Rise of Eve: First Scene

Chapter One: My Capture, My Kingdom
September 2, 2224 – Morning
The Last Forest  – Minor 17 – Andromeda Minor

The world is now ninety-nine percent female.
Virus X took the rest.

They say it was men who carried it first, how it spread like a second skin, seeded in blood, bone, and breath. Now, after generations of death, indigenous blood and estrogen reign above all other defenders to our existence. Cities have fallen. Nations have dissolved. And in the vacuum left behind, women rose, no longer just to survive, but to rule, with precision, and with purpose. The memories of living with men died with the old world, lost now to our daughters, except for the underclass, condemned to serve as their keepers, and the elite minority who still maintain their property for pleasure within the walls of Andromeda Minor.

Still, something remains.

A man is running through the forest.

And we are hunting him.

The canopy looms thick and dark overhead, swaying like a curtain over sacred ground. Below it, three black-clad soldiers tear through the ferns on horseback stealthily, sleekly, and relentlessly after him. Their leather replica armor absorbs the forest light like ash. Their helmets are seamless, their faces hidden behind mirrored visors. They speak in deep, synthetic voices, shaped by AI to mimic the masculine growl of Pre-World War Five militaries.

“Target approaching quadrant ridge,” one says.

“He’s on foot,” another replies. “Cut him off east.”

They’re armored, genderless in silhouette, and I am the last one. Our movements seem mechanical. Efficient. Inhuman.

The man crashes through a stream, his bare legs spattered with mud. He’s fast. Desperate. But no match for what follows him.

He bursts into a clearing, too late.

One of my soldiers dismounts in motion, tackles him mid-step, and slams him face-first into the dirt. His skull hits bark. Blood blossoms. He cries out, but the sound is swallowed by moss.

Another soldier is already on him. A boot pressed between his shoulders. Another AI voice sounds:

“Name.”

The man groans, breathless.

“Location,” comes the next command, colder.

They flip him onto his back. A knee on his chest. A gloved fist to his jaw. Once. Twice.

“Talk.”

His eyes, wild and bloodshot, flick between helmets.

He lashes back. “Go to hell.”

From the edge of the clearing, I arrive.

Last.

Always.

The horse beneath me breathes like thunder, steady, massive, black as my uniform. I dismount in silence. The other soldiers shift, making room. No one speaks.

The man lies half-conscious in the dirt, blood dripping from his chin into the leaves.

I walk toward him. My steps are slow. Precise.

The forest watches.

I crouch down to his level. He stares up at me, blinking mud and blood from his eyes. His chest rises and falls like it’s counting down something sacred or doomed.

I speak, still behind the helmet. My voice, like theirs, is deepened and shaped by old-world algorithms. Cold. Male.

“Confess. Where is your leader?”

He glares.

Nothing. He spits on my mask.

I headbutt him in return.

I press a gloved hand to his throat, not to crush it, but to feel the pulse. Strong. Defiant.

Still, he does not speak.

I lean in, helmet nearly touching his cheek.

“You know who I am?” I say.

He flinches.

But not in fear.

It’s recognition.

And that’s when I know.

I want him unmasked. But not yet.

I rise. My soldiers watch.

“Strip the lower armor,” I say.

They hesitate. Then obey.

The man’s boots are removed. His belt, his shoulder brace. His breath hitches, like he’s waiting for death that never comes.

“What do they call you?”

His breath catches. He swallows hard.

“Adamson.”

I look at him carefully.

“And your leader?”

“Son of Adam.”

I tilt my head. “A riddler. Is it not nearly the same in reverse?”

“We are all one,” he says, and though his mouth bleeds, the words are clear.

I pause. Then rise again, as my soldiers take my place with their guns to his head, one catches my gaze.

“He’s playing games again, Highness. We can end them now.”

“No. I’m going to enjoy this a little longer,” I say.

I should be furious. But instead, I feel a rush. It’s enough to mount him. My soldiers stare in confusion, or maybe disgust.  I don’t care. This man… he will be mine, even if he doesn’t know it yet.

I tighten the chokehold around his throat. He glares up at me, his rage electric.

His body resists beneath mine, taut and trembling. I feel the burn of his defiance in my palms, in my breath, in my thighs. It feeds something in me, a craving I can’t speak. 

By the time he catches his breath, and I release my hands from his throat, I already know how this will end.

But then… something shifts when I pull back raising my hands just enough for the air to return to his lungs, not in him but in me. He gasps beneath me. And still, he doesn’t look away.

My voice, through the filter of my mask, is still warped. Cold. Masculine. The sound of a soldier, not a sovereign.

If I want the truth from him, he must see me, not my armor, not my authority. Me.

I reach for the seal beneath my jaw and release it. The mask lets out a soft hiss, as it comes away.

The others shift behind me. The lie of our appearance has been broken.

We are not men.

We never were.

My hair is thick, glossy, alive, spilling down my back like a storm cloud unraveling. It moves with the wind like it knows it’s being watched, fragrant with cedar oil and memory, coiling at the ends like smoke rising from sacred ground.

Now he sees me. My caramel skin, brown eyes, and unmasked mouth seem to attract him.

He has no choice but to look.

He stares.

Not in terror. Not in worship.

In knowing.

My moon amulet glows, catching the fracture of his emerald eyes, pulling him into me as I fall into him. Its light lulls us both, but draws me into deep memory, into a moment intimate yet fatal. Another man, with eyes so like his, staring as his soul slipped away and with it his light.

I blink, shattering the vision, but the amulet still hums at my throat. It is no ordinary adornment. Its colors shift with my moods, bending to the climate of my will. It intoxicates, commands, lulls even the strongest into surrender. The legend is true.

I am not only a monarch but a prophet, a high priestess anointed by vision. My gifts of insight appear as magic to others. The amulet is merely a symbol, an outward token of spirit, embodied through me. I walk the Earth for them, and through his eyes, I see that he believes it, knowing I am Eve.

Without his taken gaze I would understand my aperture to be of an ordinary woman, but unspoken, carried in his eyes and mirrored in my own, they don’t disguise that he sees me as beautiful. So, I take him, for in that moment, he has no other choice but to submit to me. Whether I had his consent is debatable. Yet the connection is undeniable,

“Hold still,” I whisper in his ear, in his dialect of Realms, soft in my true voice, round upon my lips. I straddle him, lowering myself until our bodies align. Not with force, but inevitability. The hush between us feels holy.

When I take him inside me, the world narrows to this joining. My hips press into his. I sway gently, letting my body learn him, memorizing the language of his form. His skin is darker than mine, alive with copper and sun, etched with a history the earth itself might keep. Not polished. Not perfect. But elemental, like a man carved from soil and flame, the kind old gods once protected.

His eyes never leave mine. There is no fear there now. Only fire. Only reverence.

He doesn’t move. His eyes widen, caught between awe and confusion.

Behind me, Guyelle’s voice breaks. “Mistress—contamination risks—” A sharp whisper, a cry of innocence. I do not turn. I do not explain.

She turns to Luahara in my silence. “Do you think she’s hurting him?”

“Doubt it.” Amusement flickers in Luahara’s tone. She knows better. She sees what Guyelle cannot—the difference between pain and pleasure, between coercion and a body already given.

Let them watch because they know nothing of this, so let the forest see too.

I strip away the last of his garments, lowering myself fully, deliberate, unhurried. He stiffens at first, unsure beneath my control. Then something in him yields, not from fear, but from the same deep place I’ve yielded to him. This is older than war. Older than Virus X. Older than us both.

Our rhythm finds us, wordless, primal. The earth remembers what the world tried to bury.

I ride him not as a soldier claiming victory, but as a woman reclaiming herself. Each movement a prayer. A prophecy made flesh.

When it ends, I rise. No ceremony. No apology. I fasten my chaps and walk back to my horse.

He remains still, silent. Slowly, he covers himself, his hands trembling with reverence, rage, and ruin wrapped all into one. And beneath it, I see the bruises, his body beaten, marked by my own ladies. Or was it me?

The thought lingers, heavy as the silence between us.

I do not look back. But I feel his gaze on me, raw, unbroken.
And I know something has changed.