The gods abandoned us. Life was not like we once knew. They grew envious of our reliance on technology rather than prayer. In their haste to depart and forsake this world, they left us a parting preset, one that would surely end the human race. Now at the bottom of the barrel, women were scraping to get by. A disease had come. It wiped out majority of fertility in females, placing those who could bear children back to being the low man on the totem pole. Only seen as broodmares, we were reserved solely for the right to breed. Sold to more than one man, we were to become endowed to a house. Inside, we were subject to the demands of our men’s desires to keep the population rising. Once I hit puberty, I tested to be a prime specimen for their ruthless requirements. All of this because those with power wanted to prove how much control they still had. I spent several years in the academy, learning to be a docile female for their use. For no more worth than the uterus in my body, I had come of age to be marketed off to a house. The daft idea might not fare on my behalf, but it also offered a freedom from being treated like a porcelain doll in the school I was forced to attend. Filled with dread, I was about to find out what it was that made porcelain so fragile.