Darkness
Acheron drifted in a void, swallowed by a suffocating blackness so thick it seemed alive. The fog wasn't just around him...it clung to him, leeching warmth and thought, coiling itself like chains around his mind. At first, the silence was strangely serene, a lull that dulled the ache of existing, but as the nothingness stretched endlessly onward, that silence grew sharp. It turned predatory. Loneliness seeped into the cracks of his spirit, a cold, familiar ache that pulsed like an old wound. It was the kind of solitude that didn't whisper, but pressed, bearing down on him until even his thoughts felt too loud.
His body was weightless, floating, or falling in a space without shape or edge. No matter how he strained, no matter how he reached, there was nothing. No ground. No sky. No sense of direction. Just the endless, crushing dark and then...
A scent.
Strange and intimate, it slithered into his awareness like a memory not quite his own. It crept along his skin, weaving around his limbs, threading into his lungs. It smelled of a wild, electric rainstorm, the kind that cracks the earth open and drags the sky down with it. The scent thickened until it was all he could taste, all he could feel, invading him like a living thing.
Warmth returned slowly and cruelly. It oozed through his limbs with the weight of cement, anchoring him. His back pressed against something firm. A grip encased his right hand, calloused fingers rubbing rhythmic circles into his skin. Familiar and grounding. The soft, relentless beep of a heart monitor pierced the darkness like a needle. Acheron felt gravity return, felt his bones knit back into place as reality took him prisoner once more. Voices surrounded him, ragged, hushed, trembling with fury and grief. A blur of figures, sobbing and accusations said in whispers. He strained against the heaviness in his eyelids, desperate to find the scent that had drawn him out of the abyss.
Once his eyes opened, they focused first on his father.
Oaklen Desrosiers, once the definition of poise and precision, now looked like a ghost wearing his skin. His usually immaculately combed hair, black streaked with silver, hung damp and dishevelled across his forehead. The razor-sharp jawline, always clean-shaven, now bore the rough shadow of unshaven days. His strong frame, so used to standing out in boardrooms and cocktail parties, slumped over the bed, reduced to a man simply waiting.
One hand gripped Acheron's leg, gently rubbing slow circles. The other clutched the edge of the mattress as though letting go would unravel him. The tailored suits and sharp confidence were gone. In their place sat a man hollowed by fear, his broad shoulders hunched under the sterile hospital lights, fighting a storm he couldn't calculate or control.
Seated beside Oaklen, the source of the firm grip wrapped tightly around, Acheron's hand was his mother, Ivy Desrosiers. Her beauty remained, untouched by time, though grief had painted her face in raw strokes. Heavy shadows bruised the skin beneath her eyes, and her nose, flushed and swollen from weeping, betrayed the endless hours she had spent in silent vigil. Despite this, she looked almost ethereal. Her long silver hair was pinned in its usual elegant up-do, exposing the delicate lines of her pale neck. She wore a flowing blue dress, soft as breath, and around her throat rested a fragile diamond necklace, one Oaklen had given her the day she'd brought Acheron into the world.
There had been whispers over the years, mutterings behind her back about wasted potential, about a woman who'd given up ambition to raise four children, but those whispers had always failed to understand the truth: Ivy Desrosiers was the quiet steel in the bones of their family. The kind of woman who held worlds together with hands that never trembled until now.
Yet, even bare-faced, even broken, she radiated grace. Her green eyes, sharp, alert and identical to Acheron's, lifted from the sterile floor just as he stirred. Their gazes locked, mirror meeting mirror.
A voice like velvet frayed at the edges, cut through the ringing in his ears.
"Eron… baby, are you awake?"
Acheron tried to answer, but his throat, dry and raw, refused to obey. Instead, he offered a faint nod, an effort that was punished instantly. A lance of pain shot through the back of his neck, tearing a sharp hiss from between his lips.
Ivy's expression changed in an instant. "Shoo, don't move lest you open up your wound again," she scolded, her voice still soft but edged with maternal warning. It was a tone Acheron had heard his whole life, the sound of concern dressed in command. She rose from the chair, her slender frame casting a thin silhouette against the harsh overhead light. As she adjusted the pillow behind his head, her eyes flicked down, scanning the white gauze still tightly wrapped around his neck. A soft sigh escaped her lips when she found no fresh blood.
Oaklen moved next. The scrape of the chair legs on the linoleum floor was jarring in the otherwise quiet room. Without hesitation, he reached over and pressed the small white button mounted beside the hospital bed, summoning the doctor. His hand lingered for a moment above the call panel before retreating to his side.
Acheron could see it, then his father's mask slipped. Those stoic lines on his face had cracked. His eyes, though still sharp, shimmered with unshed tears, but beneath the grief, buried deep in the set of his jaw and the rigid tension in his shoulders, something darker simmered.
Anger.
Not the kind that flared and passed, but the cold and tight kind. The kind that wrapped itself around fear and held on with both hands. That look in his father's eyes… someone was going to pay for it.
His father turned, shifting his focus to the third figure standing silently on the left side of Acheron's bed.
The man was striking, unmoving, yet unmistakably powerful in the way shadows respond to storm light. He stood straight and tall, wrapped in a sharply tailored dark navy suit that hugged his frame like armour. Broad shoulders, long legs, and a spine that seemed too straight for someone accustomed to comfort, but none of that kept the attention for long.
It was his irises, glowing like molten gold on a bed of midnight, that caught the breath in Acheron's throat. They gleamed, unreadable, as if forged from something older than firelight. Yet, they didn't just burn, they observed.
His jet-black hair was immaculately styled. A single, short fringe curved like a precise brush stroke over his left eyebrow, neatly trimmed, calculated, intentional. Everything about him felt exact, and yet… not quite real.
In his hands, he held a stack of documents, papers that fluttered with a whispering sound as he gestured while speaking in a low, measured tone to Oaklen. The timbre of his voice was too smooth, the kind that could lull you into agreement before you'd realised you'd been led. Acheron's eyes locked onto him, unable to look away.
It was him.
The scent that had pulled him back from the void.
The storm.
The thunder wrapped in rain.
There was something ancient in it. Something that had tangled in his veins and wrapped around his soul long before he understood he had returned to the waking world.
The man offered a final few words to Oaklen, his golden gaze flickering once toward Acheron with a cool, unreadable expression. And then, just like that, he turned and left the room. No pause or farewell. Just the soft hiss of the door opening and closing behind him.
Acheron's chest tightened, a subtle but sharp ache blooming beneath his ribs. An uncomfortable tug pulled at his heart, as though something vital had been wrenched away before he could name it. He inhaled, but the air felt too thin, too empty. The scent was gone.
He hadn't even heard the man's name, but the echo of him remained.
It hurt. Not with physical pain, but with a longing he didn't understand.
Fortunately, Acheron's spiralling thoughts were pulled away as the soft creak of the door's hinges broke the tense silence. A doctor entered the room with composed efficiency. Tall, clean-cut, with the faint scent of antiseptic that clings to his coat. Behind him trailed a younger man, slightly more relaxed in posture yet clearly familiar, his eldest brother. Kai.
"Mr. and Mrs. Desrosiers," Dr. Blois greeted Acheron's parents with calm respect, giving a courteous nod before turning his attention to his patient. He moved with quiet precision, the kind of confidence honed by years of repetition, but tempered by an awareness of the room's heavy emotional weight.
Without speaking further, Dr. Blois withdrew a small penlight from his coat pocket and swept it across Acheron's eyes, observing the flicker of his pupils. Then he placed a cold stethoscope to Acheron's chest, listening for fluid in the lungs, the sterile silence broken only by the gentle rise and fall of breath and the rhythmic beep of the monitor.
"So far, so good," he murmured, scribbling brief notes onto the chart. His tone remained clinical, yet not unkind. He glanced up again. "Please sit up. I'd like to examine your gland."
Acheron froze.
The words triggered a visceral response, as if a switch had been thrown in the back of his mind. His muscles tensed, his body pushing deeper into the bedding as though he could disappear inside it. Fear surged through him, instinctual and fierce, rendering him mute.
Dr. Blois didn't approach. He didn't coax or patronise. He simply waited, his posture relaxed, eyes steady. No pressure or pretence, just presence.
Acheron's breathing came shallow and quick. Kai took a step forward, but Oaklen raised a hand to stop him, reading the tension in his son's body with a quiet grimness.
Finally, after a long moment and a few shaky breaths, Acheron forced himself upright. The movement was slow and deliberate, with pain that twisted through each vertebra as he lifted his head and exposed the vulnerable curve of his neck.
Dr. Blois, a Beta and a specialist in glandular trauma, had seen this reaction before. He knew the fear that clung to Omegas, especially those who had been hunted, violated, or harmed. He'd expected resistance, even sedation. Instead, he found resolve, brittle and trembling, but present, in the Omega before him.
As he began to unwind the gauze, the top layers remained clean, but further in, the tell-tale stain of blood bled through in dark splotches. Acheron didn't flinch, but the way his hands clenched the bedsheets gave him away.
Dr. Blois betrayed no emotion. His hands moved with the reverence of ritual as he removed the final layers, revealing the swollen, inflamed gland beneath. Stitches criss-crossed angry, reddened skin. The area pulsed with rawness, but there were no signs of rejection or necrosis. An unexpected relief.
With the gentlest touch, he dabbed at the wound with a swab soaked in antiseptic, the skin twitching reflexively beneath his fingers. A faint wince crossed Acheron's face, but he remained still.
Dr. Blois re-wrapped the wound in fresh gauze, securing it snugly but not tightly. Then, instead of rising to leave, he lowered himself onto a small stool, his gaze settling on Acheron not just as a patient, but as a person.
There was something in that gaze.
Not pity.
Not curiosity.
Recognition.
He'd seen too many broken things try to piece themselves back together.
"You're healing well," he said softly. "Better than expected."
His voice did not carry triumph, only laced with caution, because healing and surviving were not the same. Acheron Desrosiers had only just begun the long, bitter road toward the latter.
"You likely have a dozen questions," Dr. Blois said, low and measured, "but before we get to any of them, I'd like to ask a few of my own. Would that be alright?"
Acheron studied the doctor, eyes flickering with uncertainty. His voice came out small, hesitant. "Y-yes… that's fine."
"Thank you," Dr. Blois replied with a reassuring smile, retrieving a clipboard from the table beside him. The pen clicked with quiet finality. "Let's start simple."
He glanced down at the paper. "Do you know who you are?"
"Yes," Acheron said, a little more steadily this time.
"What is your full name?"
"Acheron Desrosiers."
Dr. Blois nodded, scribbling quickly. "Do you recognise the two people sitting beside you? If so, what are their names?"
"My parents," Acheron answered without a pause. "Oaklen and Ivy Desrosiers."
Before the doctor could fire off another question, a voice cut in, warm and impatient.
"What about me, Eron?" his older brother asked, leaning forward with a grin. "Do you know who I am?"
Acheron's gaze slid toward him. For a moment, his face was unreadable. Then, a subtle smile broke through, dry and playful.
"No idea," he said flatly.
Kai gasped theatrically, stumbling against the hospital bed as if struck by an invisible force. "Right in the heart!" he declared, clutching his chest like a wounded actor on stage.
Their father reached over and gave Kai a light thump on the arm. "With antics like that, no wonder he's blocked you out. You behave like you're still twelve."
Kai chuckled and shrugged off the jab, sneaking a glance at Acheron. The tension in his brother's face had softened, and a quiet ease had returned to the room. Mission accomplished.
Before he could revel in the moment any longer, Dr. Blois cleared his throat gently.
"Now, Acheron," Dr. Blois said, pen once more poised above the clipboard, "can you tell me what you remember… about the night you went to the nightclub?"
The words struck like a gunshot in a silent room.
Acheron froze. A cold, invasive chill slithered down his spine, locking his muscles in place. His breath caught in his throat as fragmented images erupted behind his eyes, blinding strobe lights, acrid smoke curling in the air and the relentless pounding of bass against his ribcage like war drums.
The room around him dissolved. He was there again.
His heart thundered in his chest—faster, faster—until the monitor beside his bed began shrieking its protest, alarms flaring in violent harmony with his spiralling panic. Acheron doubled over, gasping. His hands flew to his head, fingers clawing at his scalp as if he could dig the memories out. Nails raked skin. Blood bloomed.
"Kai, hold his shoulders!" Dr. Blois barked, already drawing the sedative.
A sharp prick bit into Acheron's arm. The world tilted sideways. The chaos in his head slowed, thickened. His breathing evened, muscles relaxing against his will. The cold didn't leave, but it dulled, receded like a tide pulling back from shore.
As the sedative dragged him under, he could barely register the muffled voices above him, blurred and warbled as if underwater.
"…he won't survive police questioning in this state," Dr. Blois was saying to his parents. "Right now, the priority is to keep detoxing him, stabilise his neurochemistry, and bring in a trauma psychologist. Someone experienced. Someone who can safely begin unravelling what happened that night."
"But we know what happened," Oaklen snapped, anger twisting in his voice like a blade. "They drugged him. They tried to—"
Dr. Blois cut him off gently, but firmly. "We need to know if he volunta…"
The words faded, drifting into the void like smoke.
Acheron was already gone, sinking beneath the surface of his mind where the lights still flickered and shadows still whispered.
Even there, in the quiet of forced sleep, the darkness remained.