Hope in Hopeless Times

This was the world that Elisabeth Marsten was born into. When the plague reached her she was a girl of 12. Before contracting the disease she was considered a promising prospect. Girls of this time were trained practically from birth in little more than how to impress men. There was never any doubt as to what their future would be. While much of the world looked upon them as beacons of light in an otherwise dark world, for girls like young Elisabeth it meant living a life devoid of any choice or substance. Her biggest comfort was pressed in the pages of books written before the fall of women. While reading she could almost imagine that world where a girl was free to be so many things. Even in those days it wasn't perfect. Girls were still limited by the reality of living in a world run by men, but still, even if they couldn't say that a woman was equal to a man in that world of old they were at least close. A woman then could be seen as a person with value beyond the children they would bare. They didn't even have to bare children. For those women it was a choice. She often wondered what her life would have been like if she were born in a time like that. It didn't do much good to wonder, but it did make her feel better, especially after she got the disease. She would never forget the day they came to get her. There was no hint of gentleness. It was obvious, even to a girl so young that many had already written her off as dead. She couldn't deny their logic. Even she wondered if she could possibly survive something this awful, something so many had already died from, but when she saw the looks on those men's faces it made her angry. It wasn't the disgust at her condition that bothered her, but the disappointment in their faces. It was as if they believed that her condition was taking something from them personally. She burned their faces into her mind so that she could call upon the memory in those moments when she felt that she was ready to give up. For the first time she was determined to live this life that was set out for her, if only so that someday when she had overcome these hardships and grown into a woman that was undeniable, if she could be one of the best, then someday she could look upon their faces as she rejected their desire to mate with her and instead was given the ability to choose men that were better than them in every way. There was already a system in place to determine those men whose genes were most worthy of being passed on, but the fact that even in her state these men were trusted to not only look upon her, but also touch her meant that they were on this list, and likely somewhere very near the top, but still, she knew in that moment that she would do whatever it took to ensure that these men and men like them would never get the chance to touch her again. Maybe it was a pipe dream, but it was exactly what she needed to pull herself through. Even when some of the others had started recovering no one really expected anything from her, well almost no one. There was one man who believed in her. His name was Bill Thompson, and he was one of the doctors who attended to the infected. Unlike many of the other doctors who had agreed to take their posts with lustful thoughts in their minds and disappointment in their hearts, Bill wanted nothing more or less than to change the world. Even though it was only a vague memory  from his childhood he had met a woman before, not just any woman, but his own mother. It was an extremely rare thing, in fact it was virtually unheard of. Like him his father before him was a doctor and despite the fact that he had spent so little time with his mother she was a person he could not forget, so when the chance presented itself for him to see her again he agreed readily. It didn't matter that it meant breaking the taboo of bringing the child to his birth mother. The allowance could only be made because she was so near dead that no one thought she would recover. Even after all of the best doctors had failed in her treatment he begged for the chance and got it. Despite the grim prospects Bill's father did in fact find a treatment that worked for his mother. It could be speculated that it was his very presence that made the difference. Even to young Bill"s eyes it was clear that the same emotions that made his father cling so desperately to his mother's memory were something that his mother also felt. He was also somewhat aware that this was unusual. If he had to give a guess he'd have to say that it was love, though that itself was simply a concept that was largely confined to the pages of books written long ago. In the short time that he had been permitted to see his mother she hardly acknowledged his presence. It was almost as if she believed that denying him would make the pain of knowing that for all of the children she had, she could never truly know any of them, disappear. It was clear that she truly wanted to live a normal life, but being born a woman meant that that choice was never hers. The only time she spoke to him was the last time they saw each other, perhaps it was that moment that made him unable to forget. In the back of his mind he would always remember her words and how she spoke them. "I hope you live a life full of dreams, and that they all come true."  Her words were heartfelt. He would never forget the desperate longing that was so clear in her voice, as if she were wishing not only for his happiness but also mourning the fact that it was something that she could never have for herself. He decided that day that if he were going to have a dream then the only dream he could find worth having was a world free of this struggle, free of the desperation caused by the lack of women in the world. He wanted a world where men and women could stand as equals, where they could all live the lives they so desperately wanted to live with the people whom they wanted to live them with. This was his dream, and every action he took was simply another step on the road to making that dream a reality. This disease was a horror, but in it he saw a possibility. In getting to work with so many women he would get the chance to study them, and perhaps find a clue as to how to make that dream a reality.

Bill treated all of his patients with a great deal of care. He never failed to note any detail when examining them, but there was one patient who he enjoyed seeing the most. Young Elisabeth was a favorite of his. She was still a young girl, so much about her reminded him of the mother he met all those years ago. It wasn't her appearance that drew him to her, but her personality.  As far as looks went, the two didn't have much in common. His mother had emerald green eyes and long curly black hair. She was a tall thin woman with a gentle smile that she only seemed to show to his father. Elisabeth in contrast was a small girl, even for her age. She had straight blonde hair and bright blue eyes that seemed to get even brighter anytime that she was cross. You would think that it would be the opposite, but she was a very stubborn child who seemed to hang in no matter how bad things were. He thought  that perhaps it was this quality that gave her the strength she needed in these harsh times. He also couldn't help but find her reactions to the men around her amusing. It was very clear how much she detested the pitiful glances that she and the others got from so many of the men working there, but she seemed to take their glances and turned it into her own power. She was completely unyielding. Even though it often appeared that she was meak it would seem that this was little more than a ruse. Even sick and confined to a bed, Elisabeth had taken note of which women received the most attention from certain men and adjusted her behavior as a way to avoid their attention. It was a rather good strategy for dealing with them, and he couldn't help but be impressed by her taste in men. He had known many of these men for a long time, and had fairly strong opinions about their personalities, so it brought him a fair bit of delight to see them be unwittingly rejected by a young girl. Her attitude towards other females, however, was completely different. With them she was a bright bubbly child. She adored reading and would often spend her time with her nose in a book. Bill was personally guilty of providing several of the books that she so adored and he took some delight in knowing how much she enjoyed them. Of course she would have told him that she loved every one of the books that he gave her, and to some extent this was true, but if you knew what to look for you could always tell which ones were truly her favorites. This was because they didn't stay hers for long. There was a girl of fifteen who was two beds over from hers that was also a very keen bookworm. Her name was Millie, and at first glance the two girls seemed to be as different as night and day in both personality and appearance. She was a tall girl with deep mocha colored skin, large brown eyes, and thick, curly, black hair. Even in her sickly state her eyes sparkled with delight and her face very often wore a bright smile. She had a bright bubbly personality that drew in anyone who met her, and Elisabeth was no exception. Elisabeth wasn't exactly an outgoing girl, but when it came to Mille she found the thoughts and feelings she held inside exploding out of her eagerly. The two girls were exceedingly close, even in the face of such a horrid reality. There was no greater sign of their friendship than the books that they eagerly shared. Because of a mutual love for reading and an unquenchable thirst for knowledge the two often traded their most beloved books and eagerly waited for the chance to compare their opinions on the content of the volumes that sustained their spirits in these otherwise gloomy days. Bill counted the smiles of these two girls as one of very few blessings that were made possible through all of the suffering and loss of the pandemic at hand, and went out of his way to ensure that they could keep smiling no matter how grim their outlook seemed to be.

By the time the first women started to show improvement nearly five thousand females of varying ages had died. This loss was a tragedy beyond anything anyone could have ever foreseen.  By the end there were only eighty women left in the world, and among them all had someone who had truly longed for their continued existence in this world. None of these men bore an equal desire, however, to Bill and the overwhelming joy he felt seeing these two girls improve against all odds. His fondness for them grew to a point at which he failed to even care if he ever had the chance to gaze upon their figures again so long as they recovered and continued to bless the world with the smiles he so treasured. After the remaining women had recovered it would be years before he would get the chance to see either of them again. These two girls, however, would find a way against all odds to continue their friendship, no matter how distant it would become. Their fates were tied irreversibly together in a way that none of them could have predicted. 

It would be five years after this that Bill would find himself called in as a prospective mate for a surviving Female. He was given very little information about the female he was to mate with, but the little information he was given was enough to spark his curiosity. He arrived that day carrying little more than the hope that the girls he had once cared for had found some joy in this life they were resigned to. He didn't care at all if they chose him, in fact some part of him wished that they wouldn't. According to the information he was given there were three females that he and a few other candidates would be seeing. There was a twenty three year old female who had already successfully produced five children. There was a nineteen year old with two children, one of whom was also a female.  This woman was clearly known to all, as each female birth was an event celebrated around the world. Most candidates would likely cater their approach to what they knew of this woman. Lastly, there was a seventeen year old who had one child. He had no clue that the girl of seventeen had requested him personally. Elisabeth had in fact remembered the names and faces of many of the men she had met in those awful days, but none stuck out more than Bill Thompson, the doctor who saw her not as an object to be used, a statistic, or even an incubator for future generations, but as a unique person. This was something that  she valued greatly and she had spent years longing for the day in which she would finally be able to call for him by name. That day had finally arrived and they both walked into it eager and completely unexpecting of the events that were yet to unfold.