Chapter Text
“Name?”
“Cain”
“Age?”
“19”
“Secondary Gender?”
“Beta”
“All clear, you may now step forth.”
The sound of a pen scribbling on paper could be heard after each question. The scribbling was grating on the ears, the only time it stopped was when the sound was replaced by the ripping of paper. That same paper which was handed to him.
The words on the paper meant nothing to Cain, but it seemingly meant everything to the Officials.
He’d gone through many previous examinations this past month, they checked everything; physical appearance, capabilities, knowledge, vision, senses, durability, communication, strength, speed, etc. Cain doubted there was a single thing they’d missed. Why was all this testing even needed? No one really knew but a third of the population was subjected to it.
He stared at the paper in his hand for a good minute until those behind him began growing impatient, clearing their throats and glaring daggers at him. He couldn’t help but roll his eyes in response. Didn’t they know he was just as annoyed as they were? No one wanted to be here.
The line behind him was long with many people waiting for their turn. All of them were asked the same questions, all had gone through the same examinations, all were here not because they wanted to be, but because they had to be, all were tired and wanted answers… but they got none. Everything was confidential, it was ridiculous how this system was run.
Cain couldn’t help but glare at the official as he passed by him, heading for the doors he had been directed to. Of course the official didn’t even bat an eye in response, instead he was too occupied questioning those behind him.
Cain sighed and headed for the door. They creaked as they opened, in need of new hinges. Behind them stood a woman in black, a contrast to the usual white the officials normally wore. She was quick to snatch the paper he had just been given.
It was examined throughly, her brows furrowing in occasion as if something on the paper troubled her but soon enough she was done looking through it and pulled aside one of her fellow workers. The two women exchanged brief conversation before parting ways. This caused Cain to raise suspicion.
The worker she was previously speaking with pulled Cain aside to inject a strange blue liquid into a bulging vein on his wrist. It stung for a moment, leaving a weird blue glow on the very spot it had been injected, but other than that, he didn’t look nor feel any different.
“Down the hall, to 036” the woman instructed.
With no reason to resist nor anywhere else to go, he felt obliged to do as he was told. That was all he’d been doing lately it seemed.
He walked for a bit, keeping and eye out for room 036 and before Cain even knew it, his feet came to a halt. He stared at the door in silence for a moment, something caught him off guard. This was certainly not the first door he’d stood in front of this past month.. but for some reason, it felt like whatever was behind here would change his life forever, and Cain wasn’t too sure if that was a good thing.
He looked around anxiously, the only things he saw around him were a few others looking for the rooms they’d been instructed to go to. Other than that, nothing was out of place.
He grit his teeth and reached for the knob, knowing that standing here in silence wasn’t going to get him anywhere.
The door opened with a loud creak as it revealed what was in the small room. To cain’s surprise, there were a group of 4 in the middle of the room, all sitting around a rectangular table with two empty chairs on either side of it. One of the empty chairs was obviously for himself while the last seemed to be waiting on someone else.
Cautiously, Cain moved towards one of the chairs and sat himself atop it, briefly glancing at the other men in the room. A few of the others glanced back, but other than that, they paid him no mind. Everyone was preoccupied with their own situation.
This didn’t bother Cain in the least, in fact he preferred this. It seemed that each of them were tired and didn’t feel the least bit interested in talking. Even if they did have something to say, luckily they’d read the room’s atmosphere and kept their mouths shut for the sake of the others.
Cain couldn’t help but wonder why they were all here.. though if he had to assume, his mind immediately went to one possible reason
Experimenting
• • •
A few hours passed, though it felt like an eternity. There was no clock in the room, but it had been so long that Cain could have sworn he heard the constant ticking of one. The silence was still as strong as ever. During the time he’d sat there, a bit of personality of those around him had shown itself, giving Cain a better understanding of his peers.
The man to his right had his head against the table this whole time, seemingly comfortable enough to have fallen asleep. His wavy hair was a deep brunette color and his skin was nice and fair, though his eyes were closed, even Cain had to admit that he could be called attractive.
Meanwhile the man to his left was the exact opposite of the brunette, in fact the only thing they seemed to have in common was a decent appearance. The man was constantly tensed and had a frown on his face almost the whole time. He had perfectly tanned skin and his hair, though short and messy, was a deep red with black roots. Obviously it had been dyed at some point. As for how the color lasted that long without fading? Well that was a mystery in itself.
The man to the right of the brunette kept fidgeting anxiously, Cain wondered if he was scared or just impatient. The Male had short platinum blonde hair and pale skin, his build was perhaps the largest of them all with a tattoo of what looked to be a dragon running down his right arm. If they weren’t in this testing facility, Cain could have sworn that the man would have been stationed in the military or mob with that appearance.
The last man he had yet to observe seemed the most expressive of the bunch, a smile crossed his features every now and again, not to mention he kept rocking in his chair, despite the fact that he nearly fell off it a few times. His booted feet were on the table and his hands behind his head. Cain almost wanted to scoff while looking at him. The man had short black hair, his eyes a deep golden-brown color and his skin fair. He was no doubt as attractive as the rest but something about him rubbed Cain the wrong way and told him to be wary around the man.
If Cain had to guess, he’d assume each and every one of them to be alphas, yet he couldn’t really tell unless he asked. He didn’t like the idea of being the only beta here. Wouldn’t that put him at the bottom of the group’s hierarchy? Alphas were the ‘superiors’ after all. He almost rolled his eyes at the thought, a word of “bullshit” almost slipping out of his mouth. But this just rose more questions. Why would there be a room full of alphas and one beta? Just what was going on here?
The click of a doorknob turning immediately caught everyone’s attention, awakening the sleeping brunette. All eyes were now focused on a suited woman who’d just entered the room. The woman seemed momentarily surprised by all this attention before smiling brightly, “Oh goodie! Everyone is here!” She beamed and hurried herself towards the last open chair.
The woman had wavy black hair, practically glowing tanned skin, and striking green eyes. Her figure was slim and her height was tall, but her aura no doubt screamed ‘Alpha’. So much so that even a few of the men at the table found themselves intimidated at her presence.
Though it was clear she was an official by the whole black suit setup, she was certainly the first official Cain had seen with a smile on her face.
Once she was sat and settled with whatever papers she was holding now flat on the table, the woman cleared her throat and began speaking, “As you all know, we’ve been conducting test on all of you this past month, and let me say that I’m very proud of you all! You five are the team we’ve been looking for! You all excelled perfectly in at least two or more of the test and now we can finally put you five together to make, what us Officials are referring to as, Alpha Elite!”
Not an ounce of this was making sense to Cain at all, and with a quick view of the room, it seemed he wasn’t the only one.
Seeing the confusion on everyone’s faces, the woman spoke again. “I know I know! A lot of information at once, let’s start slow.” She chuckled, pulling out a pen from her pocket and grabbing one of the papers in front of her.
”My name is Cathleen Jones, though I hope you guys will never need to see me again after this. My job is to form groups according to skill sets and dispose of those that can’t uphold their place within their group. Should I ever need to come back here, one of you will surely be removed.” She explained, her smile never faltering.
“Do you guys remember years ago, when everyone was separated into districts? Family’s were forced apart, media was going crazy, all those riots, protest, and much more. It was certainly an ugly sight.” Cain flinched at her words.. he didn’t remember any of this.
”Cathleen, was it?” one of the men spoke up, it was the one with platinum blonde hair, “Just what are you talking about? I don’t remember any of this!”
”Me, neither, but knowing you officials I’d assume you’d done something to our memories,” the black haired across from the platinum blonde agreed, his feet still propped up on the table without a care.
”Now now, let me continue.” She chuckled and resumed conversation, “Over time the districts populations lowered because people were being taken from their districts to be examined. As you all know, examinations take time! And to be honest, all of your examinations were the quickest considering your capabilities. Normally examinations take around 4 or 5 months, but you all managed within one! Isn’t that amazing?!” her smile only widened, but Cain was still struggling to understand what there was to smile about.
“Now, whether you believe my next set of words or not, I want you all to listen carefully to what I have to say.” She glanced between the five of them, locking eyes with each one to make sure she had their attention, “Us Officials have spent MANY years figuring out how to open other realities, and after years upon years, we’ve finally done it. As expected, there are endless realities for us to choose from and we wish to explore them all!” She paused, “However. Not one person can explore each and every reality, and we only have so many officials to chose from, so of course the best way to examine multiple realities at a time is to send out multiple… explorers.”
The room was quiet for a long minute, this information processing in everyone’s brains. The redhead to cain’s left was the first to react.
The man stood up quickly, his fist slamming into the table and his chair falling to the floor, “You fucking kidding me?! You want to send us into another fucking dimension to act as your lab rats once again?! What about our families?! Is this where you’ve taken them all!? Some world we can NEVER see them again?!” A vein was bulging from the man’s head, his face red and twisted with anger, his teeth clenched together and his red eyes glaring daggers into the woman’s green.
The woman sighed, “Please sit down Mr. Wilson, we are not done discussing matters.”
”Fuck that shit! I’d rather slit my own throat then put up with another one of your fucking experiments!”
The woman stayed calm and collected, this was certainly not her first angry encounter by the looks of it. “If you do not take a seat then I will need to call for back up, and I’m sure you do not want a repeat of last time.” She smiled at him, though it wasn’t a warm smile by any means, it was a warning.
”Fucking shit!” He cursed loudly and harshly picked his knocked chair back up, sitting back down with obvious irritation.
“Anyways, as I was saying. Because we need people to help explore these realities, we’ve taken a nice portion out of the population and spread them into realities best suited for their abilities. Of course this also helps our reality in return. As you all know, earth is extremely overpopulated with limited resources so taking a good bit out of our population helps us stabilize.” As she spoke, the woman wrote a few things down on each of her papers and handed them out, giving the specific person their own paper. With a quick glimpse, the paper seemed to be their profile, containing all information that had been collected on them.
”If you all turn to the next page, you will see where you have excelled. As I said before, each of you excelled in at least two of these categories, and by combining your abilities, I believe you all will be best fit for one of our…. Harsher, realities.”
Cain felt his stomach drop, this didn’t feel right, “What do you mean.. Harsher?” He kept his eyes on the paper, staring at the words Vision and Hearing, the two categories he had excelled in.
“Well as you can expect, not all realities are peaches and cream! Hell, even the ones that are like that also have their dark sides! But the realities I’m talking about are the ones that have almost no bright side. Of course we needed a very specific range of people to attend these realities. We can’t just put a few children and elderly in there and expect them to know how to defend themselves after all. We aren’t so cruel.”
The woman glanced at her watch and cleared her throat, “I’m sure you all are aware of the words, zombie apocalypse, no? Well the reality we will be transporting you to will be very similar to the stories. Infected storming the streets, the fight for survival, refugees, colonies, all that good stuff! Of course we will be sure to send all of you with a month’s worth of food, supplies, a handbook with the current knowledge we have of this reality and bottles and vitals that you five can collect samples in. Should you need any more that, you will have to find it when you get there. Understood?”
A million words of protest were stuck on the tip of Cains tongue, this all sounded like a sick fucking joke. However, even he knew that she wasn’t asking a question. The officials didn’t care for their opinions. In their eyes, they were just test subjects that would provide answers. Cain swallowed, but his throat was dry.
”Well then!” Her cheery voice rang through, “seeing as there’s no protest, I’ll be showing you all to your quarters for the night and come morning, you will be transported into your new reality!” She smiled brightly once more and stood from her chair.
With great reluctance, the rest followed suit.
It didn’t take very long for her to bring them to a small room with four beds and a single bathroom. She’d said that since groups usually held 3 or 4 members then they didn’t have an extra bed to spare so one of us would need to sleep on the floor. Of course groans of protest were followed by this, yet she simply smiled.
After explaining a few more things, the woman eventually made her exit, saying something about needing to meet with other groups.
The moment she’d left, the beds were quickly taken by four of the members, the only one left without a place to sleep being the quick to temper redhead.
Cain had almost expected the man to start shouting like he had at Cathleen, but upon closer inspection, the male seemed too stuck in his head to care. His whole aura seething with rotten negativity.
Before Cain knew it, it was well into the night. Everyone else had already fallen asleep.. either that or they were just like him, laying down wide awake, doing nothing but awaiting the dreadful day tomorrow would bring. Cain almost wanted to laugh at just how ridiculous this all was.