The Golden Age of Man has gone. Quantum mechanics and the Scientific Theory were deemed unwieldy instruments for humankind. Science and scientific study disappeared altogether, followed closely by reason, rationale and rhetoric. Overpopulation and global warming attacked the populace like a dangerous pathogen… the change was so sudden that the entire power grid, along with the telecommunications network, were too slow to react to the terrorist threat. To top it all off, no technology meant statistical analysis and projections for rising death tolls across the globe couldn’t be counted on.

After the unidentified virus traversed landmasses all over Earth like a wildfire, the pandemic claimed its last victims. North, Central, and South America confirmed, then confirmed again before releasing their findings to the public. The only survivors were those lucky enough to be naturally immune to a pandemic that whittled down the population to an average of less than twenty percent.

Anyone with half a brain realized the world had been returned to the Stone Age. Mechanized farming and international trade were as dust in the wind, so small communities of survivors scoured what few public libraries remained and procured a set of maps. A muted debate went on and one before the survivors determined an ideal location for the self-sustaining village, Altressor. Before they left civilized society far behind, the party spit into pairs to scour the public library for literary texts and religious doctrines.

Protecting those tenuous links to the past hadn’t been much of an option for the first settlers, but their decision to preserve hallowed words of revered writers, historians, and sacred texts assured that their previously godless society revived old superstitions and dusted the cobwebs off hammy-down beliefs in the unknowable while instilling an unshakeable conviction in the benevolent, unseen hands of divinity at work.

A few stolen semis were ‘borrowed’ to transport a treasure trove of outdoor survival gear, nonperishable food stores, and tools aplenty. With law enforcement on a permanent hiatus, I couldn’t help but think the old timers still embellished their stories about surviving the End of Times. And lo and behold, day after day, some six dozen hopefuls were bound more and more tightly together by the unbreakable bonds of shared experience and family.

Hope sprung forth as clear and pure as the bubbling brooks and crisscrossing streams that all eventually tied together into a sizable river. The Mess Hall went up quick and dirty; the poorly fitted timber still managed to leak no matter how many times they patched it. Another couple months and cheery melodies rose from smoky chimneys and families counted their blessings. The First Matriarch instituted a policy that would keep Altressor prosperous, forever— or at least for six more generations.

Of all things, it was the resurgence of micro-communities, superstition, and belief in powers beyond mortal ken that made the impossible, possible. Forgotten Ones woke from their age-old slumbers and began making cameos to Normies like staring down a giant was the new normal. It may have been folly that drove the human race to the brink of extinction, but if that were true, it was the most simplest of discoveries that saved them: the human race wiped off the grime from the instincts forever ingrained in the part of the brain that facilitated social interaction and community building.

Had the ancient beings hibernated a century or two more, lost homework assignments and computers and gaming consoles would have been the least of the worries Altressor would face in the future. Apparently the Forgotten Ones were more talented than most at holding grudges, and it’d be a walk in the park for a higher order being to even the scales and balance long-overdue debts at the expense of humanity’s continued survival. Scant few would forgive utter betrayal for simple conveniences and the love of the soulless machinations of technology.