It had been six years since the first case of Naegleria Fowleri was reported in a hospital in Bishop Parish, Louisiana.  The second case was reported in Arkansas one month later.  By the end of that year, the sickness had completely consumed the entirety of the United States, Mexico, and South America, with half of Canada getting swept up, as well.  

It had been five years since the sickness had mutated and the first corpse had risen.  And in the five years since...life on earth had been changed forever.

Five years wasn't an incredibly long stretch of time, but it was long enough for nearly an entire hemisphere to be thrown into utter chaos and then complete collapse.  Five years was long enough for millions of people to be lost and anything resembling normalcy to be blown on the wind.  

There was no hope of normal, of safe or secure, when the world had fallen apart and the dead walked the earth.

It had been four years since the survivors had begun to retreat behind the fences and barriers of the military camps and compounds that were scattered around the cities of North and South America.  It had been four years since most of the hemisphere had gone dark for good, three years since rationing had been implemented and hunger had become a way of life.  It had been three years since most people had been able to have more than one meal a day, even in the middle of summer when the gardens were heavy with things to eat.

It had been two years since the scientists in Europe had isolated the human gene that was immune to the Naegleria Fowleri Amoeba, two years since they had discovered that the ones carrying the gene could not be infected by the sickness, two years since every man, woman, and child in every camp and compound had started to undergo mandatory testing.

It had been one full year since the breeding programs had been set up, one year since the surviving humans had decided to try and re-populate the Western Hemisphere with new life that would not succumb to the sickness lurking outside the walls and barricades of the military strong holds.  

It had been one year since any person carrying the gene, who was nearing or in the prime of sexual maturity, had been brought into the designated sanctuaries, paired up, and expected to mate until a child was conceived.  There were precious few carries in each compound, all told only a few thousand in North and South America combined, but nearing the end of the first year of the breeding program, six hundred documented children had been borne, all those children carrying the gene that was going to save humanity.

It had been one month since she had been tested for the gene.  One month since she had left her family and had been taken to The Sanctuary where the other carriers were kept.  She had been attended to by a physician, fed so well it seemed almost shameful, and watched closely for signs that she was nearing her most fertile days.

It had been one week since she'd been permanently marked as a breeder.

It had been a few hours since she'd been told she would meet the man she was expected to mate with, a few hours since she'd been taken to the house where she would live out her life, which would probably be spent birthing children, who would grow up to birth children, who would grow up to birth children....

Sitting on the front steps of the house she would be calling home for the foreseeable future, Rainee McCord regarded the neighborhood surrounding her.  A measure of work had been done to make it livable, to make it seem like a family could be raised there in relative comfort and safety.  The houses had been given at least rudimentary repairs, the yards had been somewhat trimmed up, the trash and abandoned vehicles had been hauled away so that the wide streets were left neat and clean.  If she hadn't known what had happened to the world, the place would have seemed fairly normal...just a regular neighborhood in a regular town.  Of course, this particular community was surrounded by barricades and armed military personnel who would shoot anyone who didn't belong on sight, no questions asked.

Listening to the quiet, to the birds chirping and the wind whispering through the treetops, she could almost pretend that everything was okay.  Well, so long as she didn't pay much attention to the scent of decay that nearly always carried on the breeze or the fact that she could hear the loud rumble of the military jeeps as they patrolled the streets of the sanctuary and the city beyond.  

If she tried very hard, she could almost pretend that she wasn't going to have to share her body with a total stranger that night.  And every night for as long as she was able to conceive children.

Just thinking about it caused her stomach to tie itself into a tight knot.  She had no idea what to expect.  She'd only been told that her new partner would arrive in the evening and that she would be with him, and only him, from now on...as was her moral duty.  Having only one partner for a lifetime cut down on the chances of contracting a sexually transmitted disease, for which treatment was scarce.  Medicine was a precious commodity and preventing illness and disease from spreading was a high priority, especially those diseases that could effect fertility.

So, she was a paired up with a man who she would spend the rest of her life with, who would not only be the father of her hopefully many children, but who would also be responsible for seeing that his family was fed and cared for.  And that person could be anywhere from the age of thirteen upwards...

And the age issue was what worried her the most.  Well, other than having sex with a complete stranger, getting pregnant, and giving birth....  There was just something about the notion of being paired up with someone younger than her that left her feeling sick.  How could she share herself with a young boy?  How could she rely on a young boy to take care of herself and her children?  In a situation that was less than optimal to begin with, she at least wanted the...dignity...of having a mate that was older than herself.

With her stomach jumping around inside her, she didn't feel like sitting still any longer, so she got to her feet and walked back into the house, which was dim and a few degrees cooler than the late summer afternoon, thanks to all the open doors and windows and the nice cross-ventilation breeze that was wafting through.  

The house she had been given was comfortable, incredibly comfortable compared to how some people out in the world were living.  The place looked pretty decent despite the odds that it had been uninhabited for years.  The wood floors were grimy, but seemed to be in good shape, some make-shift wooden shutters had been built to cover the windows that had no glass, the kitchen had been set up with a propane camp stove and the pantry filled with rations and some household supplies...but the rest of the house had been left as it was, which in essence was something of an upended mess.

It looked as though looters and scavengers had taken a go at the place, but a lot of the previous inhabitants' belongings were still there and with any luck, some of the things would still be of worth and useful.  Well, if she could ever manage to get those things cleaned up.  The weather had gotten into parts of the house and a layer of dirt and muck had settled over things, but hopefully with a bit of elbow grease and effort, a good home could be made.

No one could even hazard a guess as to who had owned the house before the world had fallen apart, but she could imagine who those people were.  The house was a fair size and the neighborhood was, or at least had been, on the nicer side of things, so she could see someone prosperous living behind the clapboard walls.  Perhaps a lawyer or a corporate drone had owned the house, perhaps he or she had raised a family there, had cooked Sunday dinners and decorated Christmas trees there.  Perhaps they had lit fires in the big fireplace in the living room and had sat around on snowy winter nights drinking hot cocoa and talking about all the silly, unimportant things that families talked about back then...back when there were still silly and unimportant things to talk about.

Walking through the square, fairly empty rooms and listening to her footsteps echo through the oppressive silence, she knew that she was most likely over-romanticizing the lives of the people who'd owned the house.  Six years wasn't that long and times weren't that simple even before the sickness had started.  In all likelihood, the person who'd lived in the house was a divorced single parent who drank too much and smacked her children around because they reminded her of her ex-husband.  Still, with the way things had been for the past six years, it was nice to remember the past in a softer light.  Remembering the hardships made it seem as if life had always been horrific and that gave her a feeling of despair that she didn't like carrying around inside her.  Remembering something good about the past at least gave her hope that things might one day get back to that place.

And that's what she needed the most.  Hope.  Otherwise, there would be no reason to go on, no reason to willingly offer herself up to a stranger in an effort to bear offspring that would one day take back half of the earth.

Making her way back toward the kitchen, Rainee paused in the doorway, taking in the black and white tiled floor, the fancy stone countertops, the modern looking appliances that were mostly useless now, and the small camp stove with its supply of propane bottles sitting on the center island.  She tried to picture herself in the room, preparing rations for her family, washing up dishes in the deep sink, helping her children learn to read and write at the kitchen table...

It was a bit of a daunting and scary scenario, one that she could hardly wrap her mind around, especially given that she had no partner to add into the picture just then.

But, she would do her duty, no matter how formidable the task seemed.  She would bear children with a man she didn't even know because without her, and the others like her, doing what was being asked of them, humanity would eventually fall and never be able to pick itself back up.

However, there was a tiny piece of her that wished she had tested negative.  Doing her moral duty aside, she'd much rather be with her family out in the compound rather than behind the barricade of The Sanctuary, even if life was probably going to be a lot more comfortable here than it was out there in the city.  She'd gladly trade having more food and water if it meant she could go back home.  She missed her family and her friends, she missed working in the gardens and doing laundry with her neighbors.  She missed sitting by the fires at night and listening to everyone tell stories about how things used to be.  

She was used to having people all around her, she was used to the hustle and bustle of daily living, all the goings on and all the work that everyone put into surviving.  But, here, inside The Sanctuary, there was just...nothing.  Absolutely...nothing, making her feel as if she was the last surviving human...  A thought that sent something of a shiver running along her spine.

The neighborhood seemed quite big enough to accommodate what would hopefully be a large number of people over the coming years, but for now the number of residents hovered at twenty and though she'd been told she had neighbors, she hadn't seen a sign of them in all the hours she'd been at the house.  Though, of course most of them were probably out working someplace.  

The Sanctuary, like every other area that people inhabited, undoubtedly had a lot of things that needed to be accomplished.  Cleaning up the houses they'd been given, figuring out how to winterize those houses as best they could before the end of summer, working in the gardens, which were being planted with late season crops just then... 

She hadn't been allowed to go out and work since coming into The Sanctuary.  The doctor had ordered her to stay in the infirmary and do nothing but rest and eat so that she could get up to a healthy, child bearing weight.  Which made sense because most people were sorely thin and undernourished, herself included.

"Hello?  Is anybody home?"  The sudden sound of a masculine voice echoing through the house caused her stomach to leap up into her throat and her heart to plummet down in the opposite direction.

Oh god.  Oh god.  Please, please don't let it be a little boy!

She sent that silent prayer heavenward, despite the fact that she didn't believe in God.  She didn't know what she would do if she'd been paired up with a little boy.  How could she count on someone who was younger than her?  How could she possibly even lay down with a young boy?  She would feel so...unclean...sharing herself with a child.  It would feel like she was committing some heinous sin against nature.

"Hello!  Are you here!  I'm...its your new...partner!" the deep voice called out again and Rainee turned around to face the hallway leading toward the front of the house.

The voice calling to her certainly didn't sound as if it belonged to a pre-pubescent little boy.  It was deep, very deep, and rather a bit gravelly.  Still, she found dread sweeping over her as she started back through the house on legs that felt as stiff as wooden planks.  The sound of a person's voice didn't mean a thing.  People grew up hard and aged fast these days.  That rocky voice could very well belong to a thirteen year old child who hadn't even grown hair in all the necessary places!

Please, please don't let it be a little boy!  Please, don't let it be a little boy!

Rainee chanted the useless prayer, trying to steel herself for whomever she found waiting for her.  If it was a little boy she'd been paired with, she couldn't turn and run.  She had to stay, stand her ground, and do her duty.  She would stay and she would adjust to the father of her children being...nearly the same age as her children...

She would...because she had no choice...

Wending her way toward the voice, and trying to remember how to breathe, Rainne stepped out of the hallway and into the foyer, her insides doing a sickening somersault as she forced her gaze to land on the form of the person...who was taking up the entire front doorway.  An instant after she took in that tall, looming figure, her insides did another painful, rolling flip, but for an entirely different reason.

She paused for a moment, not sure she wanted to believe her own eyes.  The person in the doorway, silhouetted by the bright daylight behind him, was most certainly not a little boy.  However, in that instant, a small part of her might have been a bit more comfortable with that thirteen year old kid who had yet to grow his body hair.  At least she might have known how to deal with that person.  

The person she actually found herself facing...well, she had no idea what she was supposed to do with him!

"Y-you...you're my...partner?" she croaked out rather unceremoniously as her eyes slid up and down his tall frame.  

"I am," the man answered, nodding his head at her.  "I...I'm Elias.  Elias Stone."

Elias Stone.  The name of her partner...her mate...was Elias Stone?

"I-I'm Rainee McCord," she rasped unevenly, feeling heat creeping up into her cheeks.  "Its nice to meet you."

Elias Stone looked her up and down, his brows lifting high and his broad shoulders falling ever so slightly.  "You're not what I was expecting," he told her as he let out a breath that sounded a bit too much like a sigh of resignation, which caused the flush on her face to deepen.

Of course she wasn't what this man was expecting.  She looked like a skinny, flat chested, frizzy haired twelve year old boy---there was a bit of irony in there somewhere---who also happened to be fairly covered in an obscene amount of blemishes that most people referred to as freckles.  And he...Elias Stone, undoubtedly had been hoping to be paired up with someone not so...out of his league.

Elias Stone cleared his throat, an awkward sound that made Rainee want to cringe.  "I'm sorry.  That didn't come out right," he said, stepping into the house and dropping the two enormous army green duffle bags in his hands.  "What I meant was...I'm glad you're not the thirteen year old I was afraid I'd get paired up with.  I don't think I could have..." he let his words trail away as a grimace rolled over his features.

Funny, she'd been worried about the exact same thing.  "Well, I'm a little past thirteen, so you're safe," she told him, feeling herself begin to fidget under his sharp, frank gaze.  

It was clear that Elias Stone had left his teen years behind a while back, so she was safe, too.  Thank the stars!

"How much past thirteen are we talking?" Elias Stone wondered as he walked...no, sauntered...across the foyer and came to stand in front of her, his expression somewhat uncertain.

He towered over her so that she actually had to crane her neck to look up at him.  "A few years past.  I'm nineteen," she responded, wishing he wasn't studying her quite to closely.  He seemed to be paying a bit too much attention to the areas of her face that were smattered with those hateful marks.

Hearing her words cause Elias to visibly relax and brought a slightly crooked smile to his face.  "Well, then its very nice to meet you, Rainee McCord," he greeted, extending his extremely large hand toward her.

Rainee swallowed hard, wanting to wipe her palm on her jean shorts, but she refused.  She didn't want to seem even more nervous and awkward than she probably already did.  Reaching out, she accepted his gesture, a little jolt running up her arm as his large, work hardened hand closed around hers.  She was a bit shocked by the size of that hand.  It dwarfed hers so that it seemed her own hand was a small and breakable thing by comparison.

"So, I guess we belong to each other now," he said, his gravelly voice laced with a measure of sympathy.

"I guess," she agreed, not knowing what else to say.

A sudden silence dropped over them and Rainee found herself having to fight not to take several steps backward just to put some distance between them.  Elias was looking down at her in a way that was not exactly lessening her discomfiture.  And she simply could not read the expression he was regarding her with, which only made her feel more nervous and uneasy.

After a few uncomfortable moments, Elias abruptly cleared his throat and squared his frame a bit.  "I just want you to know that I take my responsibility seriously.  I'll do my best to make sure you and our family are taken care of.  You have my word that I'll watch out for you and make sure you're kept safe."

Rainee looked up at Elias Stone, unsure how to react or respond to him.  If he was being serious, and she thought he was because there wasn't a spark of untruth in his piercing gaze, then something in her belly was telling her she'd lucked up when someone had chosen this man as her partner.

Though she'd only laid eyes on him mere seconds before, he did strike her as that kind of man.  Capable.  Reliable.  That was about all she or anyone else could ask for these days, someone they could rely on when things got tough.  Even the way he looked seemed to speak of dependability and toughness.  He was wearing black jack boots, faded jeans, a grey t-shirt with a faded blue over shirt, left unbuttoned, with the sleeves rolled up past his forearms.  There was a small silver cross on a chain around his neck and a few braided leather bracelets on his wrists.  He was sporting the standard array of weapons that most people carried with them...a bowie knife sheathed at his side and a large caliber handgun holstered on his thigh.  He was tall, towering over her by a head and shoulders, and his lean and muscular physique was borne out of hard work.  His shoulders were broad, waist narrow, legs long and shapely, even through the fabric of his jeans.  He was strong and big and...again, capable seeming.  He looked like he would father healthy, strong, capable children.  Children that might all favor their handsome father....

Not only did Elias Stone looked capable and kind of...bad ass, but he was about one of the most attractive looking men she'd ever laid eyes on.  He was rugged...yet rather beautiful.  His features were masculine, his jaw strong, chin square, and nose perfectly straight.  His mouth was full and firm, his eyes large and a shade of green that reminded her of newly budding leaves unfurling in the spring.  He had a short-cropped head full of sandy blonde hair and a matching days' worth of stubble shadowing his jaw.  And right above the part between his slightly unruly, sandy brows was the mark that all the carriers were branded with.  A small black cross--a symbol of hope--which could have made him look like an extra from a cheesy sci-fi movie...only it didn't.  That mark made him seem even more rugged and capable somehow.

All in all, there was just something about Elias Stone that immediately had her feeling...drawn in.  Of course, she really had no choice.  They were together now and as far as she knew, there was no way to trade a partner in.

"I-I know how...weird...this is for you.  Its weird for me, too," Elias confessed in a serious way.  "But, I want to make everything as comfortable as I can for you, so I'll take a separate room for now and you can let me know when...you're ready to carry out our responsibility."

Rainee stared up into those piercing, icy green eyes, feeling slightly blank.  She wanted to believe that he was being genuine with her, that he was concerned with how she felt about the situation.  She wanted to believe that she'd been paired up with someone who was thoughtful and sympathetic, because honestly, she needed that just then.  But, most people had lost any semblance of softness and were only out for their own needs and wants, no matter who got in the way.  So, trusting anyone was....most unwise.

"Its alright, Rainee.  You can trust me," Elias assured as if reading her mind, his sandy brows drawing together.  "We're all we have now.  We're family.  Its my job to take care of you and I mean to do that.  I won't ever do anything to hurt you."

Those words were said very earnestly and in a very head-of-household tone that she thought should have made her bristle, but it didn't.  She could take care of herself.  She was strong, she was fairly well trained, she was competent and able bodied...but, this was a situation she had never dreamed of finding herself in, so if her new partner wanted to take the lead then she would gladly step back and leave him to it.  At least, until she could figure out how to deal with the situation in her own way.  And she would.  She just needed a minute to come to grips with having to share herself with a strange man when she had never so much as held hands with a member of the opposite sex.

Elias offered up something of a frown as he regarded her.  "I know what they're expecting me to do here, but I'm not going to force you into something you aren't ready for," he stated seriously.  "You don't have to be worried about that."

It was only then that Rainee realized he was still holding her hand...and that he had begun to absently move his thumb in circles along the back of her wrist, which caused gooseflesh to skitter along her arm.

"You wouldn't be forcing me," she replied rather hoarsely. 

She hadn't even considered telling her partner no.  This was her duty, so she meant to go through with it, no matter her own...stark panic...at the mere thought of giving herself to a man, any man, whether he be a thirteen year old boy with bony arms and no body hair....or a ruggedly handsome man with a coarse voice and a stubbled jaw which led her to believe he had absolutely no issues with having enough body in hair in all the necessary places.

"Well, I feel like I'm forcing you, so I'll wait until you think you're ready," Elias affirmed, looking down at her in a way that made her head swim.  "I don't care about fertile days or any of that.  I really can't...I won't be that kind of man."

Rainee felt something inside her flutter, but she ignored it.  "Thank you.  Really.  But, I'm okay with...this.  Its our duty and we have to go through with it," she said firmly, trying to inject as much of a business-like tone into her voice as she could.

However, duty aside, she wanted to get it over with.  The longer she waited, the higher the chance she might actually chicken out and make a run for it.  And running away would not help the efforts to save humanity.

Elias Stone studied her for a long minute, his sparkling green eyes fairly lancing her soul.  "Why don't we just take things slow and see how we're feeling tonight?"

Rainee nodded in answer to that tentative question, although she knew she would feel the same a few hours from now.  She had a responsibility to undertake and she would go forward with that responsibility if at all possible.

"Alright, so I'll take my bags upstairs and we can started with the cleanup," Elias stated, but he made no move to walk away.

Finding herself pinned beneath those large green eyes, Rainee felt her cheeks begin to throb painfully.  He was assessing her, evaluating how unattractive she was compared to himself.  But, there was nothing she could do about it.  This was the face and form she'd been borne with, so if Elias Stone was unhappy with her flat chest and her frizzy hair then he would just have to figure out how to accept those things or he could figure out a way to ask for a new partner.  Either way, she refused to bothered by what he thought about her appearance.  This wasn't the sort of situation where anyone had the right to be all nit-picky.

"I'll be back down in a minute and then you can put me to work," he said, finally letting go of her hand and taking a step backward.

Nodding, Rainee watched as he turned and sauntered back over to where he'd dropped his bags, hoisting them up and heading for the staircase.  Once Elias Stone had disappeared from her sight, she let out a breath and felt her clenched muscles relax all at once.  She understood, probably more than most, the gravity of the situation and the weight that was being put upon her shoulders.  But, she was still a woman and having someone that good looking studying her as if she was a bug on a pin was not the most comfortable thing in the world, nor was the thought of that handsome man not only having to see her naked, but actually having to...

If the future of human kind hadn't been resting on her shoulders, she would have fled the house and never looked back.  As it was, though, she turned and started for the kitchen to grab what cleaning supplies there were.  She had a responsibility that went far beyond petty thoughts and insecurities, so she would not be fleeing her new home.  She would...not.  She would stay and make the best out of an uncomfortable situation.  And since Elias Stone was a grown man who had presented himself as a thoughtful, caring person, he would do the same.  And if he couldn't...well, again, he could figure out how to request someone more to his own liking.  And she wished him good luck.

Mr. Elias Stone would need it, considering that the other ten females in the sanctuary had already been paired up and there was no telling when, or if, another would ever be found and brought in.  He might wind up having to wait for his next mate to be borne and raised before she was handed over to him, so he should probably just suck it up and keep the frizzy haired, freckled, stick-straight girl he'd been given!