Chapter Text
The Qi’s grew sweet corn that tasted faintly of orange.
People said it was the soil; others claimed it was love, but the three rows of orange trees that bled citrus into the ground said differently. At first it was viewed as tainted roots and bad planning but quickly became an experience for the taste alone. Their harvest always sold out quickly.
Their farm was modest. Harmless.
Or so it appeared.
General Qi Yufei was a highly decorated Alpha officer who retired earlier than expected but is still spoken of with utmost respect. His wife, Li Ya, was an Alpha as well. She was disciplined, incredibly intelligent, and meticulous with her hands.
They were profoundly devoted to each other in the way only long partnerships allow: shared ambitions and secrets. They began courtship just out of high school. Around the ripe ages of twenty-three and twenty-five, they married and mated all on the same day.
It took them years to have children. Time and luck were never on their side, it seemed.
Five years after Yufei’s retirement, their eldest son was born with sharp eyes that matched his father’s and lungs strong enough to rattle the rafters.
Five years later, three months after their eldest completed his designation, their second son was born. The child entered the world quietly, with eyes that matched his mother’s. They were wide like storm-blown open windows and held so much power it took their breaths away.
The Qi’s were fifty-three and fifty-one when their family finally felt complete.
_______
There was a ritual older than law. A tale as old as time and a truth entirely inescapable.
The designation…
Every child, whether they wanted to or not, would fall into a fever at the age of five. They could burn anywhere between two to five days, with skin hot and pulse erratic. When they woke, the world would know what they were.
Irises would mutate from aniridic eyes:
Gold for Alpha: strong and structured.
Purple for Omega: loyal and nurturing.
Blue for Beta: calm and balanced.
Scent glands behind the neck and above the tailbone would mature, releasing a pheromone unique to the individual. This was a signature no one else could ever replicate.
Identity was simple and inarguable.
Unless it wasn’t.
_______
Beneath the Qi’s home, past unknown reinforced doors, the Qi’s maintained something else entirely.
Government-funded.
Government-protected.
As long as the Qi’s kept their noses clean and operated flawlessly and secretly, they’d stay protected—their children included.
Alphas have a chance to slip into an altered state of mind where they function more animalistically. It’s an unconscious slip, proven by the wild electrograph of the cerebral cortex.
When an Alpha becomes violent beyond reform—when stabilization therapies fail—then it’s a hormonal shift.
Cases as such would be transferred quietly to the Qi’s.
Li Ya specialized in pheromone restructuring. In rare instances when even that failed, she would then be authorized to destroy the genetic scent markers and scent glands entirely.
Serum as thick as resin that heated the body like rocket fuel…
Irreversible, precision damage to the glands…
When the Alpha healed, they’d return to civilization with no knowledge of the events, and the government will label the damage as an “Alpha attack.”
The reformed Alphas returned emptied.
Eyes and pheromones worked in tandem; without one, you’re left feeling half-full, less than, and with little to no inducement.
It was ugly work, but it was necessary work.
_______
At age seven, their eldest son was blessed with an opportunity many didn’t have access to. As a child he was reluctant, but as an Alpha, he did not argue. He wanted to make his family proud, become a man worthy of the bright future laid out for him of righteous power, and provide protection for his little brother.
He was sent away to a prestigious Alpha academy backed by not only his father’s name but the government as well.
At ten, he fell into a sudden, inexplicable coma. All of his scans were clear and left the physicians stupefied. The Qi’s were kept up to date. They trusted the hospital their eldest resided in.
They had to.
The same day their eldest fell into a coma, their youngest entered his designation.
The poor child. His fever lasted too long, slipping well past five days.
He tossed and turned amongst sweat-soaked sheets in a confinement room in the underground lab, small fingers clawing uselessly at air and tears unknowingly joining the sweat.
His scent formed before his fever broke, sweet and unbearable. It was floral and warm, like spun sugar melting under the sun, or that one stand at the night market where molten sugar was blown into various figures.
Li Ya knew all types of scents. She had been around enough pheromones to know, and it filled her with dread.
When the fever finally broke, and his lashes trembled apart, clumped together by tears, Purple searched the room. Not soft violet or muted plum either. No.
Bright lilac.
Like the sweetest of weeping wisterias in full bloom.
And the scent… Gods, it wasn’t meant to, but somehow it grew stronger and filled the room in waves.
Their son was an Omega…
But their son was male…
…a male Omega…
It was unheard of, and if anyone else ever knew, he would surely not survive it.
. . .
She knelt by her child. “We have to fix this,” she said without turning to her husband, who was pressed against the wall, hoping his feeble knees could hold him.
He looked at her strangely. “F—fix what, Li Ya? He doesn’t need to be fixed. He needs to be protected; we can protect him.”
Li Ya was very still by her child’s side; she didn’t reach out to touch him just yet either. She only stared at the sleeping boy. “Protect him from what, Yufei?” she whispered. “Curiosity? Politics? Obsession?”
She inhaled shakily. “If they don’t kill him,” she continued, voice hollowing, “they’ll cage him.”
Yufei then moved towards her. “My name—”
“Will not stop your superiors. Nothing will stop a research division when introduced to something unknown. He’ll be a spectacle…”
Silence settled between them.
She then lifted and turned, her golden eyes sharp with something nearly feral. “I will fix him.”
Yufei’s stomach dropped and nausea rose. “Li Ya.”
She began pacing. “I can alter the markers. I’ll replace the melanin expression and adjust the pheromone output before it stabilizes permanently. I’ll make him an Alpha just like us and his brother; no one will ever know.”
“Li Ya, he’s five. We don’t know what else is different with him. If you were successful, he could have complications in the future… things we didn’t prepare for because you let panic guide you.” He then grabbed her shoulders gently to stop her. “And if you failed,” he swallowed. “You could kill him, Li Ya.”
Her wide eyes snapped to his, sharp and pitiful but dark. “If I don’t try,” she said softly, “could you live knowing we let them take him? Could you live knowing what they would take from him?”
Her voice shook, but she continued. “I fought for him.” She brushes his hands off her and hits her chest a few times. “I will protect my family, my babies, at all costs. So if he dies, I’d rather him die by my hands because I tried to give him a future.”
Even if she shook, her tone remained stable and quiet; that was even more terrifying than if she were to yell. It demanded thought and attention.
Yufei’s terrified gaze swept from his wife to his son. He was so small, flushed, breathing shallowly, and still asleep.
That was the moment an innocent child’s fate was decided for him.
He should have reasoned with her more; instead, he stepped beside the bed.
He should have stopped her; instead, he gently wedged his finger into the small, tight fist his son held and rubbed a thumb over his tiny wrist.
Resigned, he sighed. “What do you need?”
. . .
A needle slid beneath pure skin as Li Ya pressed her lips to a damp forehead.
“Forgive me,” she breathed. “I’ll do everything I can for you, A’Qiong,” she whispered against his skin as resolve settled in her bones.
Bright, unforgiving surgical lights erased all shadows.
Qi Qiong’s small body lay dwarfed by the operating bed. Blue draped across his body and tucked so it wouldn’t sweep the ground. His head was stabilized, and lids forced open.
Yufei sat at the monitors. He was out of the way but close enough that he kept his son’s wrist wrapped in his large hand. His pulse felt erratic, but the monitors were stable. Gently he squeezes his son’s wrist. “Stay strong, Qi Qiong,” he says to himself, silently praying to any and all who’d listen.
The laser hummed.
The acrid smell of burning flared.
Li Ya then groans, metal-plastic clangs against metal. “Alright. The stoma is open,” she mutters. “I’ll adjust pigmentation markers and then introduce Alpha coding.” She reaches for a petri dish. “I’ve altered pheomelanin and added curcumin. Keep an eye on the EEG.”
Yufei grunts in response, straightening his shoulders and rubbing his thumb over his son’s tiny wrist.
Everything remains stable. It seems all impeccable.
But Qi Qiong’s skin is hot… too hot.
Yufei looks over the monitors, and nothing changes, but anxiety crawls up his stomach. “Li Ya.”
“I’m almost done.”
He can smell the burn of the laser again. The anxiety chokes him now.
“Li Ya,” he repeats.
The tool clangs, and she huffs out, “What, Yufei? What? I’m done, and he’s fine.”
“No… He’s burning up, Li Ya… It’s freezing in here, and he's burning up. Something is wrong; I can’t even smell him. These monitors are lying to me.”
Wait—
That was all wrong.
There should be something.
Sweetness. Heat.
Anything.
“Remove the restraints,” he ordered.
Li Ya only stepped back, her face written over in confusion.
Yufei jumped in instead. He removes the clamps and binds, smoothing over Qi Qiong’s soaked hair with trembling hands. He carefully removes any extra leads from his child’s body and leaves one IV catheter just in case.
“Li Ya, snap out of it. He’s not breathing; I can’t tend to you too,” he demands while quickly placing a pediatric ambu bag over Qi Qiong’s mouth and nose. He pops off the tubing cap and connects the oxygen line.
“Li Ya, if he dies—”
Qi Qiong’s small body then jerks violently. He seizes on the table, and Yufei quickly presses his arm against his shoulders to keep him from thrashing.
The few leads still attached finally spike; alarms ring erratically—this snaps Li Ya out of it.
“Sodium Valproate,” she demands.
Before Yufei can reach for the drawer containing the medicine, a sharp tone rings loud and constant. Qi Qiong goes completely still, and silence swallows the room, drowning out that one monotonous, shrill tone.
For one suspended second, the world held its breath.
Yufei and Li Ya froze, their eyes moving terrifyingly from their child to each other.
Then—
A gasp.
Qi Qiong’s small chest heaved.
His eyelashes fluttered, and his eyes opened painstakingly.
Not gold.
Not purple.
Grey…
They were mesmerizing. Not dull. Not storm-grey.
Ash.
They were luminous, like smoke drifting from a warm chimney. Like the smoke from Yufei’s familiar yet forgotten bad habit: cigarettes. They were so bright.
Li Ya stumbled back as if struck. Even Yufei stepped back slightly, feeling as if something just collapsed inside his chest.
They had not made an Alpha.
They had not erased an Omega.
They had done something much worse.
They had altered nature, and nature had answered.
This was proof they stepped out of the legal bounds of their secret contract. This… This was karma and consequence steamrolled into an innocent child.
Qi Qiong’s eyes slipped closed, and his chest resumed its shallow heaving.
All emotion drained from Li Ya’s face just as the color drained from Yufei’s.
“Burn it,” Li Ya said, voice emptied of everything but calculation. “Everything.”
If the government discovered unauthorized genetic alteration—
There would be no trial.
There would be no hesitation.
There would be no empathy.
Yufei moved like a soldier given his final orders.
He wiped the memory of every computer. Scrubbed and formatted each hard drive. He smashed vials and serums open, glass shards piling up inside a metal basin sink.
The scent of gasoline seeped into every surrounding molecule. He poured the liquid in silent trails along floorboards and up the staircase.
Upstairs, Li Ya held Qi Qiong against her chest. He was wrapped in that medical blue sheet, pressed to her bosom as his skin burned with renewed fever. His eyes fluttered wildly beneath closed lids.
She lay down on her and her husband’s bed and positioned herself over her son instinctively, shielding his body in one last effort.
Yufei then joined them, his scent tainted with gasoline and smoke.
He slipped into the bed on the other side of Qi Qiong and wrapped his arms protectively around his wife and son.
He handed her a vial.
The house began to breathe differently.
“I hope our eldest never knows,” Li Ya whispered.
Yufei shook his head and looked at the child between them. “He’ll know. Not everything, but he’ll know,” he responded. “I hope Qi Qiong forgives us, Li Ya.”
His eyes sweep over to her, and he frowns, pity held deep in his gaze as much as heartbreak and understanding. “You tried to give him a future with little to no troubles, and now here we are taking his future away completely. I won’t ask the Gods for forgiveness; we don’t deserve it,” he says quietly. “I will, however, use my last breath to beg them to give him a chance somehow.”
“Yufei…”
“Please, Li Ya, don’t,” he starts. “I don’t want to die resenting you too, Li Ya…” he whispers, curling his arms just a little tighter.
“I understood your fears; I still do. But that doesn’t mean I don’t detest myself for not trying harder. We didn’t give him a chance not because of fear, not entirely at least, but because we had no faith in our own child to withstand and push forward.” He sighed, closing his eyes to an emotion that knocked a little too hard.
Li Ya’s eyes glistened.
They uncapped their vials and drank.
The fire found the rest of the gasoline fairly quickly. It roared like a beast and swallowed the lower level first. It devoured the laboratory, the records, and all evidence of what they had done.
Then it grew.
Smoke seeped under the bedroom door and turned the air noxious and stagnant. Wood cracked and splintered, while glass shattered.
Yufei pulled his wife even closer, while Li Ya tightened her arms around Qi Qiong. Her body curved around his as if she could outlast the flames. She pulled the blue sheet over his head and kissed his hair.
“Mommy is so sorry… My babies… I’m so, so sorry…” she cried within her mind.
Li Ya’s grip loosened first, her body going limp in Yufei’s arms. Yufei wasn’t a man who cried often, but as his own strength began to fail him, he was able to press a kiss to his wife’s temple and Qi Qiong’s tiny covered shoulder before shortly falling limp as well.
The ceiling groaned. The walls moaned.
The door fell in, and the flames clung to the walls.
Between two still parents, a child breathed.
Ash would fall by morning, and the farm would be gone.
The Qi family would be reduced to rumor and hearsay.
And while somehow—a prayer answered perhaps—beneath charred beams and collapsed timber, a force would move, taking their future back into their own tiny hands; miles and miles away, a child bound by blood, taken by coma, will show signs of waking up for the first time in weeks.