our new wilderness

PART II: RAVAGE

Only omegas could turn, was the first piece of information anybody really heard at the start.

When the outbreak started, it was pandemonium. The radio and television broadcasts shouted from every street corner, frenzied heralds scattered to the farthest corners of civilization as fast as the wind could carry them. The unraveling of the world rolled through the news feeds, an endless scroll of yellow tape and blurry ambulances and warnings dripping with blood as omegas fell ill to a strange disease. It twisted them, ravaged them. It tore up their insides and killed them, only to bring them back to life: the mindless undead.

This was the law of the land: every alpha was to defend an omega, regardless of whether they were mated or not. It was in their instincts, that surge of protectiveness coupled by unstoppable bloodthirst. A disease, however, was beyond an alpha's capacity to deal with, and for all the advancements mankind had achieved, the bond between alpha and omega still proved too difficult for even the wisest of minds to understand.

And so, when the virus proved more potent than any desperate sort of cure, deadlier than any other sickness to plague the earth, and then the most precious and prized of humans had been lost, rising up as the undead omicrons—the alphas, the protectors and their other halves, had gone down to the ground with them but never came back to life again, their particular genetic code breaking down under the weight of the virus.

It was a death sentence for two. Everyone knew if one half of a pair fell, the other would follow soon after.

Everything changed, then.

*

When the world went to hell in a handbasket, Eddy received a mission.

"You will bring him here," came the authoritative voice from the other end of the phone line, the voice of Brett's brother and the alpha scion of their family line, "where he can be safe."

The Yang estate was on the other side of the country. The directive was a tall order, even for the most prepared of soldiers. Crossing the country alone as a lone alpha would just be asking for trouble; crossing the country with a susceptible omega to take care of would be just as good as declaring themselves dead before they even make the long trek.

And yet, despite all that, he found himself agreeing.

"Good, Mister Chen. My brother will be of great use to the goal we are all working hard to achieve. We will find a cure for the sake of the world, but we cannot do it without Brett's help." The idea of a cure to the omega disease was an altogether strange notion to entertain, almost impossible to fathom. Still, the confidence dripping from the man's words sparked a hope in Eddy. A fragile sort of hope, but hope nonetheless. "Protect him with your life, Mister Chen. Please—bring him home."

Those last instructions? Eddy could and would do them, no questions whatsoever. He could do them even in his sleep.

"I will," he said, and then the line went dead. It was then that he knew that was the last chance he would ever get to speak to anyone else beyond the here and the now. Communication channels must be crumbling slowly but surely; sooner or later, there wasn't going to be any way of figuring out what was happening beyond what they could see right in front of them.

Well. He had Brett. That was all he would ever really need.

*