Beep! Beep! Beep! Beep! Beep!
Today it is a real effort coming awake. Fighting your way tooth and nail out of the depths of sleep towards the sound of the alarm clock, you force your eyes to open. 06:01. The sun isn't even up yet.
Your hand lingers over the snooze button. One press and you'll be back in dream land. But your body still remembers the bruises from last time, and the streaks of scar tissue across your back are a constant reminder. No more snoozing. Ever again.
Wincing, you slide out of bed. Your balls feel bruised. They've been milking you too hard recently, selling your sperm for a premium online and to their friends. Sooner or later this cash cow is going to dry up completely, you're sure of it. You flinch as you try to rub some life into your shriveled testicles.
I shouldn't be living here, you think despondently, staring at the tiny bedroom, the scant possessions you had been allowed to keep. You're 26. Five years ago you'd had a career path, a girl who loved you, a house, a life. Struck down the plague, you'd fought against the infection to become a survivor, only to find your father and most of your male friends had been claimed by the disease. At the time, you'd thought that was to be the lowest point in your life yet even still you'd overcome it, reclaimed your job, tried to move on with life. Then three years after F-Day, the Ownership Act was introduced. Your girlfriend - a staunch male rights advocate - had refused to claim your contract.
Your mother and three sisters were not nearly so principled. They claimed you in her stead. Your house, savings, even body became their possessions.
You slip into the plain, grey clothes afforded to you and step out into the hallway. The house is quiet - your sisters won't be awake for a while, but they'll expect breakfast waiting for them. Olivia - full English and strong tea, milk, one sugar; Sarah - cornflakes, croissants, and freshly squeezed orange juice; Annabelle - a bowl of choc-o-puffs sprinkled with sugar and a pint of chocolate milk with the wacky straw.
You flick on the TV in the kitchen, turning the volume down so as not to wake anybody, as you make a start on Olivia's breakfast by lining a pan with bacon. You sigh. Two hundred channels and nothing but Loose Women. The bacon is soon sizzling away. As you plod over to the fridge to grab eggs, you nearly jump out of your skin as you see somebody standing in the kitchen doorway. It is...
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