A cool breeze dances by a pair of open curtains, as it drifts past the space of an opened window and fills a dim room with the sounds from outside. Traversing deeper into the room, its presence brushes against the skin of a single occupant that lies in bed. There's a shudder that is given from its touch to skin, before the sound of a loud beeping goes off. A grumble is made, as a lethargic hand reaches up to the source of it and promptly silences the bothersome sound. As the hand slips off a small black alarm clock, a tired groan escapes the occupant's mouth at the prospect of knowing that today would be another long day for them. So with a sigh, they sit up and place their feet onto the cold wooden flooring as they go about their usual morning routine.
Later, a small jingle is made from a glass door opening into a convenience store, by the still ever so tired occupant from before.
"Oh, hello Craig!" a sole chipper voice greets.
The occupant, Craig, glances at the source of the voice briefly before continuing his way to the back of the store.
"Hey," he replies.
"You're late."
"Yeah, I know," Craig replies again, before he steps into the store's backroom.
A few minutes pass by, and Craig reemerges from the room now wearing a red and white uniform. He then makes his way over to the back of the store's counter and takes his place next to a cash register.
"So what was it this time?" the other person, his co-worker, Mark, asks.
"Burnt my breakfast and had to redo it," Craig monotones.
"Oh, I see. Well that was rather unfortunate." Mark says and looks down at a crossword puzzle he's working on. "But you know that you can't keep coming in late to work, right?"
"Yes," Craig replies annoyed.
"I'd say you're quite lucky it's me that you work with most days, and not the manager, otherwise you'd have probably gotten fired by now."
"I guess so," Craig says, and sits down on a chair placed behind him.
Mark lets out a quiet hum in response as he continues on with his puzzle and Craig leans onto the counter. His eyes wander until they land onto a small T.V propped up into the store's corner across from him. He searches for its remote, and when he finds it, he turns it on and starts to flip through the channels. Eventually, he comes across a news station and stops on it. The big bold word 'MISSING' catching his eye.
—In other news, a young 20 year old man, by the name of Daniel Tanner, is said to have gone missing about three days ago by his family and friends. Authorities are investigating the matter, but the questions of concerned and worried citizens continue to rise, as the number of missing people continues to increase.
"You really think that they're just missing?" Craig asks, as the news story comes to a close.
"Do you?" Mark asks back, keeping his eyes on his crossword still.
Craig doesn't reply though, because it was already an answer that they both knew. Actually, he was pretty sure that most of the people living in his town knew or had some kind of suspicion about it already. Despite the off attempts of the officials trying to hide some of them, or pretending that the numbers were lower than what they actually were. Everyone was starting to catch on to how many people were truly going missing in the recent years. And who was most likely behind them.
Alphas.
Craig can't help but grit his teeth at the thought. For him and all the others that were like him in his town, all they wanted to do was live in peace without the worry or fear from the past coming back up to haunt them again.
In the past, the alphas would abuse his people, which are known as the omegas. They would keep them as slaves to have fun with when they wanted to, or use them as toys for their own personal pleasures. In most cases turning them into baby making machines. The abuse went on this way for decades until their ancestors merged with a third group, known as the betas and things slowly started to change. In the beginning things stayed as is, until the betas started to mate with both the alphas and omegas and civilization began to grow.
As the years went by, the betas didn't like how the hierarchy was in play. The alphas were on top all the time, and getting all of the good supplies and power for themselves. This in turn caused the betas to grow tired of it, because they found it not fair with how their population was much bigger than the other two, and because the beta gene was much more prominent in conceiving births. Eventually a civil war broke out in this civilization between the betas and alphas. And a lot of the fighting caused many of the nearby omegas to die or be killed in the conflict between the two.
Most of the omegas felt trapped and didn't know what to do or where to go to avoid it. But a small group of the betas appeared one day to help them. Of course the omegas weren't sure if they could trust them or not, but they didn't know what other options they had, so with a hand of faith, they reached out to them and followed the small group. And eventually the omegas were led somewhere far off and away from the fighting.
The fighting between the alphas and betas came to an eventual end, when both sides didn't want to shed anymore blood of their people dying or being killed. The two sides came to an agreement, that it was best if they lived in their own territories, by their own rules. When the omegas heard about this agreement between the two, they also wanted to have their own territory to live in peace by. The betas agreed to it, knowing how dwindling the numbers now were for the omegas, and feeling some responsibility for it as well. The alphas however, didn't want to agree to this, as the omegas were their main way to reproduce their population, despite it being possible to do it amongst themselves. However, they did eventually agree to it, after long debates and talks went on.
And the three groups divided into their own separate territories, also known as, 'The Districts'. The alphas being on one side, the betas in the center and the omegas on the other side of them. And eventually with time, these districts grew and evolved into the many cities and towns that Craig and everyone else knew them as today.
Over the decades that first followed and passed the division, the rules and laws went through numerous changes in each district, till they began to settle on somewhat more humane ones. At first, none of the different three groups were allowed to interact at all with the others, unless it was for laws about the borders that had been built, or if someone that wasn't meant to be there had been spotted in one of the territories. To which case, they were either sent back to be dealt with by their own district, or killed for crossing the border.
But the laws and rules over time did allow it so that others could enter the neighboring districts, although it mainly leaned towards the betas. Because omegas, despite being alright with the betas, still didn't want any alphas in their lands, but agreed to let selective diplomatic individuals in, under heavy surveillance and suppressants. And omegas were allowed to live in the alpha cities under the same guise. Although whether or not those rules were reinforced in their territory remains a mystery, as the alphas don't allow much information about their district to be public, and tend to be very secretive in their workings.
Most could even marry from a different district now if they wanted too, but those were rarities, as most chose to stay within their own districts. In some cases though, with families, if one were to be born as an omega in the beta district, the family has the option to either stay there or move to the omega one. Or they can have the child grow until they're old enough to live on their own, or go live with any other family members they may have in the omega district. So most born would usually be one or the other parent's genes, and the chances of the child being neither were extremely rare, so there was always some sort of family somewhere for them.
Craig's family though, were all omegas, so naturally, they lived in the omega district. Despite the fact that it was very low for omegas to impregnate other omegas, it was still possible. And so, slowly, over the years the omega population started to rise again. He had never been to the other two districts, and didn't plan on going to them at all in his lifetime. All he wanted to do was live out his mundane life as peacefully as possible. But that was proving hard to do with the rise of missing, or rather, kidnapped, individuals that kept happening all over his town.
He had been suspecting it for quite sometime now, but in the recent years it was more noticeable than ever. He figured that it was most likely always happening in the past before, but just under the radar with maybe one or two disappearances a year. However, there were more than 200 in the last year or so now, from various small towns and people were growing anxious by it.
But there was no doubt in Craig's mind that it was alphas doing it. He didn't know if they were coming over to his town and doing it themselves, or hiring betas to do it for them. Either way, he knew that they were behind this and that the ones in charge of their districts were acting like nothing bad was happening, because who really cared about small towns near the border anyways, right?
Craig's irritation grows and he's about to change the channel, when the image on T.V cuts to a group of people wearing green and black outfits. The header under the image for them reading as, 'BETA VIGILANTES'. Craig had heard about them a handful of times before, about how they didn't follow their district's rules or laws most of the time. And he wondered if they had anything to do with the kidnapping stuff at all, as this was the first time he was pretty sure he had seen them, and they looked suspicious enough with those outfits. But he also couldn't be sure, as each of the news networks in each district tended to be pretty strict on what they shared. However, this footage looked like it was taken near the border on the omega side of the two districts. It showed the group standing on the other side of the border fence, as if looking for something, before fleeing the scene. And just before the footage cuts, Craig catches a glimpse of one of them wearing not a green, but a purple and black outfit instead. Seeming as if they were directing the rest of the group.
The sound of the convenience store bell jingles, which draws Craig's attention away from the T.V and over to the first customer of the day.
Eventually, the thoughts that swarmed his mind earlier start to fade as the day's events progress and soon morning turns to evening. As Craig helps close up shop with Mark, Mark suggests that they head home together until their paths part.
"Why?" Craig asks.
"Well, you saw the news today. More and more people are getting kidnapped. And it wouldn't be great if that were to happen to you now would it?" Mark teases. "Besides, I don't think it's wise to travel alone in the evening or night time right now."
"Whatever," Craig shrugs.
Mark takes that as a sign that it's okay and walks with him. The two walk in silence as the evening sky turns to night more and come across a small crossroads sometime later.
"It's so quiet." Mark says, "I guess that everyone is a bit paranoid with everything that is going on."
"Yeah, can't blame them," Craig says.
There was something nagging at the back of Craig's mind though. Mark was right, it was unusually quiet, and something about it was bothering him, a lot. He glances around and comes to a stop suddenly. There was something, something bad lying in wait, but he couldn't quite pinpoint what it was. And then it's there, like a shadow coming from the dark, a figure slowly approaches them. At first just one, but then it multiplies into two, then three.
Craig quickly looks behind them, but finds that their way back is blocked. Then he looks down the other paths to find them also now in the same state. The two of them now surrounded.
"Craig, this is..." Mark trails off.
"Bad? Yeah—I know," Craig says, as he now takes a defensive stance.
Craig spots a parked black vehicle off in the distance behind one of the figures, and it's all he needs to solidify his suspicion. These people were part of the groups that were most likely going around kidnapping omegas. And if they thought that they were going to bring Craig in so easily they had another thing coming, because he was ready to fight, he wasn't planning on going down without one. But his focus is drawn away, when he spots Mark fall to the ground in his peripheral.
"Mark!" he exclaims.
He's about to check on him, when something sharp stings his arm. When he places a hand over it, there's something there. He pulls it out and reveals that a small dart of some sort is the cause of it. When he looks back at Mark again, he now notices that there is one in the back of his leg. But something about it was looking off to him, almost as if it were swirling. Then everything is swirling, and he quickly realizes that it's a tranquilizer that he's been hit with.
Suddenly, his body is too slow, everything is. Even as he falls to the ground, everything's moving slow. He tries to tell himself to move, to get away, but it won't work, nothing is responding. Not even his eyes as they slowly shut and he fades into black unconsciousness.