Who wouldn't want to live forever at first glance? The human race is rash. We never gave the thought a second look. Our technology was advanced enough to save us all. Right now, nanotechnology is being created to possibly cure cancers as well as man...
I followed the little one, Saul as he calls himself, out into the blinding plains that stretched all the way to the base of the mountains. They still stood dozens of miles off, but he seemed determined to reach them. I trotted up next to Saul, then slowed to match his pace. Goddamned, how I wish I could speak to him. Something was up with my voice, it was as if I had lost it with disuse... I thought that only pertained to the living, not machine. What a mockery of my existence.
After an hour in the ever merciless sun, it had become obvious to me at least, that Saul was utterly effete. He started to sway with every step, and finally he collapsed altogether. Letting out a short squeal, I caught him with a short front tusk. We had only a little while before insects would patrol, and how I knew their malicious wrath. I shuffled about lightly, attempting to lift all that I could of his limp body.
I could make out the quiet murmurs of a 'thank you' from the end of my snout as I succeeded. In a final burst of strength, Saul was able to crawl up onto my snout, over my forehead and onto my neck. He then buried himself in the long bristles of my mane and went still. Oh little one, do not die on me, we have only just met. And so I must go on with my mission, trotting to the mountains in silent desperation. Quickly as I could go.
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The sun was directly above my disintegrating hide when I felt Saul stir. He groaned and shifted his weight. I grunted softly, warning him of the dangerous drop he would encounter if he fell. He remained quiet as I continued to walk forward. I was more than three quarters of the way to the mountain, high noon had passed in a mere blink.
Ah the mountains. A couple hundred years ago, in my fuzzy memory, I was a piglet. My father was king of the mountains. While we were growing up, my siblings and I were exposed to the mechanical, metal disease, and so was my father. Together we were a troupe of death, until one day, since a large amount of our prey in the mountains had died off already, my father turned on us, attacking my siblings and devouring their inferior, young bodies, they weren't even as half mechanized as he was, making him the most powerful being ever encountered by my kin.
On that day I fled my home of the mountains and wound up in the forest. I haven't returned since. Everything on that barren rock range is probably dead by now. There's probably a few goats or deer or something... I can't recall. As I was drawing very near, basically, at the foot of the mountains, I felt tiny claws of fear snatching at me. There is nothing to fear... There is nothing to fear. I was still afraid.
Am I even alive anymore? My body is machine, and my mind is overrun with corrupt code. I run on combustibles and flesh, burnable calories. I feel as if I do not belong among the classification of animals anymore. I am something more, something more monstrous and disastrous than anything nature could create. Something only the plague of humanity could invent. It was their world, and they let us live in it. But, now most of them are dead, killed by the greed of their own species. I was made a prince upon this madness. I should not fear. I will not fear.
The mountain loomed above me, its pale dusky color with the last red rays of sunlight streaking its stone. The swarm would be here soon. I gathered speed gradually, trotting determinedly up the side of the mountain in search of a well sheltered cave. Bristly tumbleweed and chaparral crunched under my weight and then rolled down the side of the mountain into the cacti below. "Wait." Saul whispered, his weak voice was barely audible over the insistent rasp of his gas mask. I paused, listening for more. "There's a cave, blocked to my vision earlier by a boulder, go there..." I clambered my way up the craggy slope, digging my hooves into the dirt and ragged stone, still damp from last night's storm.
I reached the cave and found it empty. The floor and walls were oddly flat, as if made by machine or man, but I detected no scent of humans in the porous stone. I rolled the boulder until it sealed the cave, leaving us in almost complete darkness, save a small sliver of sunlight and the blueish glow of my eye. Saul cautiously slid down my face and rummaged through his pack. There was some grumbling, then the faint electric hum of machinery. A bright flickering light filled the cavernous cave, Saul placed the lamp on the ground and began to gulp down copious amounts of water from a metal canteen. "Need some?" He said, offering his canteen. How cute, yet somehow pathetic and incredibly kind at the same time. I snorted softly, "Z-ero." I replied. I folded myself on the cool stone floor and let my eyes go out of focus, my last memory before falling as being Saul sitting with his shoulders slouched, looking into the floor contemplatively.
