BREEDERS/ TAEKOOK/ 18+

Chapter-1

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Kim Taehyung

I walked along my sisters in a deserted street. My mom was there with us but she walked behind us, with her head down, defeated by anxiety. She was a tough woman, although she was really small, and looked like a doll. Her hair was golden, like mine, and she had beautiful blue eyes. But looking at her now, she looked like an old woman that had lived too long. Together, we were twelve, almost a squad of the same family. My dad was working on the fields, so he couldn’t be there. My sisters held my hands in each side, giving me strength. We had walked for a long time, and we were finally near a city. The great moment of my life was coming, the moment I’d sign up to be a breeder. The city where the humans lived were mostly ruins, except for some neighborhoods with the houses of the Ugween. Those were far from downtown, though, and humans didn’t go there except to work. The parts where we went were reminiscent of when the humans ruled the world. It had buildings that had been destroyed by the war, streets so broken that vehicles couldn’t pass. Rats walked freely on the sideways. Even the sky was uglier there. Reddish with yellow, probably from the radiation that still existed there. We went to the only building that wasn’t totally destroyed. It was simple but beautiful. One floor only, a small glass door with the words BREEDING AGENCY on top of it. The inside had wooden floor and ac, something really rare. There was a giant line outside and we joined the end of it. My fate was decided for me when I was just a kid. My parents had tried with all my sisters before me. I was the 11th girl of my family. History told us that it wasn’t common to have that many kids on Earth, but that was before the Ugween came. After the Ugween rule, families of humans on Earth started having as much offspring as they could. First, it was easier to complete the working quota imposed by the Ugween if the work was divided by more people. Secondly, because the conditions weren’t that great and many babies died. And thirdly, because maybe some kid would get lucky, be talented enough to escape the heavy labor destiny of most of humanity. The Ugween used humans to do all of the heavy work while they had the more prestigious positions that required the brain. They said that we were too stupid to do anything intellectual. And sometimes, I felt they were right. They gave us basic education until we were old enough to start the heavy laboring. They said that when we were educated, we had less chances of killing ourselves in work related problems. During school, we learned that the humans self-destruct themselves. We killed Earth, poisoned our rivers, polluted the air, destroyed all the trees and the nature, went in nuclear warfare. We had everything for free and we were the ruling race but that had been many, many centuries ago. Humans would have perished without the Ugween help. Earth was taken by disease that humans couldn’t cure and natural disasters that humans couldn’t survive.
When the Ugween got here, we were less than a million left. And we learned that before, we used to be billions. They had the technology to save the Earth. The humans had relations with them already and we asked them to help. As a nomadic race, they decided they would stay here, as they needed new planets to inhabit. The Ugween had the problem of not being able to breed, as the race was all male and they couldn’t reproduce without other races. So, they saved the humans in exchange of having a planet to stay. That was why I thought humans were truly dumb, just like they taught us in school. We were now slaves for an alien race because we killed our planet with our own hands. It had been many centuries since the Ugween arrived. And they said that in the beginning, some humans tried to resist, but they had no other choice. Without the Ugween technology, Earth wasn’t habitable anymore. The humans couldn’t survive on their own. And now, there was no question that the Ugween ruled and we were like any other animal on this Earth. We did all the work the Ugween didn’t want to do, that included industrial work, sowing the lands, cleaning. Everything that was heavy duty was done by the humans, and each family had their quota of work that they needed to complete, or they wouldn’t get food that week. The humans didn’t question. The Ugween were superior in everything, including their weapons. The humans didn’t stand a chance. They gave us food, housing, education, health care and even some fun. They gave us freedom to be in relationships and consist families, something that they didn’t do in their cultures, and all we needed to do was to work for them. It seemed like a fair deal and most people did that without question. However, the conditions of work weren’t good. Staying outside in the sun, constructing buildings for up to 14 hours a day wasn’t every kid’s dream. There were few ways of escaping that fate. You could become someone’s influential human pet; you could do something really heroic and be chosen as a human celebrity; or you could become a breeder. Becoming a breeder was one of the most popular options because as they couldn’t have offspring on their own, they chose human girls to become the mom of their kind. They only chose the very best girls, they didn’t want weak genes. And that was what my family had been trying with all my other ten sisters. Having a baby girl was considered lucky because then you could have a potential breeder in the future. My mom and dad did everything to guarantee that I could be the best candidate as breeder. They pampered me, they cared for my hair, for my nutrition, as breeders usually had the best foods, and enough fat to be healthy moms, they helped me with my education so I could be as intelligent as possible. In the year I turned 21, it was time for me to try to become a breeder. It was an annual contest. All the girls that age or higher tried to compete. The Ugween considered 21 to be the minimum suitable age to be the bearer and the mother of their kind. So, we were all taken to agencies where they started a casting process. The prettiest, the healthiest, the most intelligent girls were selected. They had many spots every year, but it wasn’t nearly enough for all the girls that wanted to be breeders.