denisse at the campground
Denisse who clearly had no concern for her daughter's safety and disowned her over not accepting Hugo, turned on him very easily. She confessed that Hugo had murdered Ámbar and that she knew he did but was too afraid to come forward as Hugo had threatened her, her son and her parents and that he forced her to run away with him. According to her, Hugo had dug and torn up his living room floor to make a 6-foot ditch, bury her in it and refill the living room. The police believed Denisse and figured she'd be a valuable witness so they released her. Hugo exercised his right to remain silent and told the police nothing.
It was fortunate for the police that Hugo didn't need to speak. They checked his cell phone and found that from July 20-July 28 he had searched the following terms "Price of electric weapons, Ranged stun gun, Using chloroform to sleep, Sale of straightjacket psychiatry, Chinese bamboo torture, Chinese water drop torture, Ether sleeping spray, Using ether to put people to sleep, Medical use of scopolamine, Where to buy hydroxybutyric, Total and absolute power, How to change your first and last name, Psychological torture, Torture methods, Meat grinder price, Blows to faint, sleep or immobilize," and so much more which clearly showed that not only did Hugo premeditate Ámbar's murder, but that the murder was likely horrific. Inside his backpack were two knives, a hatchet, rope and a receipt for paint and paraffin wax.
The police easily obtained a warrant to search Hugo's home that same day. They broke up the floorboards in his living room and dug up the soil underneath. There they found three plastic coolers upside down and wrapped into plastic bags. The police removed the bags and opened up the coolers, there they found the decomposed, eviscerated and partially skeletal remains of a young girl, dismembered into 15 separate pieces. The remains were easily identified as Ámbar's based on her clothing. The autopsy revealed that Ámbar had been attacked and suffered numerous blunt force injuries across her body but especially to her hands, arms, forearms, buttocks and thighs. a cloth was stuffed down her mouth as seen with her head, and there were signs on the remains that she had been violently raped. According to the medical examiner, a saw and knife were used for the dismemberment
https://preview.redd.it/yobqrydqv54d1.png?width=710&format=png&auto=webp&s=8713a8ee0d0efdb04689406f2d9897214a07e97b
https://preview.redd.it/wfpw4m47u54d1.png?width=760&format=png&auto=webp&s=ddafe2a0402d76e0c2cc8d3cd6c729feb9f73dbd
https://preview.redd.it/ygeyfrwbu54d1.png?width=640&format=png&auto=webp&s=8019b513bad529d81215e0a2452b41ecb4cf9e54
Police and forensics
Meanwhile, the police faced backlash for releasing Denisse and not investigating her further, many did not believe her to be as innocent and a victim of Hugo as she portrayed, her prior history and actions during the search made that hard to believe. And even after her daughter's dismembered body was found under her living room, Denisse wasn't sad, mourning or even. After several threats including her apartment being vandalized as she was led home under her police guard and threats over the phone, Denisse was sent to a psychiatric institute after attempting to take her own life. The backlash continued after it was revealed that the institute was being kept anonymous as a "witness protection" situation.
And speaking of outage, outrage toward the Chilean government and judiciary was immense as Hugo's release led to Ámbar's death. The families of Verónica and Eugenio were also furious that their killer got to go free to kill again instead of serving his sentence. The outrage was in fact so intense, that the judge who approved Hugo's release was even suspended and investigated for misconduct. Eventually, though, she was reinstated with no consequences because although the law was flawed, she was doing her job as a judge by following it. Instead, Chile changed their laws to make the parole process much more thorough and over all harder to have parole answered as opposed to the rubber stamp process it was before.
On September 24, Denisse was removed from Witness Protection and instead placed under arrest with now the police labelling her a murderer instead of a witness. The police ended up going through Hugo's entire phone history, Denisse's, and CCTV footage around the area before and immediately after the murder which showed that Denisse was an active participant. Denisse's motive was simple yet heartbreaking and horrifying. She had on some level wanted to do this ever since their neighbours forced them to leave their apartment because of Hugo, she and Hugo both said that Ámbar wasn't letting them live together as a romantic couple in peace and she saw Ámbar as coming in between him and Hugo and that as long as her daughter was alive, she would never be with the man she wanted.
Denisse's arrest
While in prison, she was the most hated inmate by her fellow inmates and her own cellmate said that she would "make life impossible" and went out of her way to stay up late just to make sure that she could keep Denisse awake and not let her sleep. This led to Denisse being moved to solitary confinement after a "lynching" attempt. A move that infuriated the public and her fellow inmates. It also upset Hugo who was said to have been begging the courts to let him visit Denisse.
Denisse and Hugo were both tried together with the trial beginning on October 26, 2021, at The Oral Criminal Court of Viña del Mar. During the trial which was held over video link due to COVID-19. Denisse somehow found a way to play Ámbar's favorite music which the court and her relatives saw as a provocation. with the prosecution calling over 54 witnesses, 113 relevant documents, 30 expert reports, and the prosecution presented strong DNA evidence, Psychiatric reports showing them to both be sane, and biochemical reports. According to the prosecution, this is what happened.
Hugo and Denisse during the trial
On July 29, 2020, Ámbar was called by Denisse to pick up the money sent by Ulises. Before Ámbar arrived her now 14-year-old brother was sent to school to pick something up so that he couldn't be a witness to the crime. When Ámbar arrived, Denisse refused to go outside, meet her and hand her the money like always, instead, she insisted and demanded that she enter the home if she wanted it. Somehow, she did convince her and Ámbar went inside where she was immediately attacked by her mother and Hugo with Hugo proceeding to rape Ámbar.
Soon a problem in their plan emerged when Ámbar's brother returned home much quicker than Denisse had expected him to. When Denisse saw her through the windows she hurriedly ran outside and told him that they needed to go to their old apartment because they had gotten a call that someone was breaking in. He couldn't see anything that was going on and really needed to use the bathroom, but his mother insisted that they had to leave now and when he moved past Denisse to use the bathroom, Hugo from the inside kept pushing the door shut so he couldn't enter, something he found odd. He was only allowed in after Hugo dragged his sister's body to another room and closed the door. When he was finally let in to use the bathroom, he heard a loud thumping noise coming from the other room. He left the bathroom and didn't even ask about the noises but Hugo felt the need to frantically explain them away and say it was his mother coming over for a visit and folding clothes. Ámbar's brother was one of the prosecution's star witnesses.
Hugo, now left alone, began dismembering Ámbar into the aforementioned 15 pieces and placed them into the coolers while CCTV cameras showed Denisse and her son at a metro station on the way to their apartment. Denisse showed no reaction to helping her boyfriend rape and murder her daughter. While at the metro station, she sent the following text messages to Hugo. "I'm more calm now, I love you, kisses", "I hope everything goes well for you", "See you tomorrow" and "Good night love" That second message was her wishing Hugo luck in disposing of her daughter's body. They also exchanged 14 phone calls. When they arrived at the apartment, Denisse had her son stay there while she rushed to a store to purchase paint and paraffin wax. Denisse was caught on CCTV doing this and the cashier was called to testify. To keep him away from their home, Denisse had her son stay at the apartment alone for the night as she returned.
Hugo and Denisse then went to the living room to remove the wooden floorboards in the living room, dig a six-foot hole through the soil underneath the floor, dumped the coolers into the hole, filled the hole back in, and placed new replacement floorboards where the old ones were and nailed them back to the floor sealing up the makeshift grave. The paraffin wax was used to try and keep any search dogs from detecting the stench of decomposition. Neighbours heard the sound of equipment such as drills and hammers being used but that the sounds were spaced out as if Hugo and Denisse were trying to be quiet with them. Denisse then wrapped Ámbar's cell phone in aluminum foil, burnt it and discarded it in a crawl space. Denisse's fingerprints were pulled from this foil. Denisse's shoes were also examined and traces of wax were found on the soles. Hugo seemed supremely confident that he would never be caught but as soon as he was confronted by his neighbours he was suddenly terrified and frantically told Denisse that they needed to run away.
On November 26, 2021, the two were found guilty and on December 7. both were sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole until at least 40 years into the sentence meaning the two won't even have the possibility of release until Hugo is at least in his 90s. It wasn't just murder the two were convicted of, they also were sentenced for rape and abuse, tragically not just that of Ámbar. Ámbar's brother wasn't just a major in the murder case, Hugo and Denisse had been sexually abusing him as well this whole time and the two were sent to prison for those crimes. For the sake of his protection, specific details involving his case have thankfully not been made public. They were both acquitted on the charge of illegally burying a body and Denisse was acquitted on the charge of raping Ámbar. They both appealed the verdict and sentence but on June 2, 2022, the Chilean Supreme Court upheld the decision.
Now I mentioned that Manuel García Queirolo would be brought up again as his actions were even more heinous, Well, during her disappearance and murder, the Cyber Crime Unit was investigating Manuel for completely unrelated reasons, he was suspected of producing and possessing child pornography on his cell phone and other sex crimes from 2016-2020. On August 17, 2020, he was placed under arrest while investigators went through his phone. As they expected, he did possess mutable inappropriate images of minors.
Manuel's arrest
Horrifyingly enough, 400 of which were all of Ámbar back when she lived in his property. Aside from photographing her while she was showering, he also had pictures of upskirts and pictures taken up her dresses and the phone camera zoomed in to focus on her privates. Ámbar never found out about these images. On December 15, 2021, Manuel was convicted by The Oral Criminal Trial Court of Viña del Mar and sentenced to 14 years imprisonment on December 27.
Ámbar's other relatives, friends and various women's rights organizations were satisfied with the verdict and even celebrated in the streets. The families of Verónica and Eugenio were also pleased to know that he was back in prison. For Hugo and Denisse, they are likely to never see each other face to face ever again. Ironically, that is despite being in the same prison. On April 27, 2022, Denisse was transferred to the same prison as Hugo after an apparent "lynching" attempt which led to lacerations on the scalp, bruises on both sides of the neck, an orbital hematoma, a laceration in the right eye, a wound on the lower lip, a hematoma in the lumbar dorsal area and on the left elbow. Although she has been attacked several times before this was the most brutal one.
Ámbar's brother is now 17-18 and is living with other family on Ulises's side. He is said to be doing well, has made several new friends and has moved on and put this incident behind him with his life looking up for him.
Sources (In the Comments)

My boyfriend and I moved in a year ago. We were both late-20s post grads with no money and little/no furniture. Since then, we’ve saved up and are finally decorating to make our place more homey.
We have some ideas: add a long runner between the couch and bar stools, artwork to the wall with the window, get an entry way table, mount the tv (bf’s request) and get a tv console that’ll match the cherry wood/dark wood of the rest of the house, change up the rug(?), and get an actual couch cover.
Does anyone have any good ideas for a good tv console and rug that would fit the space better? Should it be one big art piece or an art wall? And are there any ideas you guys would have when decorating this space? There is so much that needs to be done, I’m a bit overwhelmed so any input is helpful :”)

My mom was like do a brick red for the dark wall and a very light orange for the other walls. We have to keep in mind the pink and white furniture which I might put a wood sticker on after a while. Also ignore the mess, will tidy up soon.

A while back we got three adorable barn cats that are equal parts savage killers and lovable porch cuddlers. Wife was nursing the baby when I heard her shout, 'Yes Caroline!'
Red squirrels Have been getting in the walls of our 1842-build log cabin and doing God knows what kind of damage on the inside of the walls. Wonderful to see Kitty patrol doing their job!

In game Melissa Lewis she has a really noticeable NZ accent due to a mistake when recording voice lines. But what if it wasn't a mistake? Here's my speculative backstory as to how she got to the Mojave!
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Herbert Royce, October 2280
Under the patronage of my mentor Dr. Gall at the Boneyard Medical University, to the Mojave Wasteland.
Field Notes.
Intro.
I had often looked out at the dead Pacific from the balconies of the Boneyard Medical University and pondered what human stories might be taking place across those moribund waves. The NCR borders were constantly pushing north, east, and even south, but the western ocean was an impassable veil. I had realized I could learn no more about the wider world from the collected books and dubious tales brought in by wasteland explorers. And so I set off on an expedition towards the east frontier of the republic; New Vegas. There, I discovered the first clues yet recorded about the fate of the world beyond the sea.
I heard tales that taking the Long 15 east to Vegas was a terrible ordeal. Leery caravaneers in dusty Boneyard streets told me tales of a scar of asphalt broiling in the wasteland sun, vipers and raiders poised behind every rock, knives and teeth sharp. A mere historian like myself would never make it, they said.
But in reality after getting over my initial apprehension I found the journey from the Boneyard to the outskirts of New Vegas completely uneventful. I traveled with a Crimson Caravan group and discovered the NCR goes to great lengths to secure the road. Given that it is the only way for NCR soldiers and supplies to reach the frontlines near New Vegas from the cities of the west I shouldn’t have been surprised.
2.
I rendezvoused with the local chapter of the Followers at the old Mormon Fort in Freeside, on the outskirts of Vegas. Julie Farkas was in charge here, she was helpful in getting me introduced to some other local figures and in giving me the lay of the land.
3.
There is nothing new to learn here in Vegas itself. The local Followers are entirely preoccupied with their medical services and have no time for my historical and anthropological inquiry. Mores to the point, the Followers in Vegas seem to be suffering from a moral cringe of some type, no doubt brought about by their continual reminder of Caesar’s presence and influence and their feelings of collective guilt for his existence. I suppose having another Followers anthropologist nearby was simply too much. The local NCR administration is also useless to me, entirely focused on their war with Caesar’s Legion.
4.
I have resolved to meet with the Great Khans as my next move. Although the Followers have technically cut formal ties with them, I believe that the tribe will still welcome a Follower. As to why I want to meet them, I have heard they send scouts into the Idaho wilderness. Almost nothing is known about the lands north of Vegas. If I could discover something important it would make this journey worthwhile. I doubt Julie will approve of my plan.
5.
I told Julie I was planning to attempt to locate some old Vault to the north of Vegas and set off before anyone could stop me. The Followers and their guards were happy to see me go, I think. Avoiding the Fiends turned out to be a problem. I was close to being chased but managed to distract my pursuers with a mirror and smoke grenade. I will have to remember to take a different route back after this. But either way, I have managed to make camp just outside Red Rock canyon and hope that before long the Great Khans will invite me in. It’s better to not simply walk in uninvited.
6.
I have successfully ingratiated myself into the Great Kahn’s Red Rock Canyon camp. As I suspected, they welcomed a Follower into the camp with open arms, excited to see what medical and chemical science I can teach them. I don’t know much. Hopefully I can find out what I need before they realize this.
7.
No luck so far. The Khans prefer to talk about their problems with the NCR and Bitter Springs. This doesn’t interest me.
I’ve heard that one of the scouts is due back in a few days. This scout - a woman named Melissa - has apparently been north, and is my best chance to find out about the Idaho Wilderness. I will be stretching my time by then. The Khan drug-makers are already aware that I have nothing to teach them. I’ve switched to trying to hint I could provide them with inside information on the NCR for them to exploit, which is working. For now.
8.
I have finally met with Melissa, and my entire plan has changed. This woman has a most extraordinary story; forget Idaho - she has information more exotic than anyone I’ve met! I can barely compose myself to write but I will do my best with trembling hands to record everything she told me as best as I possibly can:
To start with basics Melissa is in her late 20s, possibly about 28. She isn’t just a scout but the “runners-leader” of the Great Khans, which is something like a head scout, and she knows everything going on around the camp, also acting as an advisor to the head Kahn (whom I never met). She is well respected and trusted. She has tanned skin and dark eyes and hair, unremarkable physically. Perhaps a little short.
However I immediately knew something was special about her the second she spoke. I’m not sure if I can accurately transcribe her unique accent down phonetically, or remember all her strange word choices. I will try.
​
https://preview.redd.it/v0yl9zjk854d1.png?width=2000&format=png&auto=webp&s=1b47eb13abf109471c88881d3d3fa4cc9ea3a72b
She gave her name as “Mellussa”. I asked if she had been north, and she said that yes, her runners and she would sometimes “tramp” northwards. I quickly asked what tribe she originally hailed from. I think she was bothered that I didn’t peg her for a Khan. But she said she came from a tribe called the “Keewee”, which was located somewhere “in the far south and west” (or, “wist”), at a place (I will try to transcribe as) “Awl-t’e’rra”. I believe that she had told this exact explanation many times. She was surprised when I latched on to this place and asked for a more specific location. Perhaps I was the first. There isn’t much land south and west of Vegas - did she mean her tribe was from Baja?
She looked at me skeptically. “Yis, I suppose so”.
I didn’t believe it. I had done some work in Baja right after the Rangers first finished pacifying the borders. I had studied the tribes of the area at that time. There were a handful left and a handful more extinct: and none called themselves anything like Keewee.
I changed topic and asked about relatives. Did she have any other surviving members of her tribe? She told me her father was one “Chomps Lewis”, who was the chief of the NCR quarry at Sloan (I passed through Sloan on my way into Vegas but didn’t stop there). “But”, she said, “he was my stip father. Not of the tribe.” Her mother, who was of her tribe, had passed away many years ago. As far as she knew, she was the last survivor. The last one “here”, anyway, she said. I asked what she meant by here. She looked skeptical again and glanced around the camp, probably looking for an escape.
I wasn’t going to let this go. I felt I was at the threshold of some incredible revelation. I changed the topic to the NCR, and steered the conversation towards the crimes of the state and their propensity for destroying smaller tribes. It didn’t take long before she was on side again, and happily reviling the republic. I tried again;
“And so did the NCR destroy your tribe?”
This time she laughed in a funny snorting way before blurting out “no way, they’d have no chance” and I pressed on “why’s that?” and she regained some of her composure and mumbled
“Because they’re far away. Far, far away.”
I heard my heart thumping in my chest. Far and away to the south west. Nowhere that could mean but over the sea. At this time the sun had started to set and we moved to logs near a small campfire near one of the Great Khan yurts. She had had a change of heart in the lowering light, and seemed to have decided it was time to tell her tale.
“It was over fufteen years ago”, thus she began her tale, all told in that strange accent. She had lived her early life in a place far, far, away, across the pacific ocean, and at the bottom of the world. That place was - “Awl-t’e’rra” - a big island far from Communist China or from America - which nonetheless had also been destroyed in the great war, centuries ago. I had had dreams, (or delusions really), that the world beyond America might have been spared the great war. Or - that they may have rebuilt in glorious peace and harmony. But from what Melissa told me of her childhood memories, this exotic southern land had had a history all too familiar. Warlords. Tribes. Raiders. Monsters. Tyrannical governments. Famine. Disease. War.
She told me of dense, water-soaked cold jungles stalked by monstrous featherless birds, of steaming and fuming land, cracked by the bombs and forever since churning and boiling with geological fury, of bizarre walking lizards with three eyes that could hypnotize anyone who gazed at them, of coastlines roaring with furious waves and stalked by gigantic crabs, of huge insects she called “wetas” - armored like scorpions - which roamed the wild foggy forests in the still mornings, and she told tales of enormous mountains, dusted with green snow which glittered at night, and from which katabatic winds rushed down to strip and irradiate the land below. She recalled tales she had heard of wasteland heroes, monstrous raider hordes, mutant hunters; of great new nations that rose and fell, of myriad factions and tribes: the Whalers, the Puiras, the Republic of Huapai, the terrifying chthonic Titiwai, the Chain Gang, the venerable Parliamentarians, the Meke Wanau, the savage Scourge, and many more I couldn’t write down fast enough.
But when she talked about the settlement - which she called a “Pa” - she grew up in, called Vohall, near the ruins of a great city, she seemed to only have good things to say. She described a peaceful and green place, with comfortable and warm wooden shacks and clotheslines, orchids, and friendly neighbors. The adults of Vohall were descendants of some old government military base or facility, who had developed a religious devotion to a text with instructions on how to operate and maintain the machinery at the old facility: especially the base’s large submarine. For hundreds of years they had maintained the facility by following this book, which they called “The Book of Continuation”. Melissa said her earliest memories involved toddling into vents with an oil can to oil wheels the book had said needed to be oiled, deep inside some machine.
She was obviously fond of her memories of Vohall, and I suspect that things were not as rosy as she described them. Nevertheless, I didn’t interrupt as she spoke of the various people of the town, “Mr Edwards” who was a wonderful gardener, “Kai” who was the best war dancer and who led the braves who had fought off raiders coming across a fortified spit, “Te Aroha” who repaired the fabrics and clothes of the settlement and who had the best apple tree that all the children liked to pick from when she wasn’t watching, and “Captain Tommy” who was the Admiral of the settlement.
In all she painted a picture of a healthy settlement in a hostile place. She recalled things were getting harder though. The elders remembered better times, winters were colder and colder each year, and icebergs drifted into the harbor sometimes even in autumn. Frequent raider attacks by wastelandboys from the bones of the great city across the spit were mounting in scale, and the abominations that rose from the waters around the Pa seemed fiercer and more numerous every month.
When Melissa was 12, her mother and father and all the other inhabitants of the settlement gathered to hear an announcement by Captain Tommy. A computer no one had remembered ever doing anything had that morning started flashing lights and spitting out reams of ticker paper.
She remembers the sense of excitement in the main hall when Tommy read from the holy Book of Continuation. The book knew what to do. The instructions were clear. This was the moment all the work that had been done was for. The book announced through Captain Tommy that now was the time to board the ancient submarine so carefully maintained and set sail for the source of the signal now registered on the computer - to find those first survivors on the planet to reestablish order: those who had built a society functional enough that they had electricity and radio transmitters. They would join them in their paradise.
Within days, the population of Vohall had packed their things and boarded the huge submarine, which gleamed with a brilliant new white and black paintjob. Melissa remembers the smell of rope and salt and oil, as she watched the settlement’s precious store of diesel poured into the waiting sub. The entire settlement cheered as the beast’s engines roared to life, and clapped and whistled as the final piece of cargo was loaded aboard - a mysterious shiny metal cylinder kept in the most secure secret vault and only to be moved by the Captain himself: as per the strict instructions of the Book. The people waved goodbye to their home, and with fresh hopes and joy set sail, away from their old world and into the new.
I was reeling at the detail and complexity of Melissa’s reminiscence. Asking her to slow down, I got her to talk more about what she knew of Awl-t’e’rra’s history before her time. I asked her if she had known about any Vaults there, “no”, she said, “no Vaults, no Nuka-Cola, no Bottlecips. But I had seen that before”, she pointed to an old-world USA flag I had embroidered on my bag. Curious, I asked where, “you’d see them all over old buildings. Old posters, with crosses on thim. I always thought they were raider flags. Nobody seemed to like thim anyway. It seemed they used to blame everything on thim, before the war.”
She continued with her story. After leaving Awl-t’e’rra, her tribe sailed for many months, on the surface mostly, always following the computer’s guidance towards the signal it was picking up, always north-east. The weather became warmer, but Melissa recalls that the other children and she spent less and less time on the top deck as it became stiflingly hot near the equator. Inside it was cramped and smelly and noisy.
They passed through an enormous sea of garbage. A huge rotting mattress of tyres, wood, plastics, foams, and half-sunken wrecks, motionless under the merciless sun until the submarine plowed through, closing again in the wake.
At some point it became clear that fuel would run out before they made it to the signal. Melissa remembers a lot of shouting and anger as the adults argued over what to do. There was nothing in the Book to guide them on this matter. Eventually an old man they called “Cook” plotted a new course to a small nearby island called “Bora” by hand, where they hoped to find more fuel.
The submarine ran out of fuel almost at Bora. The currents were unhelpful, and the ship became locked in doldrums. Eventually the adults managed to construct enormous long oars from spare wood. It took 4 men to an oar working in shifts, but very slowly the submarine began to sail once again towards Bora. It took a huge amount of effort to row the ship. Food and medicine began to run low. By the 14th month of the voyage the first of the old and sick began to die. Te Aroha died, giving her prized apple seeds she had hoped to plant in her new home to Melissa. It took another month before Bora was sighted and landed upon. Cook died without ever seeing Bora.
Something horrible happened on Bora. Melissa stayed on the submarine and watched the landing parties row out in small dinghies, her father smiling and waving as he rowed out. He never came back. Kai never came back. Only one of the four dinghies returned.
Bora was dead, but the dead rose and attacked the landers.
The place was crackling with radiation and the entire central island was a sunken, underwater crater. Melissa remembered seeing that flag, that old USA flag, flying from a single solitary flagpole on the island in the green haze. Nothing else really remained. Luckily the one returning dinghy had managed to find a few barrels of fuel in an old airport bunker. The remaining crew mourned the lost, poured the fuel into the tank, and set off again.
Melissa became more subdued and skipped over the details of the remaining voyage. The fuel lasted only another few weeks, and from there the oars were employed again. Luckily the current picked up a bit as they got further from the equator, but the rowing was still backbreaking work. What’s more, with most of the braves and young men lost on Bora, and the older and sicker dying off, the rowing soon fell to mostly the women and children. Melissa, a small girl, rowed and rowed, hours at a time, for what she said felt like years.
After a long, long stretch at sea, with new deaths every day, land was finally sighted again. Originally 300 people set out, but only 20 lived to see the shoreline of that new land, America.
They had reached the deserted coast south of Dayglow.
Looking at the rocky, ruined shore, they were bitterly disappointed.
There was no greeting party. No orderly houses, or gardens. No farms and windmills, or skyscrapers and “aeroplanes”. America was as dead as Bora. They landed on the shore and explored the area. Dust, rust, bones.
Eventually they found the source of the signal they had followed all this way. An ancient automated beacon, with a nuclear battery that would last forever. A bird had flown in through a broken window and knocked a can onto the transmit button, and it had started mindlessly pinging into the atmosphere.
Melissa and her mother, and Captain Tommy, and the other 17 survivors gathered in the captain’s cabin to read the final, sealed letter; as the Book of Continuation instructed.

Commander, You have so far done your duty for the State and the People of New Zealand. While the circumstances you find yourself in (i.e. the destruction of civilisation) are regrettable, you have a final task to fulfill. The only safeguard we had to prevent the total atomic annihilation you find yourself in was Mutually Assured Destruction. You have followed a signal to someone that now believes themselves absolved of this shared responsibility. In order to safeguard MAD, it now falls to you to destroy them. We have equipped you with a nuclear device for this purpose. The arming code is ABEL. Godspeed.

Melissa remembers all present reacted differently. Some laughed, some cried, most were silent. The best plan the old world had was to kill whatever crawled out of the rubble. They took a vote. Melissa claimed she did not remember what they voted on, or the result.
Her mother and her, and a handful of others asked to be let ashore.
Captain Tommy and the rest stayed on the ship.
Whether they attempted to return to Awl-t’e’rra or tried to carry out their final commandment we might never know. Melissa says they saw the submarine sink below the waves from the shore and never saw it again. The other survivors scattered, and Melissa’s mother took her north. They found Dayglow, and from there learned of the NCR. Her mother hated the NCR from the start - seeing in them the government which had destroyed Awl-t’e’rra, Bora, and her husband. She took Melissa north-east, towards independent Vegas, and met Chomps Lewis on the way.
The rest of her history wasn’t as interesting to me. Melissa’s mother died of long term illness gained from the doomed voyage. Chomps cared for her to the end. Melissa herself grew up strong and angry, finding the Great Khans exactly the group she belonged to. Her step father Chomps respected her anger and independence, helping how he could, but ultimately leaving her to follow her own unique path. And she retained the accent of her mother, of her tribe Keewee from Vohall, from Awl-t’e’rra.
9.
Not a day after I hastily scratched down Melissa’s story the Khans finally removed me from their camp. No matter. What I have is incredible, the first news from the other side of the planet, the first story of a world so far from ours! Now it’s just a matter of sneaking past the Fiends again back to Julie Farkas and all the Followers will finally see the value of my work.

• Note to Scribe Rasmus; please clean the blood off this properly and get it typed up ASAP. The Head Scribe will want to be informed immediately. We may need to organize an expedition.

You might have met Melissa Lewis in Fallout New Vegas, a Great Khans scout near Sloan. In game she has a really noticeable NZ accent due to a mistake when recording voice lines. But what if it wasn't a mistake? Here's my speculative backstory as to how she got to the Mojave!
Herbert Royce, October 2280
Under the patronage of my mentor Dr. Gall at the Boneyard Medical University, to the Mojave Wasteland.
Field Notes.
Intro.
I had often looked out at the dead Pacific from the balconies of the Boneyard Medical University and pondered what human stories might be taking place across those moribund waves. The NCR borders were constantly pushing north, east, and even south, but the western ocean was an impassable veil. I had realized I could learn no more about the wider world from the collected books and dubious tales brought in by wasteland explorers. And so I set off on an expedition towards the east frontier of the republic; New Vegas. There, I discovered the first clues yet recorded about the fate of the world beyond the sea.
I heard tales that taking the Long 15 east to Vegas was a terrible ordeal. Leery caravaneers in dusty Boneyard streets told me tales of a scar of asphalt broiling in the wasteland sun, vipers and raiders poised behind every rock, knives and teeth sharp. A mere historian like myself would never make it, they said.
But in reality after getting over my initial apprehension I found the journey from the Boneyard to the outskirts of New Vegas completely uneventful. I traveled with a Crimson Caravan group and discovered the NCR goes to great lengths to secure the road. Given that it is the only way for NCR soldiers and supplies to reach the frontlines near New Vegas from the cities of the west I shouldn’t have been surprised.
2.
I rendezvoused with the local chapter of the Followers at the old Mormon Fort in Freeside, on the outskirts of Vegas. Julie Farkas was in charge here, she was helpful in getting me introduced to some other local figures and in giving me the lay of the land.
3.
There is nothing new to learn here in Vegas itself. The local Followers are entirely preoccupied with their medical services and have no time for my historical and anthropological inquiry. Mores to the point, the Followers in Vegas seem to be suffering from a moral cringe of some type, no doubt brought about by their continual reminder of Caesar’s presence and influence and their feelings of collective guilt for his existence. I suppose having another Followers anthropologist nearby was simply too much. The local NCR administration is also useless to me, entirely focused on their war with Caesar’s Legion.
4.
I have resolved to meet with the Great Khans as my next move. Although the Followers have technically cut formal ties with them, I believe that the tribe will still welcome a Follower. As to why I want to meet them, I have heard they send scouts into the Idaho wilderness. Almost nothing is known about the lands north of Vegas. If I could discover something important it would make this journey worthwhile. I doubt Julie will approve of my plan.
5.
I told Julie I was planning to attempt to locate some old Vault to the north of Vegas and set off before anyone could stop me. The Followers and their guards were happy to see me go, I think. Avoiding the Fiends turned out to be a problem. I was close to being chased but managed to distract my pursuers with a mirror and smoke grenade. I will have to remember to take a different route back after this. But either way, I have managed to make camp just outside Red Rock canyon and hope that before long the Great Khans will invite me in. It’s better to not simply walk in uninvited.
6.
I have successfully ingratiated myself into the Great Kahn’s Red Rock Canyon camp. As I suspected, they welcomed a Follower into the camp with open arms, excited to see what medical and chemical science I can teach them. I don’t know much. Hopefully I can find out what I need before they realize this.
7.
No luck so far. The Khans prefer to talk about their problems with the NCR and Bitter Springs. This doesn’t interest me.
I’ve heard that one of the scouts is due back in a few days. This scout - a woman named Melissa - has apparently been north, and is my best chance to find out about the Idaho Wilderness. I will be stretching my time by then. The Khan drug-makers are already aware that I have nothing to teach them. I’ve switched to trying to hint I could provide them with inside information on the NCR for them to exploit, which is working. For now.
8.
I have finally met with Melissa, and my entire plan has changed. This woman has a most extraordinary story; forget Idaho - she has information more exotic than anyone I’ve met! I can barely compose myself to write but I will do my best with trembling hands to record everything she told me as best as I possibly can:
To start with basics Melissa is in her late 20s, possibly about 28. She isn’t just a scout but the “runners-leader” of the Great Khans, which is something like a head scout, and she knows everything going on around the camp, also acting as an advisor to the head Kahn (whom I never met). She is well respected and trusted. She has tanned skin and dark eyes and hair, unremarkable physically. Perhaps a little short.
However I immediately knew something was special about her the second she spoke. I’m not sure if I can accurately transcribe her unique accent down phonetically, or remember all her strange word choices. I will try.
https://preview.redd.it/ile1mezl654d1.png?width=2000&format=png&auto=webp&s=ee7ae2b12926b500957cedb876ec2f28daee80e9
She gave her name as “Mellussa”. I asked if she had been north, and she said that yes, her runners and she would sometimes “tramp” northwards. I quickly asked what tribe she originally hailed from. I think she was bothered that I didn’t peg her for a Khan. But she said she came from a tribe called the “Keewee”, which was located somewhere “in the far south and west” (or, “wist”), at a place (I will try to transcribe as) “Awl-t’e’rra”. I believe that she had told this exact explanation many times. She was surprised when I latched on to this place and asked for a more specific location. Perhaps I was the first. There isn’t much land south and west of Vegas - did she mean her tribe was from Baja?
She looked at me skeptically. “Yis, I suppose so”.
I didn’t believe it. I had done some work in Baja right after the Rangers first finished pacifying the borders. I had studied the tribes of the area at that time. There were a handful left and a handful more extinct: and none called themselves anything like Keewee.
I changed topic and asked about relatives. Did she have any other surviving members of her tribe? She told me her father was one “Chomps Lewis”, who was the chief of the NCR quarry at Sloan (I passed through Sloan on my way into Vegas but didn’t stop there). “But”, she said, “he was my stip father. Not of the tribe.” Her mother, who was of her tribe, had passed away many years ago. As far as she knew, she was the last survivor. The last one “here”, anyway, she said. I asked what she meant by here. She looked skeptical again and glanced around the camp, probably looking for an escape.
I wasn’t going to let this go. I felt I was at the threshold of some incredible revelation. I changed the topic to the NCR, and steered the conversation towards the crimes of the state and their propensity for destroying smaller tribes. It didn’t take long before she was on side again, and happily reviling the republic. I tried again;
“And so did the NCR destroy your tribe?”
This time she laughed in a funny snorting way before blurting out “no way, they’d have no chance” and I pressed on “why’s that?” and she regained some of her composure and mumbled
“Because they’re far away. Far, far away.”
I heard my heart thumping in my chest. Far and away to the south west. Nowhere that could mean but over the sea. At this time the sun had started to set and we moved to logs near a small campfire near one of the Great Khan yurts. She had had a change of heart in the lowering light, and seemed to have decided it was time to tell her tale.
“It was over fufteen years ago”, thus she began her tale, all told in that strange accent. She had lived her early life in a place far, far, away, across the pacific ocean, and at the bottom of the world. That place was - “Awl-t’e’rra” - a big island far from Communist China or from America - which nonetheless had also been destroyed in the great war, centuries ago. I had had dreams, (or delusions really), that the world beyond America might have been spared the great war. Or - that they may have rebuilt in glorious peace and harmony. But from what Melissa told me of her childhood memories, this exotic southern land had had a history all too familiar. Warlords. Tribes. Raiders. Monsters. Tyrannical governments. Famine. Disease. War.
She told me of dense, water-soaked cold jungles stalked by monstrous featherless birds, of steaming and fuming land, cracked by the bombs and forever since churning and boiling with geological fury, of bizarre walking lizards with three eyes that could hypnotize anyone who gazed at them, of coastlines roaring with furious waves and stalked by gigantic crabs, of huge insects she called “wetas” - armored like scorpions - which roamed the wild foggy forests in the still mornings, and she told tales of enormous mountains, dusted with green snow which glittered at night, and from which katabatic winds rushed down to strip and irradiate the land below. She recalled tales she had heard of wasteland heroes, monstrous raider hordes, mutant hunters; of great new nations that rose and fell, of myriad factions and tribes: the Whalers, the Puiras, the Republic of Huapai, the terrifying chthonic Titiwai, the Chain Gang, the venerable Parliamentarians, the Meke Wanau, the savage Scourge, and many more I couldn’t write down fast enough.
But when she talked about the settlement - which she called a “Pa” - she grew up in, called Vohall, near the ruins of a great city, she seemed to only have good things to say. She described a peaceful and green place, with comfortable and warm wooden shacks and clotheslines, orchids, and friendly neighbors. The adults of Vohall were descendants of some old government military base or facility, who had developed a religious devotion to a text with instructions on how to operate and maintain the machinery at the old facility: especially the base’s large submarine. For hundreds of years they had maintained the facility by following this book, which they called “The Book of Continuation”. Melissa said her earliest memories involved toddling into vents with an oil can to oil wheels the book had said needed to be oiled, deep inside some machine.
She was obviously fond of her memories of Vohall, and I suspect that things were not as rosy as she described them. Nevertheless, I didn’t interrupt as she spoke of the various people of the town, “Mr Edwards” who was a wonderful gardener, “Kai” who was the best war dancer and who led the braves who had fought off raiders coming across a fortified spit, “Te Aroha” who repaired the fabrics and clothes of the settlement and who had the best apple tree that all the children liked to pick from when she wasn’t watching, and “Captain Tommy” who was the Admiral of the settlement.
In all she painted a picture of a healthy settlement in a hostile place. She recalled things were getting harder though. The elders remembered better times, winters were colder and colder each year, and icebergs drifted into the harbor sometimes even in autumn. Frequent raider attacks by wastelandboys from the bones of the great city across the spit were mounting in scale, and the abominations that rose from the waters around the Pa seemed fiercer and more numerous every month.
When Melissa was 12, her mother and father and all the other inhabitants of the settlement gathered to hear an announcement by Captain Tommy. A computer no one had remembered ever doing anything had that morning started flashing lights and spitting out reams of ticker paper.
She remembers the sense of excitement in the main hall when Tommy read from the holy Book of Continuation. The book knew what to do. The instructions were clear. This was the moment all the work that had been done was for. The book announced through Captain Tommy that now was the time to board the ancient submarine so carefully maintained and set sail for the source of the signal now registered on the computer - to find those first survivors on the planet to reestablish order: those who had built a society functional enough that they had electricity and radio transmitters. They would join them in their paradise.
Within days, the population of Vohall had packed their things and boarded the huge submarine, which gleamed with a brilliant new white and black paintjob. Melissa remembers the smell of rope and salt and oil, as she watched the settlement’s precious store of diesel poured into the waiting sub. The entire settlement cheered as the beast’s engines roared to life, and clapped and whistled as the final piece of cargo was loaded aboard - a mysterious shiny metal cylinder kept in the most secure secret vault and only to be moved by the Captain himself: as per the strict instructions of the Book. The people waved goodbye to their home, and with fresh hopes and joy set sail, away from their old world and into the new.
I was reeling at the detail and complexity of Melissa’s reminiscence. Asking her to slow down, I got her to talk more about what she knew of Awl-t’e’rra’s history before her time. I asked her if she had known about any Vaults there, “no”, she said, “no Vaults, no Nuka-Cola, no Bottlecips. But I had seen that before”, she pointed to an old-world USA flag I had embroidered on my bag. Curious, I asked where, “you’d see them all over old buildings. Old posters, with crosses on thim. I always thought they were raider flags. Nobody seemed to like thim anyway. It seemed they used to blame everything on thim, before the war.”
She continued with her story. After leaving Awl-t’e’rra, her tribe sailed for many months, on the surface mostly, always following the computer’s guidance towards the signal it was picking up, always north-east. The weather became warmer, but Melissa recalls that the other children and she spent less and less time on the top deck as it became stiflingly hot near the equator. Inside it was cramped and smelly and noisy.
They passed through an enormous sea of garbage. A huge rotting mattress of tyres, wood, plastics, foams, and half-sunken wrecks, motionless under the merciless sun until the submarine plowed through, closing again in the wake.
At some point it became clear that fuel would run out before they made it to the signal. Melissa remembers a lot of shouting and anger as the adults argued over what to do. There was nothing in the Book to guide them on this matter. Eventually an old man they called “Cook” plotted a new course to a small nearby island called “Bora” by hand, where they hoped to find more fuel.
The submarine ran out of fuel almost at Bora. The currents were unhelpful, and the ship became locked in doldrums. Eventually the adults managed to construct enormous long oars from spare wood. It took 4 men to an oar working in shifts, but very slowly the submarine began to sail once again towards Bora. It took a huge amount of effort to row the ship. Food and medicine began to run low. By the 14th month of the voyage the first of the old and sick began to die. Te Aroha died, giving her prized apple seeds she had hoped to plant in her new home to Melissa. It took another month before Bora was sighted and landed upon. Cook died without ever seeing Bora.
Something horrible happened on Bora. Melissa stayed on the submarine and watched the landing parties row out in small dinghies, her father smiling and waving as he rowed out. He never came back. Kai never came back. Only one of the four dinghies returned.
Bora was dead, but the dead rose and attacked the landers.
The place was crackling with radiation and the entire central island was a sunken, underwater crater. Melissa remembered seeing that flag, that old USA flag, flying from a single solitary flagpole on the island in the green haze. Nothing else really remained. Luckily the one returning dinghy had managed to find a few barrels of fuel in an old airport bunker. The remaining crew mourned the lost, poured the fuel into the tank, and set off again.
Melissa became more subdued and skipped over the details of the remaining voyage. The fuel lasted only another few weeks, and from there the oars were employed again. Luckily the current picked up a bit as they got further from the equator, but the rowing was still backbreaking work. What’s more, with most of the braves and young men lost on Bora, and the older and sicker dying off, the rowing soon fell to mostly the women and children. Melissa, a small girl, rowed and rowed, hours at a time, for what she said felt like years.
After a long, long stretch at sea, with new deaths every day, land was finally sighted again. Originally 300 people set out, but only 20 lived to see the shoreline of that new land, America.
They had reached the deserted coast south of Dayglow.
Looking at the rocky, ruined shore, they were bitterly disappointed.
There was no greeting party. No orderly houses, or gardens. No farms and windmills, or skyscrapers and “aeroplanes”. America was as dead as Bora. They landed on the shore and explored the area. Dust, rust, bones.
Eventually they found the source of the signal they had followed all this way. An ancient automated beacon, with a nuclear battery that would last forever. A bird had flown in through a broken window and knocked a can onto the transmit button, and it had started mindlessly pinging into the atmosphere.
Melissa and her mother, and Captain Tommy, and the other 17 survivors gathered in the captain’s cabin to read the final, sealed letter; as the Book of Continuation instructed.

Commander, You have so far done your duty for the State and the People of New Zealand. While the circumstances you find yourself in (i.e. the destruction of civilisation) are regrettable, you have a final task to fulfill. The only safeguard we had to prevent the total atomic annihilation you find yourself in was Mutually Assured Destruction. You have followed a signal to someone that now believes themselves absolved of this shared responsibility. In order to safeguard MAD, it now falls to you to destroy them. We have equipped you with a nuclear device for this purpose. The arming code is ABEL. Godspeed.

Melissa remembers all present reacted differently. Some laughed, some cried, most were silent. The best plan the old world had was to kill whatever crawled out of the rubble. They took a vote. Melissa claimed she did not remember what they voted on, or the result.
Her mother and her, and a handful of others asked to be let ashore.
Captain Tommy and the rest stayed on the ship.
Whether they attempted to return to Awl-t’e’rra or tried to carry out their final commandment we might never know. Melissa says they saw the submarine sink below the waves from the shore and never saw it again. The other survivors scattered, and Melissa’s mother took her north. They found Dayglow, and from there learned of the NCR. Her mother hated the NCR from the start - seeing in them the government which had destroyed Awl-t’e’rra, Bora, and her husband. She took Melissa north-east, towards independent Vegas, and met Chomps Lewis on the way.
The rest of her history wasn’t as interesting to me. Melissa’s mother died of long term illness gained from the doomed voyage. Chomps cared for her to the end. Melissa herself grew up strong and angry, finding the Great Khans exactly the group she belonged to. Her step father Chomps respected her anger and independence, helping how he could, but ultimately leaving her to follow her own unique path. And she retained the accent of her mother, of her tribe Keewee from Vohall, from Awl-t’e’rra.
9.
Not a day after I hastily scratched down Melissa’s story the Khans finally removed me from their camp. No matter. What I have is incredible, the first news from the other side of the planet, the first story of a world so far from ours! Now it’s just a matter of sneaking past the Fiends again back to Julie Farkas and all the Followers will finally see the value of my work.

• Note to Scribe Rasmus; please clean the blood off this properly and get it typed up ASAP. The Head Scribe will want to be informed immediately. We may need to organize an expedition.