Falling Double: The Mating Grounds

Prologue

The scientists never expected to lose ninety percent of the population to a massive illness, but that’s exactly what happened 215 years ago. The continent had been teeming with life, communities and free will and then within a single year, people were crowding into each of the zone’s capital cities to share resources and avoid living and dying alone in the scattered ghost towns left behind. People were scared shitless and worried about humanity's survival, so to assuage those fears, the zones came up with a new system.

That system is known as the Mating Grounds.

The Mating Grounds are how humanity has survived with so few people left, and avoided inbreeding or extinction—the inevitable outcomes if birth rates dip too low. Every five years, a male and female in their peak reproductive years (aged 18-25) are selected from each zone and sent to the Cria Zone for semi-arranged pairings to help spread their genetic material between the distant cities. The only rules in the Cria Zone?

You have one year to find a partner of your choosing before one is assigned to you.

Offspring are expected from each pairing.

You must choose a partner from another zone.

The ruling zone sends four eligible citizens, instead of two, during their period in power.

Beyond the Cria Zone mandates, each zone handles eligibility and “love pairings” as they see fit. Between the most and least populous zones the policies can vary greatly based on eligible citizen population numbers.

The Cria Zone, where the Mating Grounds take place, is centrally located on the continent, in the high mountains, in order to be accessible to and supplied by all zones. The Chosen journey there after being selected and live in a secure compound for the duration of the year until the mating ceremony, when established pairings are announced and any unattached Chosen are assigned mates. After the mating ceremony, the pairings journey back to the inhabited zones according to the female’s origin.