The Forgotten Valley

Winter’s brightness, briskness, iciness – it frequently came to be too much for the struggling village. Once the snow started falling every year, passage to the trading cities was impossible. Whoever didn’t farm enough, hunt enough, or save enough was in trouble. Winters were hard and long in the Forgotten Valleys, and the few of the mountain passes that still existed were easily blocked by the thick snow and quickly abandoned until spring came around to thaw out the land and bring new hope to everyone and everything. Winter this year was, unfortunately, worse than most expected it to be. They’d hoped that, with the presence of new life among them for the first time in decades, that the gods would reward them with a milder cold season. They were sorely mistaken. It seemed like all the gods wanted to do was punish them for not repopulating sooner. The newborn babies were hardly crawling, barely old enough to talk – let alone warm themselves – and the new mothers worried, stockpiling what they could with the help of the elder women of their community. But, in the end, it proved to not be enough. By winter’s end, almost all the newborns had perished either because of the freezing temperatures or because their mother was unable to nourish them, the life-giving milk drying up and other supplies running out. The livestock, wishing to survive the harshness as well, preserved their energy and diverted it to staying warm rather than producing milk. The few who did survive were malnourished, weak, and forever tainted by that frightful, seemingly never-ending season. Hostility towards the mothers and families who had successfully kept their offspring alive arose quickly, and alarmingly. Many of the grieving parents claimed that they had made deals with the devil to keep their young alive, and the payment was the child’s health. With this unfortunate outcome, the village split in two. Those who backed the mothers who still had their children were far fewer than those who stood against. Emotions and tensions ran high, with any logic used being considered an excuse from the devil himself. Eventually, before the surviving generation reached two years of age, their families and their more outspoken supporters left to avoid any more hatred and mistreatment. Those who remained in the village never saw nor heard from them again. It was unclear whether they had merely moved into an abandoned valley to start a new village or had decided city life would be better. Either way, they were pushed from the minds and, in some cases, the hearts of the friends and family they left behind. The friends and family who disowned them. Thus, the legend of the forgotten valley was born. >>><<< Hundreds of years passed, and the little village slowly became completely cut off from the outside world. As this happened, it also became completely devoid of human life. The few bodies that went unburied during the “freeze or scrape through by the skin of your teeth” season, were almost perfectly preserved under the ice and snow that now stuck around almost the entire year. By the time the robotic overlords took over, however, these bodies also deteriorated into mere piles of barely distinguishable bones. The village, somehow recognizable as such, was cataloged, put in the extensive archives, and forgotten once again. Time continued on through World War III and World War IV, in which many sought a way to escape the seemingly never-ending bloodshed, the constant ear shattering booms of high-powered weapons, and the screams and wailings of those who were facing the end of their life or the life of a loved one. World War IV continued to drag on, refusing to get easier as the population seemingly forgot to become war hardened as they had in the past. It was thought that they were too soft because of the ability to preserve life with the mere touch of a button. Despite that, however, death continued to listen to no man or machine.