Prologue
Skye
I haven’t lived a regular life. I didn’t have a mother to teach me about the birds and the bees, preparing me for what was to come. I was ripped from my family, placed in the lap of luxury, surrounded by strangers, and taught how to be the perfect Partner to a man I wouldn’t meet for years to come.
Let me fill you in on some of the specifics. Long ago in 2020, before I was even born, the planet was ravaged by a disease. This disease wasn’t like cancer or AIDS. It was indiscriminate and attacked anyone. The old, young, sick, and the healthy. There was no way of knowing who would catch it next.
Governments all over the globe banded together, and a vaccine was created. The answer to all our prayers. People could live their lives without fear. But there was a small problem that no one had anticipated.
In 2029, eight years after my birth, scientists confirmed the vaccine had sterilized ninety percent of the female population. This was deemed an unfortunate side effect of the vaccination. As a race, we couldn’t live without the vaccination, but with it, our race would gradually dwindle and die out.
Thus, the Proving Law. Any female sixteen years or older would be tested, and her fertility—or lack thereof—would then determine the rest of her life. Women and girls of all nationalities were brought to the testing centers in the thousands to be screened. No one was safe. Wives were taken from their husbands, daughters from their families.
My mother was confirmed fertile and taken from us, never to be seen again. The loss of my mother and having to raise a daughter on his own drove my father into a dark depression from which he rarely found a moment’s reprieve. Essentially, I raised myself.
Four years before the Proving Law would take effect in my life, a world war broke out. Nations that had the numbers and weapons to attack others did so, all in the name of finding fertile females. Some nations were slowly dying out, not having a child born in over three years due to the massive numbers of infertile females.
Bombs soared through the air, men and boys were called to arms, and death reigned in all corners of the world. There was nowhere to run and nowhere to hide. No person was safe. It didn’t matter what your race, color, creed, religion, or nationality was. There was only one thing that drove everyone, and that was keeping their people alive for as long as it took to find a solution. There are no winners in a war like this, only survivors.
The fighting continues in all corners of the world, but my country is rarely attacked. We are too strong, too well equipped. The constant warring and death have become the new normal for everyone. There is no way to escape it, so we just learn to live with it. Eventually, people will forget what it was like before the war started.