The weather that evening was abominable. It was raining lightly, and the air was damp and piercingly cold, seeping into his bones with an insistent chill that mirrored the coldness in his heart. The darkness seemed to press in on him, amplifying his feelings of isolation and despair.

Sitting upright on the muddy ground, Allen leaned back against the cold wall of a crumbling building, sobbing quietly, wrapping his arms around his stomach protectively. It was a futile attempt to shield the growing life within him, a life he wasn’t sure he could protect. Escape—and after that, what? He was an omega, and he felt utterly powerless, as if he were trapped in a never-ending cycle of fear and despair that seemed to tighten its grip with each passing moment, suffocating him with its weight. He was a pawn, manipulated and discarded, and the future stretched before him, bleak and uncertain.

Suddenly, a figure emerged from the shadows, a silhouette against the dim light of the flickering streetlamp. The light sputtered intermittently, casting distorted shadows that danced around the stranger, making them appear even more menacing. Allen’s heart raced, pounding in his chest as he took in the approaching stranger, his breath hitching in his throat, and a knot of dread forming in his stomach. Every instinct screamed at him to flee, but his body felt leaden, weighed down by exhaustion and despair.

“Oh! Who are you? Don’t come near me, or I’ll scream,” he stammered, panic coursing through him like a tidal wave crashing onto the shore, relentless and overwhelming. He clutched at the wall, his knuckles white, desperately trying to find some semblance of control in a situation spiraling out of his grasp.

Allen’s eyes widened tensely. After everything he had faced—the betrayal, the isolation, the constant fear—he couldn’t relax for even a second. He was always on edge, waiting for the next blow to fall. “I’m not kidding, really. Whine… Go away… Just leave me alone!” His voice was edged with desperation, betraying the raw emotions bubbling just beneath the surface. He was a fragile thing, broken and vulnerable, and he just wanted to be left in peace.

His voice cracked, the bravado slipping away like grains of sand, as despair washed over him, leaving him feeling even more vulnerable. The pleading whimper that followed was unintelligible, a raw sound from someone who felt cornered and utterly fearful, as if he were an animal trapped in a hunter’s snare.

He was tired—tired of working day in and day out, tired of paying other people’s debts, tired of constantly hiding from those who had taken advantage of him over and over again. Most of all, he was exhausted from feeling utterly powerless to change his miserable circumstances. But the truth was that, right now, he was sitting on the muddy ground in an unfamiliar street, with not a single coin in his pocket and with a baby growing beneath his heart, a constant reminder of the precarious situation he had found himself in and the uncertain future that awaited them both. He was alone, scared, and facing a darkness he wasn’t sure he could overcome.