Fear is Your Only God by Mala Sangre
One of these days I won't binge post massive stories in long sections. Until then, here we are. You're stuck with me. If you follow me, this is what you've signed up for. Months of silence followed by months of content. It just do be the way. I have to hibernate every once in a while, you know?
Enjoy some sci-fi slavery abo with König!
Art from This Post
Wordcount 7K
Tws: political violence, riots, slavery, abo,
Story below the cut
Fear is Your Only God by Mala Sangre
After the news broadcast, you and Kyle agreed that it was best to head to the square as quickly as you could.
“I’m just hoping everything is alright,” you said again as you hurried along.
“I’m sure we’re just overthinking it,” Kyle assured you, “Johnny would’ve texted me if it hit the fan.”
“You can curse, you know,” you commented.
“I do my best to avoid speaking like you,” Kyle replied.
You huffed, but carried along behind him anyways. König followed along diligently. You felt that if anything, he was the one slowing down for you.
“It’s just a few minutes away, right?” you asked as you turned a corner.
“From here?” Kyle hummed, “about five minutes I’d say. Not long.”
“Could it be too long?” you worried.
“No, I don’t think so,” Kyle said definitively, “if it was too late we’d know it by now.”
You looked around at the billboards and the electric bikes lined up on the sidewalks. You saw an electric bus pull into the station and let off a crowd of techheads and glamstars. You sighed, but that was just the typical crowd downtown. At least techheads kept some grounding in reality despite augmenting their bodies with enhancements. The glamstars were just lost in a delusion of glitter, gold and stardom. You sometimes wondered if their feet ever touched the ground.
“Looks like we’re getting close,” you said as you passed the group by.
“Seems like it,” Kyle agreed as he pushed by a street vendor selling some copycat merch.
You followed him through the steadily thickening crowd. Where there were once a few kids playing games on their phones in alleyways there were now teenagers rocking music from blasters in their chest and businessmen typing codes into their smartwatches. You nearly tripped over a particularly short woman guiding her slave on a leash. Your lip curled at the sight.
“Seems a bit tasteless, don’t you think?” you sneered as she passed.
“I’m telling you man,” Kyle raised his voice over the crowd, “that’s not as uncommon as you think.”
“I think I know enough of the world,” you complained as you followed behind.
“You’ve been in your dad’s cafe too much to know,” Kyle called back. He glanced behind him at König and then down at you. “Can you help keep her safe? I know it’s a lot to ask, but I’m worried about her in a crowd like this.”
Above you König nodded before stepping closer to your side. Wordlessly he pushed his shoulders out and held his arms slightly from his side, effectively creating a cage around you. You looked up and gave him a smile. He was too focussed on the crowd to see it. Your smile fell as you looked back forward to try and keep up with Kyle.
“I think we’re here,” you spoke above the din of the crowd.
“I think so,” Kyle agreed as he made room around him, “the stage is just up there.”
True to his word, you saw a few people standing up on a raised platform. There weren’t many crowded together. You counted three men and a couple of women. The one who stood out to you was the stout man with a mohawk.
“Isn’t subtle, is he,” you said as you pointed at Johnny.
“That’s not his style,” Kyle replied, “he likes to be in front. He likes to call himself an influencer. I think he’s teetering on becoming a glamstar, but unlike them, I think he might actually start a movement.”
“He doesn’t look like one,” you said.
“Doesn’t need to look like one to be one,” Kyle commented, “I think he likes to consider himself some rugged activist type. Which he is, but I think he’s also a cocky prick.”
“Who’re the others on stage?” you asked.
“Wouldn’t know,” Kyle pursed his lips into a line, “I’m sure Johnny knows them. He knows most people in these circles.”
“So he can back up what he says?” you asked.
“For the most part,” Kyle said, “but I think he gets a bit too big for his boots if you ask me.”
“Do you know when he’ll be speaking?”
Kyle hummed and looked up at the clock on town hall, “I think Johnny starts speaking at two.”
“What time is it now?” you asked softly.
“It’s just coming up on two,” Kyle checked his phone briefly before nodding and saying “yeah, he’s speaking at two. I’m guessing it’s an intermission between speakers right now.”
“So any minute now?” you looked up at König again.
“Any minute,” he confirmed.
“Do you know how many speakers there are today?” you looked up at the group on stage.
“Yeah, there’s four today. Johnny’s going to be talking about that a new law he wanted to put forth,” Kyle said and bit his lip. “I don’t know how well it will go down though. I don’t think people will want to hear about it.”
“What’s his proposal?” you asked.
Kyle sighed heavily and ran a hand through his short black hair, “I think he wanted a compromise with the government.”
“A compromise?” you asked, confused by what Kyle meant.
“The idea Johnny has is to work with the existing legal system. As it stands, everything in our country relies on slavery. Manufacturing, entertainment, education, it all needs slavery to function. Or at least, it does now,” Kyle’s features softened as he said, “I heard that once, we didn’t need those things. But that’s not the case anymore.
“Either way, Johnny knows that banning slavery overnight would be through our country in chaos. We literally can’t ban it in the way everybody seems to want to. But what we can do,” Kyle smiled, “is work with the system. Modify it. Change it over time until slavery becomes less and less important, less easy to use. Make it so that slavery is the more difficult option.”
“You think people will change their minds?” you snorted.
“They’ll have to once they start having to treat slaves like human beings,” Kyle retorted, “as it is, big warehouses don’t even have to feed slaves to get them to work. They make slaves pay for their food with the very wages they pay them. It keeps them trapped in a perpetual cycle of making the same five dollars over and over again.”
You scrunched your face in disgust.
“It’s pretty common,” Kyle remarked, “lots of big companies do it. Small ones too. If they can get away with it, they will.”
“But that’s inhumane!” you exclaimed.
“It’s inhumane, but remember,” Kyle levelled you with a look, “slaves aren’t legally human.”
You felt sick.
“So yeah, Johnny’s big plan is to make it so that slaves are given human rights,” Kyle explained, “his big campaign is providing food, water, shelter and education to every slave. It’s the thing he’s been pushing for since he first arrived in Northland.”
“Is Britania any different from Northland?” you asked.
Kyle shrugged, “In the ways that matter. Once all of the isles were formally collected into Britannia, slavery was heavily regulated. Ireland was the one to fight against it most, but evidently Britannia was stronger. But because of what was once Ireland, the regulations for slavery are tighter than even Japan’s. Slaves are required to have a living salary, all their basic needs met and a ‘provable chance to be freed’.”
“That sounds incredible,” you looked down to your feet shamefully.
“It’s better than here for sure,” Kyle said proudly, “but unfortunately Northland’s always been a bit behind, even before the unification days. I think this place was called… Oh what were the names…”
“I think one of them was America,” you offered.
“America was one of them. So was a place called Mexico. I think that was above America, but I can’t be sure. I know Canada was the other,” Kyle mused, “and then a bunch of little islands in the south, but those split off to become The Southern Isles.”
“So even before unification days we were bad?” you asked.
“Apparently work conditions were awful,” Kyle said, “and there were lots of divisions between groups of people. Men and women; alphas, betas and omegas; blacks, whites and asians; even different sexualities. It was crazy back then.”
“I mean, people still fight over secondary sexes,” you pointed out.
“But nowadays people don’t really care about that as much as they care about how rich you are,” Kyle countered, “I mean, these days, if you’re too poor you’re put in the SDH.”
“And if you’re rich…” you mused.
“Nobody’s ever rich enough,” Kyle laughed, “not even the people in the sunlight levels.”
You felt König clench behind you. You looked up at him with a frown, “Sorry, is this making you uncomfortable?”
König didn’t say anything, but you could feel his breath fanning down over the crown of your head. You looked at Kyle and said, “Maybe we should talk about something else.”
Kyle nodded and turned back to the clock, “Looks like Johnny will be speaking soon.”
“How soon?”
“Any minute now.”
“You said that-”
The air crackled as someone at the podium grabbed a mic
“Hello everyone!” Johnny cheered as he took the mic, “I’m so glad to be here today!”
You jabbed an elbow into Kyle’s side, “What’s with his accent?”
“He’s from the far north of Britannia,” he told you.
You focussed back on Johnny.
“Today I’m here to talk to you about a cause we all hold dear to our hearts; we need to talk about slavery in Northland,” Johnny thumped a fist against his chest, “as some of you may know, I lost a good friend to slavery. I’ve never forgotten about him, and I never will. When I lost my friend, I vowed to ensure that nobody would ever lose someone like I did. The pain it caused,” Johnny shook his head, “you can’t live with it. You can’t.
“But you can live with change. And that’s what we’re here today to do. We’re here to make change. We’re here to reshape our entire civilization. Our entire world is built on the backs of humans that aren’t even given human rights!”
The crowd erupted in cheering as Johnny straightened his back. You could see his grin all the way from where you stood.
“But the problem is, we can’t abolish slavery.”
The crowd went silent. Johnny’s grin fell from his face.
“We want to, but we can’t. Our entire economy relies on slavery,” he said carefully, “if we were to abolish slavery overnight, Northland as we know it would collapse. Everything we know would be lost.”
Murmurers snaked through the crowd as Johnny spoke. You felt something shift in the air.
“We can’t change things overnight, but we can make slow and steady changes to a better future,” you could hear Johnny’s voice begin to waver, “if we make slow, steady progressive change, it’ll be easier than just changing everything all at once. We can adapt our economy slowly and we can come out stronger than before!
“If we’re just careful about how we manage our changes-”
A woman screamed out, “We want change NOW!”
A few cheers came from those around her.
“But we can’t change now,” Johnny protested, “we need to work on slow and steady changes, like giving slaves human-”
“Slavery needs to be banned!” a man yelled. More cheers followed him.
“You’re talking like an agent!” someone added on.
“I’m talking about giving slaves human rights!” Johnny countered, his face growing redder with each passing moment, “I’m talking about making lasting legal changes to our entire country!”
“It’s not enough!” someone yelled.
“Ban slavery now! Ban slavery now!”
As soon as the chant started, you knew it was over for Johnny. The crowd had already decided what they wanted to hear, and Johnny was none of that. You watched as Johnny’s face morphed into a mask of stark horror ass the crowd turned against him. You felt horrible for the poor man. Of all the people you had heard in you life, Johnny had been the most reasonable voice. He seemed like he actually had a plan of action.
Johnny tried again and again to get another word in, but the crowd was having none of it. They screamed on and on until Johnny finally held his hands up and left the podium.
You noticed one man sneer as Johnny passed him by before walking up to the podium himself.
As soon as he stepped up, the crowd went silent.
“This is one of the other popular activists,” Kyle told you.
The man ran a hand over his shaved head and grinned as the crowd waited for him to speak.
“Slavery is wrong! We’re in the thirty-first century. We’re human! We’re HERE,” the man bellowed into the megaphone. His wild expression was wide and intense, and you felt the need to shy away from the bellowing man.
“Who is this guy?” you whispered under his breath.
“I know we are better than this. We all are. So fuck the feds! Fuck em all to hell!” The man bellowed and the crowd cheered wildly. He stepped back as though to bask in the glory of being heard, and the man gave a triumphant grin.
“Each and every one of us here, we all have one common goal. Look around you, look how many there are of us! This is just one small town. Imagine a city. THE ENTIRE POPULATION OF NORTHLAND! We can spread our voice through the radio and holoscreens, get it all over social media! Let the fuckers in charge know that we won’t stand for this any longer!” the man crowed loudly into the megaphone.
You pressed into König’s side, who in turn wrapped an arm around you protectively. The pressure of König’s arm pressed down on your side, reminding you to try and breathe a bit slower. It was a little thing to help make you feel more at ease. This time though, things felt different.
“What’s going to happen to Johnny?” you yelled into Kyle’s ear.
Kyle shook his head and frowned before yelling back, “I don’t know. Nothing good.”
You winced and slunk down. You had the horrible feeling that everything was about to go terribly wrong.
“Do anything you need to get their attention,” the speaker yelled, “let them know we aren’t fucking playing around anymore! This shit needs to stop!” the man yelled ferociously before stepping back from the podium and looking over the crowd. “I know that I may be one man, but with your help we can be an army.”
Kyle’s eyes snapped open, “What the fuck is this guy doing?”
You frowned, “What do you mean?”
“He’s fucking… No way… He’s gonna get these people rioting if he isn’t careful,” Kyle quipped back with a worried tone.
“Let them all know who we are, and what we want!” the man yelled and finally stepped back to allow a familiar face to step up to the podium. He quickly picked up the megaphone again to yell one last thing, “and remember, keep fighting!”
“Keep fighting, keep fighting!” a young woman began chanting, loudly before a few others chimed in. The chant grew louder and louder, sweeping from the front of the crowd to the back until they were all one chanting mob, roaring as one great lion in the open area.
Another speaker stepped forward but a woman held him back. The two exchanged glances before saying something to each other. Johnny, on the other hand, was staring in disbelief. It looked like he was watching the library of Alexandria burn to his feet in front of him. The sheer devastation and betrayal on his face was palpable. You could feel his pain all the way from the stage. You’d never spoken to the man before, and yet in that moment, you felt you could understand him perfectly.
Another speaker tried to say something to the bald man but he blew him off completely. Whatever he said must’ve been shockingly rude to get such a reaction. You looked at Kyle but he seemed transfixed by what was happening, almost as though he was petrified in place.
You looked up at König to find him staring not at the stage, but right at you. His blue eyes were boring down into you with a ferocious intensity. You withered under the sheer energy radiating off his form. You could smell his scent, pungent and sharp amidst the crowd. At this point you could pick it out a mile away. And yet, while normally you’d feel comforted by the smell, at this moment it only sent a spike of anxiety through you.
A young man ripped the megaphone away from the man, but it was already too late.
“Everyone, please settle down,” a blond man said into the mic, but his nervous tone came through, only seeming to further wind up the crowd.
“Never stop fighting!” one woman screamed loudly and the crowd cheered in response.
The blonde nodded nervously and looked to the sepia-toned woman beside him for reassurance. She put a hand on his shoulder before taking the mic for herself.
“We won’t,” she said calmly, “we all know that’s our goal today. We want to make progress for the future. Now please, if you could calm down we can continue the talks-”
You nudged Kyle with your elbow to grab his attention. He leaned in close to hear you a bit better.
“I think something’s going on,” you muttered.
“I think so too,” Kyle mused before straightening up.
On the stage, the young man rubbed a hand over his rotund belly as he stepped up to the crowd. You felt like he looked as though he would puke at any moment.
“Hey everybody! Thanks for coming by!” the man started before covering his mouth, “sorry about that. Just haven’t been feeling good lately.
“Anyways! My name is Kevin Ngyung, and today we want to gather together to talk about slave rights going into the future. As you know, nowadays slaves don’t have any rights at all. But that’s not what we want. We want them to be free one day, just like us! From the cybergoths to the business guys up top, we all want what’s best for our slaves.”
Kevin smiled as he talked, the typical ecofan. Even in the cold he refused to wear a consumerist coat over his naturally woven t-shirt. He looked the perfect part an activist with his undyed baseball cap covering his twinkling eyes. Bright, friendly, welcoming. It was a surprise he was willing to use social media like Groopy, but you guessed some causes trumped personal vendettas against modern machinery.You wondered if you’d ever seen him before.
You smelled something strange in the air. What was it?
“Now right now, you guys probably know that nobody has made an actual plan to make a good change,” Kevin prattled on ignorantly, “but as of today, we’re creating a group on Groopy for everyone to come in and share ideas! Just scan the code on the podium and you’ll get an invite to the server. I’ll give you guys a moment to do that,” Kevin swallowed thickly and stepped away from the podium to talk to the woman from earlier.
You narrowed your eyes at their exchange. As they talked, you got the feeling that Kevin was feeling too sick to continue. The woman, on the other hand, insisted.
Meanwhile, the smell grew thicker. Heavier. Oilier.
You wiped your nose and looked around. You saw a cybergoth woman take off her helmet and rub at her silver nose and sniffle. To your left, an ecofan took off their straw hat to wave the air. You looked around more to try and figure out where the smell was coming from.
Just when you thought you might have an idea of where it was coming from, Kyle grabbed your shoulder and turned you around. You stumbled as you were quickly pushed past all sorts of activist groups. Your shoulders slammed into bodies and jostled you to your knees.
“Get up!” Kyle hissed as Kevin started to speak again.
“Kyle?” you asked as murmurs began to start.
Kyle glanced behind him with wide eyes, “We need to get out of here.”
“Why?”
“Agents,” he spat as he hauled you to your feet.
You heard the crowd gasp and whipped your head around to take a look at the stage. Your eyes widened.
Kevin was doubled over beside the podium. The woman was patting his back and looking around, but everyone else had left the stage. You were about to say something when you saw Kevin heave once, twice, and then he was gone.
BOOM.
Your jaw dropped as you watched the stage be splattered in an array of viscera and the crowd erupted. Screams pierced your ears as you scrambled to find any support. You slumped into a set of steady arms and looked up.
König’s eyes were still flat. It was like he couldn’t care less about what he’d just seen. He turned to look down and narrowed his eyes. He didn’t need to say it to get the idea across.
Hurry up.
You were dragged away helplessly. If it weren’t for König, you’d have been lost in the tidal wave of the crowd. As it was he carried you above, floating like a gull in the air.
He moved easily through the crowd. He was almost graceful, following a dance woven in the wild frenzy of the panicked crowd with utmost ease.
You finally placed the smell in the air: Gas canisters.
You grabbed a cloth and covered your mouth in an instant. You hoped König’s mask would eb enough.
You screamed for Kyle and, by the grace of God, he was at your side in an instant. You realised he had the same idea when you saw the rag over his face.
“They’re releasing canisters!” you yelled.
“I know,” Kyle yelled back, “now get out of here.”
He shoved you back into König’s arms and turned around. Just before he was lost to the crowd, you heard him yell, “I need to find Johnny!”
And he was gone. Flashes of silver, gold, black and neon colours flashed before your eyes as the crowd swallowed him whole. Your eyes rolled around wildly as you tried to find him but you knew he was lost.
Beside yourself, you surged forth and screamed his name.
König wordlessly grabbed you back and hauled you to his side. He glared at you as you writhed in his grasp.
“We can’t leave him!” you begged as you felt König continue marching forward.
You screamed and beat his chest, your desperate pleading turning into haggard bawling as he made his way through the crowd in great strides. You were so pathetic in your person that König had to pick you up in his arms and haul you over his shoulder. You heard him grunt, and then he was silent once more, any complaint washed away with the desperation of the masses.
Over König’s shoulder you could see the scramble by the stage. Agents had crawled out of the woodwork to worm their way into the masses of activists. You saw them club stragglers down before swarming them in masses of bodies. Some tried to bring their friends and families from beneath their foot, but they were soon stomped with cleated steel soles and pushed aside in favor of grabbing more free hands. In the distance, blue and red lights flashed as a police van pushed carelessly through the crowd.
You cried into König’s shoulder until it was soaked.
König didn’t falter once. He only marched forward with fervence. He was an immovable mass, keeping you sheltered from the grasping hands of the damned as he stomped on the face of the fallen as he passed. He didn’t look down to see the blood that coated his steel toe boots.
Your eyes were blinded by bright lights. You covered your eyes and scrambled back. Wordlessly, König drew you from his shoulder into a bridal carry. You shielded yourself against the wave of bodies crashing by you senselessly.
You wondered how far you’d run once the crowd started to disperse. How long had König carried you?
You slumped in his steady arms. His chest thrummed against the skin of your cheek, heart thumping even through the thickness of his woolen greatcoat. You raised a hand and clutched at the scarf he had slung around his neck and used it to wipe your face clean of snot and sobs.
“Why didn’t you follow him?” you asked meakly.
König didn’t reply. He only carried you.
You curled into his shoulder shakily, the winter wind biting your other cheek bitterly.
The city passed by in a blur. Neon signs and paper flyers melded together into a blur of acrid smoke exhausts curling in your lungs. City trucks trundled by with shudders and shakes like beetles bumbling along a branch. You watched as a bus rolled up their ramp and agonisingly pulled away from the stop. The grey of city architecture swallowed the world whole.
“Is he going to be okay?” you hoped.
König didn’t falter as he carried you. By this point, the last of the activists had run into their ratholes long ago. There was no reason for him to carry you now. You tried to get down, but König refused.
You didn’t try again.
The world was once again filled with the din of car horns bleating and hawkers singing on the street. The smell of warm bread came from a stall on your left before washing away into the distance.
You thought about Kyle in the crowds. He wasn’t a big man. Not small, but he wasn’t big like König. You’d seen how the smaller had been trampled underneath. You sent a silent prayer for their bodies to be found quickly.
The shock washed from your system, letting the terror of the tide flood you.
“Kyle,” you gasped as tears took hold of your throat.
König held you closer to his chest briefly.
“We need to go back for him,” you hiccuped, “we can’t leave him!”
König didn’t bat an eyelash, nevermind turn his cheek.
“Please! He needs us!” you pleaded.
König finally glanced down at you. Your cries throttled your throat.
He looked so, so, terribly sad for you.
Your lip trembled when you locked eyes. He said so much with so little.
He knew, he knew.
You didn’t care what anyone thought as you sobbed into your slave’s chest. They could picture you as some privileged princess all they wanted. To Hell with their judgement. Let them be damned to their own machinations. You’d cry as you pleased.
Silently, König hoisted you up into one arm and raised his mask slightly. He used one hand to loosen his scarf and patted on the crook of his neck.
You stopped your sniffling immediately.
“König no,” you mumbled, “I can’t.”
He shook his head and tapped again.
“I don’t need it,” you insisted stubbornly.
König rolled his eyes and tapped, evidently fed up with your complaints.
You gave in.
You let your cheek rub into the crook of his neck and breathed in. You felt König wrap his other arm around you to hold you in place as he scented you. You could feel the oils delicately coat your nose. It wasn’t as sickly slick as you thought it would be. You always assumed that they’d be oily and gross, but König’s oils seemed to readily absorb into your skin.
Something inside you was repulsed by what König was doing. This sort of scenting was reserved only for intimate friends and family, people you trusted dearly. The very act of scenting was seen by some as intimate in nature all on its own. Then again, some people were disgusted by kissing. Here, König was only scenting you to comfort you. He wasn’t trying to take advantage of you, he wasn’t trying to claim you as his own. He was just comforting you, like one friend to another. He was caring for you in the way only a loved one could.
“Thank you,” you whispered into his neck.
König squeezed you briefly in response.
You cuddled in closer than before. You let the scent of pine and cedar soak into your very essence. You could feel your body reacting on instinct, calming down as soon as you felt his oils coat your cheek. You blushed at the thought of what others around you were thinking as König walked by.
You closed your eyes to blot out the rest of the world. All you wanted was to lose yourself in the scent. König could take care of you, just this once. A pang of guilt stung you as you thought about what König must be feeling. You were just using a slave to feel better, weren’t you? You were using him.
You realised that König must only be doing this out of obligation. He didn’t care about you, he was just taking care of his omega charge. He was your bodyguard, your caretaker. The impact of your emotions dawned on you.
Alphas and betas alike would’ve been drawn to you like moths to a flame. Seeing an omega in such distress must’ve been alarming for them. Of course they’d want to care for you. If König was to protect you, he needed to ward off any other potential threats. What better way than to take care of the root of the problem itself? If you were calm, then you’d be left alone. It was distress that made others dote on omegas.
Omegas were known for being the most emotional of the second sexes. They were considered soft, weak, and meagre. They were little pets to dote on and protect from the harsh realities of the world. Not that omegas couldn’t be tough, but it was a commonly known fact that omegas were prone to emotional breakdowns rather than actively dangerous outbursts like their alpha comrades. Betas, of course, were known for having mixed reaction to distress. Some tended to follow their omega friends in having crying fits or withdrawing into themselves. An unfortunate few had the tendency to lash out violently like an alpha.
Society may laud alphas for their size and strength, but they were feared for their outbursts. Betas were much more valuable to the world. They had that strange tendency to behave more like an alpha or beta based on primary sex, but they were still more reliable than either alphas or omegas. An omega was just considered weak, but they were still useful to the world. Alphas, on the other hand, were sometimes more feared than respected for their volatility. The more dominant the tertiary sex, then the more aggressive the alpha. Alpha As like König were considered terrifying brutes that were prone to violence and rage. You’d yet to see it with König, but you were still cautious.
The one thing that upset alphas more than anything else was to see a distressed omega. Not that they were upset at the omega, but some would fall into those sexist views. Many knew that it was simply an innate urge to want to care for their omega kin. It was not an aggressive instinct, but rather one of their more protective urges coming to the front.
For König, having you sobbing in his arms would’ve been a beacon to any free alpha or beta to try and take you away from König and try to care for you. In all honesty, some might’ve seen an alpha carrying a sobbing an omega and made the worst possible assumptions. It was a miracle you hadn’t been accosted on the street.
So thus, it was safer for both you and König to be scented. It was safe, it was reasonable, it was respectable.
Still, the guilt curled inside you for taking advantage of an instinctual side of König.
You took in one more lungful of his scent and shifted back to relax in König’s arms. You looked around and hummed. You weren’t as far from home as you thought. In fact, it wasn't far away at all. You were actually not more than a fifteen minute walk away.
You nudged König lightly, “Can you let me down now?”
König glanced down at you curiously.
“I think I’m okay now,” you said, “thank you for that.”
König shrugged, but he relented and slowed to a stop. Ever so carefully, he let you out of his arms and onto the ground. A part of you figured he’d drop you into a snow back, but the gentleness was a nice surprise.
“Thanks,” you smiled as he straightened his back.
You looked around the street. If it weren’t for your mind’s eye, you’d have thought that the city was in perfect peace. The market vendors called out for customers, a man played a song from hundreds of years ago on some ancient guitar by the fountain. Apparently, the band was popular way back in the 1900s. They were from somewhere in Britannia, if you remembered correctly.
The tune brought a smile to your face. Your mother would sing songs from this band when she was working around the house. Sometimes she’d even get you to join in and you’d dance in the laundry room in the light of the afternoon. You were happy then. She was too. Your smile flickered into a frown. Your mother changed as time had gone on. Your father had broken her down into a shell of a woman.
She had been vibrant and beautiful, but now she was just an empty memory of a time long gone.
“We should get home soon,” you told König.
He nodded and followed you down the street.
The old tune faded into a hum as you passed by city workers draining the sewer system, cursing foul slurs as they worked. You wrinkled your nose at the stench and shook it off.
The city was alive with life and death and all that crawled in between. Up above in the higher brackets, business elites and glowing lights drowned out any thought of a shadow. Some called the upper network New Babel for how it constantly ascended upwards. One day, you thought that maybe they would break into space. As it was, you could see the light above shining brightly.
Down in the middle lanes, people could feel the sun but they weren’t blessed by it. Vitamin D supplements were made mandatory to support the population. In addition, sun lamps were installed on every corner of every street. Some lights were strips that ran along highways that connected to islands of towers, some were bright orbs on iron posts that children played around with giggles and sidewalk chalk.
Though not officially stated, it was a well known fact that the advertisement boards were modified sun lamps. Thankfully, someone up above had had mercy on the people and had banned advertisers from buying up all the sunlamps to turn into beacons of merchandising. As it was, the little dots of pure white light instilled hope in your heart.
The trees grew freely in parks and decorative islands placed around the city. Some of them were fruit trees planted long ago, gifts from the past to the present. In these artificial habitats, birds chirped brightly and flew through the air like bats in the moonlight.
“It’ll be dark soon,” you muttered as you looked around.
König nodded, following your example by taking in the sights of the city.
“This place is pretty different at night,” you said, “we should probably hurry.”
König tilted his head, curious about what you meant.
“When the sun lamps switch to moonlight, a lot of things happen,” you explained and pointed at the scrolling advertising boards above, “for one, the boards switch. In day time, they boards are bright and flashy. At night, the ‘calm’ ads are displayed. The city has a rule about who can advertise when.” You pointed a few seedy looking dive bars to your left, “The bars also open up. Not all of them open at the same time, but most open when the lamps switch. When they open, a lot of weird people come out. That’s usually a good time to leave.”
König scowled.
You shrugged in response, “It’s just how it is. It could be worse, honestly. I’d rather it’s only at night.”
You kept walking through the streets, mindful of how the sunlamps slowly bled from blue to purple then pink, and finally red.
“Just down the street,” you said as you hurried your step.
Within a minute, you were ducking into the cafe and locking the door behind you. You watched as the sun lamp finally switched to a speckled blue-grey light.
Moon light.
“Just in time,” you whistled in relief and turned around to look at König, “it’s good to be home.”
König brushed his finger along the bar on the door and nodded absent-mindedly.
You felt the weight of the day begin to crash in. The structure of your body caved in, the windows of your soul fogged with exhaustion. You could barely find it in you to be able to stand up.
König glanced at you, curious as to what you might want to do next.
“You’re probably starving,” you rubbed the palms of your hands over your eyes.
König waggled his head.
“We’ve got some leftovers in the fridge. Are you fine with that?” you asked.
König nodded eagerly.
You grinned, “Alright, then let’s get you something to eat.”
Not much later, you were sitting on your bed beside König with a plate of reheated spaghetti in your lap. You idly twirled the noodles while König scoffed them down beside you.
You sighed an hung your head.
Where was Kyle? He hadn’t messaged you at all. You checked your phone again, but there wasn’t a single message on any app. Groopy, SlyFox, Chatter, all silent. You felt something nagging at the back of your mind.
“I… I just want to check the news,” you muttered as you opened another app, “I just want to make sure.”
You saw a series of headlines streaming in. Most of them, unfortunately, were about the riots.
“Sixty dead?” you sucked air through your teeth, “wait, how are there sixty already?”
You scrolled through, but it just kept getting worse. Sixty dead, another eighty arrested, two hundred and thirty arrested in total. You prayed that Johnny and Kyle weren’t among these numbers.
“I just want him to be okay,” you said quietly.
You felt a warm pressure perch on your shoulder. You looked up too see König watching you with a remorseful look on his face. He knew perfectly well how much it hurt. You just wished he would say something to you.
“He’ll tell me he’s fine, won’t he?” you felt yourself tearing up, “you promise?”
König gently rubbed your shoulder and looked down at the carpet. You watched him shift his foot slightly, then he turned back to you with a raised hand. You saw he had is little finger raised.
“Pinkie promise?” you couldn’t help but giggle.
König nodded stoically.
You wrapped your finger around his and shook.
“Pinkie promise,” you whispered.
You both sat in silence for a minute. What else was there to say? You knew König was just trying to take care of you, but you couldn’t help but wonder why he went to such efforts. Was he that dedicated to his job? His job didn’t exactly cover pinkie promises by lamp light. And yet, he did it without a word. He was always there for you. König was at your beck and call at all times. You felt a strange turn in your stomach at the thought. It didn’t seem right to have someone waiting on you like this. It felt sick. König had better things to do than be your personal caretaker. If he weren’t your slave, you could imagine him being the overseer of a construction site, maybe even a hea manager in an office. He wasn’t your average alpha A. He was gentle, he was kind. He was the kind of person who could turn his hand to a bale of hay and make golden string. König was so much better than this, and yet he was tied to your side with a piece of paper and an ancient promise.
You sighed and gathered your pyjamas. You needed to get out of the room. Being around König was messing with your head. Slaves were meant to take care of their masters. It was their entire purpose. They were born and bred for this work. So why was having König around making you question these things? What about him made things different?
You crept down the hall to the bathroom.
In the mirror, you saw the spots and marks on your face; they were the ever-present reminders of your flawed nature. Born to a beta and an alpha, you were never meant to exist. Your birth was a complete anomaly. How your father had found it in him too keep you was beyond your comprehension. It’s not like you would be of any value to him. You were just an omega daughter.
You washed cold water over your face quietly. When you looked up in the mirror, you looked pathetic. Your hair was plastered to your forehead as the water ran like tears down the rivets of your face. You saw a pimple on the tip of your nose and dug your fingers into the skin. You hissed and pressed down, down, down until a tiny bubble of blood leaked down over your fingers. You dug in, relished in the sting of mutilation. You picked at another spot, then another. By the time you were finished, your face was splotchy and uneven from your picking. Seven dots of red leaked down. Two on your nose, three on one check, one on your other and one on your chin. Seven red bleeding stars.
Konig Dump
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