Severin squinted. “No, darling. There is so much you have yet to learn.”
“Like what?”
Although no one could probably hear through the dense liquid, she meant it. It was the only truth she seemed to harp on about: love. It may have been silly, but she remembered how wonderful things felt when she reached a perceived level of safety. Life was supposed to bloom into something beautiful. Her world was supposed to settle her, the alphas, and her children. So many good memories were thought to be on the horizon for them.
Finally, a set of lights appeared above the small audience. The dim red dots from the cameras pierced her pupils.
The womb-like sphere celebrated her like a display at an aquarium. As the water drained, Rae spread her arms and clawed at the sides. She could not escape, but she did not necessarily care to anymore. She was a naked, fearful beast, and everyone on this godforsaken planet could relate to that. They had all been taken advantage of, even Severin. The only difference was that hatred always found a way to self-destruct. Perhaps, he knew that better than her.
“I’m… I’m alive,” she gasped, and tears curled down her rounded cheeks. “Why am I alive?”
This had nothing to do with democracy or the New Republic. She was kept alive for the nation’s entertainment.
The most troubling aspect of her passing was not the pain or the feeling of betrayal. God designed life for agony. No, the thing she feared most was how wonderful it felt. The abrupt coldness of the water left her senses. An eager wave of warmth edged across her limbs. Her heart was beating erratically, reminding her to keep fighting. And just as she felt herself against the glass, Severin pressed another button to have her removed from the structure altogether.
“The plug has been pulled, but the curtain will never close. The show ends with a new beginning. Long live the New Republic.”
Severin shouted the final words and stepped back, as dramatically as a showman might during a magic show. Her naked, wet, glimmering body arched back as she sucked in as much air as it could take. Violent coughs expunged the mess of liquid from her lungs, and her vision gave her hallucinations of complex geometric shapes.
The audience shared no more of their hideous laughter. Instead, they fell to their knees and bowed their heads like the fools of worship they were. Their hands rose into the air, shaking and writhing like shimmering salmon swimming upstream. Soon, they broke into ear-tickling prayers she could not be forced to understand.
“She is much more than a useless omega,” Severin said, eyes wide in reverence of her.
Special… Just how special was she?
They kept her alive. For whatever reason, it was clear she had somehow been made a god to everyone except Severin. It made her sick.
Rae couldn’t help but gaze into the tiresome eyes of the aged man. Even though he was just like the crooked lot of men she grew up around, he fell to his knees and pretended to be faithful. Somehow, she felt bad for him.
“Isn’t she… precious?”
Rae lifted her head humbly and collapsed against the clear glass of the mechanical womb. Severin operated the claws to drop her body into his arms. Lifting her close to him, he gazed calmly. She expected more torture and pain, but he acted tenderly, as if he were a father figure and not her oppressor. She knew better than to believe the act.
“It is all over now,” he whispered. “You may breathe freely.”
But Rae was dizzy and confused. “Why would anyone make a structure like this purely to torture someone?”
He leaned his neck forward, but he did not breathe in deeply, nor was there any indication of him huffing in her scent as most alphas enjoyed doing. “There, there. You will learn, soon enough. The point is not to torture.”
She didn’t have the strength to ask more about something that seemed so pointlessly violent. Though she had been considerably weakened, she had one last request. “Take me to my children. Please.”
Before Severin could answer her, a door opened behind the crowd. Her twin, Ruby, stepped from the darkness, and Rae understood what this was all for.
This was the start of the new world, the start of a new chapter for everyone, including her. The citizens of the New Republic were waiting for her “rebirth,” whatever the hell that meant. For all official purposes, this was Rae’s coronation day.
Her twin marched forward like the triumphant soldier she was. Bowing her head, she forced a fist into the air, resembling an ancient statue of exuberant tenacity. Her black leather gloves cut through the spotlight around Rae’s dripping, aching body.
“The queen is dead. Long live the queen,” she said.
Chapter One
Father. Are you listening?
This world is a hunting ground. It is a place where good men come to get trampled. Where men are forced to walk blindly in chains. We are made in the image of the world. Alphas. Omegas. Even betas. Although it seems impossible, we are from it and of it, not below or above. But all across the land, movement occurs. Little and big things alike scurry across the planet’s shoulders, throwing everything out of the initial harmonic phase. This is what causes us to wake, to suffer, to bleed, and procreate. For we are made in the image…
This is why we hunt and kill, and devour all forms of flesh. To bury our progress, throw the guilt of the past under a rug of earthy excess. We must hunt to survive, but we never seem to get closer to cleaning up shop. The house, as it stands, is in eternal disarray.