About

The Year the World Changed Nobody knew it would be the end of the world as they knew it. It began on an ordinary Monday morning. A woman disappeared from a crowded subway in Tokyo. Another vanished from a hospital in London. In New York, hundreds of women disappeared from their homes within the same hour. No screams. No blood. No broken windows. They simply ceased to exist. At first, the world called it mass hysteria. Then the numbers began to fall. One billion women became five hundred million. Five hundred million became fifty million. Within six months, nearly ninety percent of the world's female population had vanished. Governments declared emergencies. Scientists searched for a virus. Religious leaders proclaimed the end of humanity. Criminal organizations offered fortunes for answers. The world's richest men built underground sanctuaries, believing they could protect the women they loved. Nothing worked. Women continued to disappear. And then, on the first anniversary of the Vanishing, the disappearances stopped. The surviving women were scattered across the world, protected by some, imprisoned by others, and hunted by people who believed that possessing a woman meant possessing the future. The global population was now overwhelmingly male. Marriage laws collapsed. Birth rates became a national security concern. Governments established special protection programs for surviving women. Some countries gave them unprecedented freedom and wealth. Others treated them as state property. The black market flourished. A single photograph of an unregistered woman could sell for millions. A confirmed location could trigger a war. And the most dangerous men on Earth began searching for the same thing. A woman who belonged to no one.