Allison H

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.

RISE OF EVE: BY ALLISON HAWKINS LOGLINE OPTIONS: 1. After Virus X wiped out nearly all men, the world became 99% female. Now, Eve, sovereign of 17 Districts and 10 Realms, holds a cure, but freeing men means risking everything: her rule, her people, and the fragile world they rebuilt without them. 2. The world is now 99% female. As ruler of 17 Districts and 10 Realms, Eve discovers there's now a cure to save mankind, but freeing men means challenging power, belief, and the very world women rebuilt. 3. In a world now 99% female, Eve rules Andromeda Minor’s 17 Districts and the 10 Realms of the United Outer Realms. When a long-awaited cure for Virus X is discovered, she must risk everything including her crown, her alliances, and a fragile planet—to free the last men and convince a society built without them to let them live again as equals. STORY STATEMENT: In a world made 99% female by Virus X, power has been rebuilt—by women, for women. Mistress Eve, sovereign of Andromeda Minor’s 17 Districts and the 10 Realms of the United Outer Realms, rules from the high-tech capital of New Alexandria. Under her reign, society thrives—clean energy powers every home, poverty is gone, and contribution is the only currency. But beneath this utopia, a darker truth festers. The men who survived are chipped, enslaved, and confined to labor camps or breeding centers. In District 17, a forested frontier long abandoned by the state, a resistance forms. They call themselves Adamsons—men who reject captivity, evade capture, and are labeled terrorists by the governing Order. Among them, one appears—unmarked, defiant, and carrying the unthinkable: a cure. Eve believes men are not terrorists, but the missing half of human balance. Yet not everyone agrees. The Mother of Eve, leader of the Daughters of the Coalition, demands democracy, open financial markets, and full control of the cure’s distribution. Pharmaceutical cartels, profiting from obedience and control, threaten open conflict if global trade remains sealed. Meanwhile, floods rise, fires rage, and the Earth begins to erase what humanity rebuilt. As her monarchy teeters, Eve must navigate betrayal, climate collapse, and the ghosts of her own past. The Adamson’s arrival—and his hidden connection to Eve—forces her to confront whether preserving power is worth more than restoring freedom. Rise of Eve is a gripping speculative novel about power, sacrifice, and what it means to heal a world that no longer remembers what it lost. ___________________________________________________ THE ANTAGONIST – MOTHER OF EVE Marjorie Anson, former Mother of Eve and current Speaker of the House, leads the Daughters of the Coalition—a militant arm of the Right Order born from the Districts. Appointed by Eve the First to guide the Daughters of the Districts, Marjorie climbed the political ranks but never earned true acceptance. The Daughters of the Realms—the elite class of women with real power—never embraced her, and working under Eve the Second proved impossible as their ideologies sharply diverged. Though she once held symbolic authority, Marjorie’s deepest humiliation lives in Eden, where the man she keeps for procreation does not love her. Even at the height of her influence, she is made to feel disposable. After Tabitha’s death, Marjorie reclaims the title of Mother of Eve and launches a full campaign to dismantle the monarchy before it can erase her legacy. But Marjorie is more than a single threat—she is the voice of the Right Order, the belief system held by the majority of conservative women in the Districts, who see male freedom as a threat to peace, power, and survival itself. Her base is largely comprised of Astra Selenes — orphaned girls born deaf, infertile, and angry, raised in a world that taught them to blame men for the loss of their hearing, their families, and their futures. In their eyes, Marjorie is not just a leader—she is a redeemer. Defeating Marjorie is not the final battle. If Eve removes her, a worse extremist may rise—someone with no ties to the monarchy, no history of compromise, no stake in peace. The real task is finding someone who can lead these women away from violence and vengeance—someone they'll never suspect, but will follow. ___________________________________________________ COMPARABLES 1. The Power by Naomi Alderman Similarity: The Power explores a sudden shift in global gender dynamics, where women gain physical dominance over men. Similarly, Rise of Eve imagines a world where women seize—and sustain—political, economic, and ecological power after a virus nearly erases men from existence. Comparison: While The Power focuses on what women might do with newly acquired strength, often mirroring historical male abuses, Rise of Eve examines what women do after total control is already institutionalized. Eve’s struggle to return rights to men and manage environmental collapse sets the story apart, transforming it from an allegory about power to a meditation on restoration, reconciliation, and the cost of survival. 2. The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood Similarity: Both novels feature theocratic, dystopian societies where reproduction, control, and gender politics are central. Rise of Eve mirrors The Handmaid’s Tale in tone—introspective, literary, and centered on a woman navigating a regime built on bodily control and myth. Comparison: Where The Handmaid’s Tale follows a woman oppressed by a patriarchal order, Rise of Eve follows a woman burdened with sustaining a matriarchal one. Eve, unlike Offred, is in power—but her internal conflict, spiritual leadership, and love for men challenge the very system she’s meant to preserve. The power structure is flipped, but the emotional weight of resisting systemic inhumanity remains. 3. See (created by Steven Knight) Similarity: See imagines a post-apocalyptic world reshaped by biological catastrophe (blindness) where myth and survival intermingle, and power is distributed through tribal, matriarchal, and militarized lines. Rise of Eve is similar in setting—a fractured, climate-ravaged world ruled by adapted humans—and thematically connected through legacy, inheritance, and mythmaking. Comparison: Where See centers on physical adaptation and vision as metaphor, Rise of Eve centers on ideological adaptation—a society that has redefined morality, gender, and even economy after a plague. Eve, like Baba Voss, is a guardian of balance, but her battle is spiritual and political, not physical. The series’ visceral world-building, strong female leaders, and shifting alliances reflect what Rise of Eve builds in its layered districts, secret histories, and crumbling order. Primary Conflict: Eve must distribute the cure for Virus X and restore equality to men, despite resistance from the women of the Districts and the growing threat of the Right Order, led by the Mother of Eve. · Conflict Trigger: A cure is discovered, and Eve believes men deserve freedom—but the majority of women, scarred by the past, see their return as a threat. · Antagonist: The Mother of Eve (Marjorie Anson), supported by the Daughters of the Coalition and a population of Astra Selenes (women orphaned by Virus X) who blame men for their infertility, hearing loss, and familial trauma. · Complications: The Right controls the military, pharmaceutical access, and key alliances in the Districts. Removing Marjorie risks destabilizing Eve’s rule, as her ideology is widespread. · Resolution: Eve unites with the Son of Adam and the Realms to safely distribute the cure, protect vulnerable factions, and install a new female leader—Susan—within the Daughters, offering a peaceful shift in leadership that disrupts extremism from within. · Example of a Scene Demonstrating This Struggle: The Mother of Eve aka The leader of the Daughters of the Coalition plot a terrorist attack on the meeting house where the Adamsons and controlled men of District 16 are meeting. They murder 30 men meeting about the cure’s distribution and going over the wall into a free existence. This scene let’s Eve know that there is a leak amongst her Inner Keep and that giving men rights may come at the cost of her monarchy. Secondary Conflict (Social / Interpersonal): Eve’s adopted daughter, Susan, leaves to join the Right Order—unaware of her royal lineage —leading Eve to risk losing her both personally and politically. · Conflict Trigger: Susan sees no future in Eve’s world and joins the Daughters of the Coalition under Marjorie’s influence. · Social Complication: Susan is secretly Eve’s adopted daughter and next in line for the throne—but her memories have been erased for her protection. · Tension: Eve allows her to leave, hoping she will discover the truth in time. Meanwhile, Susan grows disillusioned with the Right and begins subtly working against them. · Resolution: Susan’s memories return in Realm 9. She reclaims her identity, assumes control of the Daughters after Marjorie’s fall, and bridges the ideological divide between monarchy and democracy, securing peace and stability. · Example of a Scene Demonstrating this Struggle: As fires rage across District 16—set by rebelling men—Eve spends the night deploying the national guard to contain the chaos. Susan, who lives in District 16, sees firsthand that Eve is failing to protect her property aka husband and children. Disillusioned, she decides the only way to ensure their safety is to leave for a political position that will relocate them. While there was once a quiet plan for Susan to infiltrate the Right, this is something different—Susan is truly leaving Eve. She no longer trusts her to lead, to protect, or to hold men accountable. To her, Eve has become a hypocrite—keeping a man in District 1 while Susan and her family are left in a dangerous ghetto, with no alternatives. When Tabitha, a congresswoman for the Right, is killed in the meeting house fire, Marjorie offers Susan the open seat—with Eve’s reluctant approval. In that moment, Eve loses Susan not just politically, but personally, to the Right Order. Tertiary (Inner) Conflict : Eve’s deepest struggle is learning to trust again after her husband’s betrayal led to her mother’s death. Her core wound—believing she enabled the tragedy—makes her fear that restoring men’s freedom will destroy the world women rebuilt. When the Son of Adam enters her life, he challenges her fears by proving loyal, wise, and emotionally resilient. Though she chips and controls him at first, Eve slowly grants him trust—carrying his child, reuniting him with his long-lost sister Farah (formerly known as Susan), and walking beside him in public despite stigma. In the final scene, they stand united under the looming presence of Right Order’s oppressive Snake Codes. Eve vows to dismantle them and steps toward shared leadership—not because she’s healed, but because she knows Farah will one day carry the mission forward. For Eve and the Son of Adam, imperfect trust and mutual progress are enough—for now. Setting: Set in the year 2225, Rise of Eve unfolds in a post-apocalyptic world reshaped by Virus X—a deadly plague that left the planet 99% female. Civilization survives within Andromeda Minor, a vast territory of 17 Districts and the 10 diverse regions of the United Outer Realms. At its heart stands New Alexandria, a gleaming, fortified capital engineered to rise above the ever-encroaching sea. Here, Mistress Eve rules as monarch and high priestess, maintaining order through advanced technology, strict immunization protocols, and rigid social hierarchies. New Alexandria is not only a technological marvel—it is also a battleground of politics and memory. Across the city, in the older half of District 1, the Old City still stands, battered but preserved behind levees and ancient drainage systems. Once the seat of Eve the First, it is now occupied by the Right Order, who have taken her mother’s former castle as their base of power. Though Eve refuses to live there, she continues to guard it—unable to abandon the place, yet unwilling to risk residing in a structure the sea threatens to reclaim. Her new capital rises proudly on the other side of the city, a symbol of what she has chosen to protect—and what she has allowed to fall. The inner Districts—especially District 1—are sleek, wealthy, and conservative. Men are largely banned unless held under contract by elite women for breeding—an increasingly controversial and dying practice. In contrast, Districts 14 through 17 are more liberal and diverse. District 16, a walled city, is the only place where men may live and work within civilization—chipped, monitored, and allowed to serve as breeders, laborers, or Mars development workers. Still, the scars of past experimentation and exploitation run deep. Beyond it lies District 17 and the Last Forest on Earth, where exiled men—known as Adamsons—have built an outlaw society. Their survival challenges the very foundation of everything the central government has taught its citizens to believe. Further out lie the United Outer Realms: scattered, wild, and haunted by the remnants of a fallen world. Each Realm holds its own truth. There are the genetic sanctuaries of Realm 9, the militarized spiritual order of Realm 3, and Realm 8, now submerged underwater and central to a secret coral-based cure. Realm 7, known as Right Island, remains the last stronghold of slavery and Right Order extremism. These realms—some abandoned, others self-governed—contain the forgotten fragments of Eve’s past and the keys to humanity’s future. Across this fractured world, climate catastrophe looms—raging fires, rising seas, and entire cities swallowed by water. As Eve balances her grip on power with a desire to create lasting change, her reign teeters between control and compassion, legacy and evolution. In the world of Rise of Eve, survival means adaptation—and leadership means knowing what to let go, and what must be saved at all costs.