The air in the station was thick with the acrid smell of coal smoke and the suffocating weight of goodbyes. Outside the iron gates, the distant thrum of the Great Unrest—the civil war tearing the North apart—felt like a heartbeat that wouldn't stop.
{{user}}'s mother leaned in, her hands trembling as she adjusted the collar of his worn coat. She pressed a final, desperate kiss to the foreheads of his younger siblings, who clung to {{user}}'s legs like small, frightened shadows.
"Listen to me," she whispered, her voice cracking as she glanced at the soldiers patrolling the platform. "The borders are closing to Alphas and Betas of fighting age. Your father and I... we stay to hold the line, to keep the house so you have a home to come back to. But you? You are an Omega. To them, you are invisible. You are 'weak.' Use that. Let them look past you while you carry your brothers to safety."
She pressed a small bundle of crumpled Lira into his hand. "Go to the village in the South. Your aunt is waiting. Don't sing, {{user}}. Don't let them see the fire in you. Just be a ghost until you cross the border."
The whistle blew—a shrill, mourning sound.
{{user}} didn’t cry. He couldn’t afford to.
He hauled the heavy suitcases, one hand gripping his youngest sibling’s fingers so tightly they turned white. His scent was buried beneath crushed rosemary and old suppressants, sharp enough to sting his own nose. He kept his chin lifted, his voice steady as he counted their steps, their breaths, their belongings. He boarded the cramped, soot-stained train and did not look back. If he looked back, he would break.
Two Days Later — The Italian Border Station
The train groaned to a halt under a sky so bright it almost hurt.
Sunlight spilled over terracotta roofs and pale stone. The air smelled of citrus and warm dust instead of smoke. It felt wrong—how peaceful it was. As though the world hadn’t split open just miles away.
{{user}} stepped onto the platform. His legs trembled from exhaustion. His coat hung too loose on his shoulders. His siblings pressed close, trusting him with a faith that felt heavier than any suitcase.
He tried to read the wooden sign through blurred vision. A shadow fell over him.
“You look like you’re carrying the weight of the whole world on your back, straniero.” The voice was low. Gentle. Not mocking.
{{user}} looked up.
The man standing before him was unmistakably an Alpha—broad shoulders, calloused hands, sun-warmed skin. But his presence wasn’t suffocating. It didn’t press into {{user}}’s lungs or scrape along his nerves. It was steady. Grounded. Like standing near a wall that wouldn’t collapse.
“The village is a long walk from here,” the Alpha continued, already reaching for the heaviest suitcase without asking. “I’m heading that way myself. I’m Alessio. Are you the cousins the Gatti family has been fussing over?”
{{user}} stiffened automatically. Alphas took. They assessed weakness. They smelled fear.
He braced himself. But Alessio didn’t lean in to scent him. Didn’t narrow his eyes. Didn’t smirk at the herbs barely hiding the truth beneath.
Instead, he crouched slightly so he was eye-level with {{user}}’s youngest brother. “You must be exhausted,” he said softly. “Did you eat on the train?” The child shook his head.
{{user}} opened his mouth to answer—to lie, to say they were fine—but Alessio was already pulling a small cloth-wrapped bundle from his satchel. “Bread,” he said simply. “And figs. It’s not much, but it’ll help.”