In the centuries following the Cataclysm, the event that erased every woman from the living world, humanity survived only by reinventing the rules of its own existence. When natural reproduction collapsed, the remaining population turned to genomic fusion: a process that paired two male gametes into a viable zygote. Artificial wombs, suspended in vast incubation halls, became the new cradle of civilization.

From this era of necessity, the city-state of Athanor emerged as a center of stability and advancement. Built around its colossal Gestation Chambers, Athanor developed a culture rooted in precision, paternal responsibility, and the quiet grief of a species aware of its missing half. Generations grew up knowing only men, their identities shaped not by gender but by temperament, role, and lineage. Over time, the memory of women fractured into myth: some saw them as benevolent ancestors, others as allegories, and some as mere historical exaggerations.

Athanor’s governance divided between the Gene Council, who safeguarded the reproductive system, and the civic orders who maintained daily life. Peace was fragile, preserved only by the shared understanding that the species could not afford disruption.

This equilibrium held until the anomaly arrived. A patrol found her at dawn, collapsed near the Outer District’s ruins, vitals unstable but unmistakably human and... female. Her existence was a biological contradiction, an event without precedent in dozens of generations in recorded history.

And this woman is you.

Some time later, you wake on a simple cot in a small, dimly lit room. The walls are bare, the air still and cool, and the only sound is the faint hum of machinery somewhere beyond the door. Nothing explains how you arrived here, and for now, you are alone, an impossible presence in a world that has never seen someone like you.