Serious TRANSMOGRIFY

[Cindy]

Spoiler: Music

It took a month for the fires of Judgement Day to finally quell, with countless 1.2 megaton blasts, equivalent of nearly 1,200,000 tons of TNT, having shattered the landscape forever as earth, ash, and decay rained from the sky for long after the fact. Even proceeding the fall of the bombs, the ground still shook as entire spires and skyscrapers thundered to the ground, transforming the cityscapes of the world into vast burning necropolises. A black miasma cloaked a great deal of the continents in a great darkness; a night that only knew daybreak when the smoke dissipated. The immense pollution in the air stained all light that cast over the planet, causing the sun to sear a red light down onto the dying world.

It was a sight few saw, as most people that were not vanquished in the bombs were safely tucked in places they could foster the survival of the species, far out of reach from the dangers of the surface. But those who did witness the red sun's rise starkly remembered the memory as it melted into their retinas. And those who did not succumb to Judgement Day themselves had yet to try their fate against the coming starvation, radiation, and the long nuclear winter ahead.

Even still, humanity found the means to survive. While many sealed themselves and their families away in bunkers, underground installations or were simply out of range to be affected by the reach of the blasts, one particular colony survived high above, nestled deep into the heights of the Rocky Mountains-- composed of mostly former ski lodges. From their lodges they made out the numerous pillars of flame that peered over the horizon as Judgement Day commenced, and were unsure of what to make of such a sight, or what course of action to follow through with.

Together, they fared the harsh snows and the nuclear winter, even if many were lost to the lethal chill of hypothermia, frozen in their graves on the mountain. And while water was in great supply from the natural springs and the melting ice, starvation was ripe. Food was scarce, and what few coyotes, black bears, deer and local flora they could find was not enough to feed even their small population. To leave the Rocky's and attempt to challenge the winter or the fallout below would be suicide. In a time of desperation, those who perished were consumed by the living for their sustenance.

However, as those times passed the settlements established their own gardens and managed to find ways to keep their crop warm, and although without electricity they lived off of mere fire, shelter and botany. This was the time of the first hunter-killers; birds of prey and falcons of death that hummed over the mountains occasionally. It only took one person to be gunned-down by the machine to realize that such an entity were hostile, and they never peaked their heads again when the sound of turbines roared near the mountainside. They had no way of combating this threat, so they simply hid, isolated from the outside world. They had no understanding or knowledge of what had become of the world beyond in the aftermath-- or what had even caused Judgement Day.

In their seclusion, the people moved on with existence. A hierarchy formed, a new generation came forth. A microsociety bloomed and flourished in the few ways that it could. Life had found a way. The settlements managed to farm off of the their gardens reliably, certain animals were kept as cattle to be grown for eating. The cannibalism and desperation that had taken place at the birth of this new era had all but faded away for the time being, though the experience had changed the people. Without proper schools to educate, and with cabin fever seeping further into the minds of the people, the new generation vastly differed from the previous. They knew nothing of the world beyond survival, saw little other purpose beyond merely staying alive. Some information of the old world passed down between the generations, but it diminished near completely as time went on. A new way of life formed, and the group was forever changed as the last member of the old world perished. And as the hunter-killers continued to fly overhead, few ever dared to leave their group.

Another generation passed, and then another. A hundred years after Judgement Day, and the people that lived in the Rocky Mountains were not of the same caliber as the ones who first settled there a century ago in their ski lodges. But most of all, they adapted away from a vocal language. A new medium of communication developed akin to sign language that used the whole body to gesture, refer and commune with their own. Education stunted in ways we would understand, but within their culture they had come out of a dark period. They speak legends and tales of the pillars of flame and the red sun far beyond the mountain home. Although, the mountain people were far from utopian. Food still continued to be rationed throughout the ages as the population began to grow beyond the threshold of what they could sustain, they abandoned the now collapsing and unmaintained lodges for cliffside caves. And worst of all, to maintain the collected survival of the herd, a rule was formed between them to select those among their excess kin to be sacrificed for food, should a youth survive to grow into maturity and exceed their imposed population limit- a drastic return to a desperate time.

And then one day, several hundred years after Judgement Day, something unprecedented happened. A man had climbed the height of the mountain from the outside world to meet them- his face nearly frozen over as he entered, bundled in his coat, and the people were both in wonder and in fright of the occurrence. No one knew that humans existed outside the mountain; To them the mountain was their home. The indigenous people, clad in their animal hides, ancestral winter sportswear and ski-goggles, huddled and gathered around to circle the man who had entered, entertaining their sense of security with their makeshift pikes and ancient hunting rifles with no ammunition to fire with. They were in awe as much as they were fearful; In their short recorded history, this had never happened, as it was chronicled that the rest of their species were consumed in fire.

But when the interloper spoke, it utterly stunned them, sending many of the people on their backs in recoil of the indecipherable sounds. A feat long lost to their people that their earliest ancestors practiced. The mere display caused the circle surrounding the man to collapse into subservience. What tribal hierarchy they had assumed dissolved in the wake of this lone man. Where he walked, they revered his footprints in the snow. When he spoke, they bowed their heads. The people had uplifted him as a demi-god from another world that had come to visit them, and by their new leader's hand the civilization in the mountains reshaped. Even when the hand of their demi-god began to inevitably give way and reveal a rigid, reflective and metallic underside. To the people, this is how they believed the humans of before to be. And so the way of life for these people once again changed, now entwined with the machines that had exterminated their entire population. The terminator became their god, and none of them questioned their holy authority over them.

Unbeknownst to the society, SkyNET-- the artificial intelligence that had launched the attack on humanity in the first place and started the Future War, had won in its conquest. Humankind had been crushed underfoot, and what little had survived was controlled and herded like cattle to the machines., though none of which had surrendered themselves to submission as easily as the people of the mountain had. In truth, the fate of man and machine was always destined to be together. Once the first computers were made and the first cellphone towers were erected, the world of humans was stitched together in cable, electricity and software. Once the world was connected, one could not live without the other. Both man and machine had fought eachother tooth and nail, but their codependence could not be denied no matter the outcome of the Future War. Whether or not one was subservient to the other, the other's existence was required to survive, until eventually a time would come where a differentiation between man and machine would be utterly null.

The future has been written. It is but the future that they made.