Productive

From the beginning

From the beginning

Waking up to the sound of the rain hitting the roof and windows was almost enough to make me forget where I was and how I came to be here, I could imagine I was in my own bed surrounded by all my things and my parents in the next room, smelling the fresh muffins cooking in the oven in the kitchen was enough to make my stomach grumble.

I could hear the others starting to wake and move about, the cold wooden floors in this place creaked when someone walked across them even at a tiptoe, I knew I had to get up soon but I couldn’t bring myself to open my eyes and face another day in this hell hole, just five more minutes is all I wanted to keep dreaming I was home, safe in my bed, safe knowing my parents were there and safe in the knowledge that my life was completely ordinary and the most I had to worry about is making sure my homework was completed,

The bolt on the metal door is slid open and I knew I had to get up or risk being punished for being too lazy, I heard some of the other girls urging others to hurry up in hushed tones, I sit up and swing my feet over the edge of the old wooden uncomfortable cot that is my bed, I quickly stand at the end of my bed and wait for the staff to walk through the door to start another day in hell.

Watching the doorway, the large pregnant belly of mistress Ruth appears and my heart sinks, whenever Mistress Ruth comes it can only mean one thing, one or some of us had been selected.

My name is Ellie I am 18 years old, my life used to be perfect I lived in a small town with my mum and dad, in a small cottage near the ocean up high on a cliff that over looked the town, the cottage was old and had fading white paint and wisteria climbing up the walls, the cottage was originally built on one level but the attic had been converted for my parents so I could have the master bedroom on the ground floor.

As a family we didn’t have much, my dad worked two jobs so my mum could stay home and raise me, my parents loved each other dearly, they were devoted to each other and I was the light of their lives, after struggling with infertility for years my grandparents paid for them to have fertility treatment and it worked first time and that is how I came to be, little did my parents know then that their infertility was not just affecting them but the rest of the world.

I don’t know how or why it started or when it became apparent that something was wrong with the world’s fertility, but by the time I was 9 only 8000 babies born that year compared to 15 years before when it was millions, very slowly all forms of fertility treatments were failing and soon having children was impossible. Scientist tried everything and soon it became clear it didn’t matter what they did majority of the female population could not get pregnant, their ovaries would still produce eggs and they would have a monthly cycle but the eggs were duds and wouldn’t fertilise and would die as soon as they left the ovaries, the lining of their wombs became inhabitable so even when donated eggs were used and an embryo was implanted it would not attach and the woman would miscarry within 5 days, scientists around the world were at a loss, if they didn’t figure out the reason and fix it the human race would soon start to die out. the only hope the world had was in the hands of the handful of woman that the infertility hasn’t affected, many of these girls were recruited to have tests done on them to find out why they were still fertile but again the scientists came back with no answers, it was like a woman’s body just one day decided they had, had enough and wouldn’t reproduce, even woman that had children all of a sudden just stopped being able to conceive, offsprings of fertile woman were also tested to see if their daughters would be fertile, in some cases they were but mostly it didn’t pass on to them, the scientists found that the male population were not affected.

around the world there was only 300,000 women roughly 0.01% of the female population were fertile, when every girl turned 16 years old they were tested to see if they were productive, world leaders all came together and made it a law that every girl would be tested, no ifs or buts they were tested, and if they were fertile they were taken to the closest productive school where they were given the best education and health care the world could offer, it was seen as a compensation for having to leave their families and to produce a child, and once they fulfilled their duty they would be able to do what ever they wanted, all doors would be open for them, the world owed them for their sacrifice, well that was in the beginning, as the years went by things changed, like most things do, the conditions for the girls got worse they no longer had a say in who would have their child, if you didn’t have money and power you had no chance of having a child, the girls were basically sold to the elite. they still received the education and health care but were treated like prisoners locked away in the productive schools and lived in hell, on the outside it looked as if the girls were in the best place, living their best life, but you would hear stories, stories that would give girls around the world nightmares and soon come to dread turning 16.