Although everything in my body wanted me to run, I was incapable of doing so. The only thing I could manage to get my body to do was curl up.

I couldn’t remember why I wanted to run nor where I was. I was dizzy and everything in my body was throbbing. I was crying uncontrollably over something I couldn’t even remember. Then everything went black.

The next thing I remember was waking up inside Maelstrom’s arms. I was confused because I thought that we had left the dorm, but I was still in his embrace so I must have fallen asleep in his arms. I wondered how long I had been asleep and wondered if I should move.

I didn’t want to leave the warmth of his body, but I couldn’t stay there forever. I drew in a deep breath from my nose relishing the sweet scent created by his pheromones and slowly let the breath out through my mouth. The walk must have been some crazy dream.

“Are you awake?” Maelstrom asked, causing a small vibration to run through his chest.

“Yes.” I meekly answered.

“Are you okay now?” 

“I think so.” I opened my eyes and pulled away. 

With my eyes opened, I was faced with the truth and to my horror, we were not in the dorm room. My heart rate picked back up as I recalled the situation. I couldn’t remember exactly what set me off, causing me to feel uneasy.

As I was collecting myself and my thoughts I heard footsteps from behind me. Instinctively, I growled, trying to prevent whoever it was from getting closer. Although I didn’t know who it was, my body was telling me to keep them away and that they were a threat.

The unknown person obeyed my warning and stopped. From where they stood, they announced, “I’m going to get the doctor, but I believe an anxiety prescription would benefit you greatly.”

I listened as they walked away and opened a door. This was great. I was officially going to be a medicated mental patient. I groaned into Maelstrom’s chest, letting out a little of my frustration. I still wasn’t sure what happened to me and how he got into the room.

He was rubbing small circles into my back, making me want to stay there, but I knew that I would have to leave his embrace sooner or later.

I pushed myself away from his body and slowly removed myself from his embrace. As I looked around the room, I found myself wanting to crawl back into Maelstrom's arms which is exactly what I did.

As I followed my instincts, I finally understood what happened. I should have pieced it together sooner, but a part of my brain didn’t want to accept the fact that I had completely lost a battle to my omega, and it was still controlling me.

I didn’t know how to put it back inside its box, nor how to completely regain control over it. I was going to have to wait for it to subside on its own. Subgenders were a tricky thing to understand. They determined a lot of factors about the body and its physiology. They are part of the body, yet they are still their own entities. They are like a second personality.

We can choose to let our subgenders take control over certain situations, or they can completely take control overriding your own wishes. Most refer to their subgenders as their instincts as they are a primal part of our being.

Although nothing had really threatened me in the doctor’s office, my omega reacted to my anxiety and tried to help me. Instincts aren’t always the most educated parts of ourselves, but they never intend to hurt us.

It was humorous to think about. An omega’s way of helping in threatening situations was to ball up and black out. How was that helping? In actuality, it makes a huge difference. Balling up makes us a smaller target and allows us to cover our most vital organs. We black out so that we can’t feel any of the pain that’s about to come our way. In addition to this, our omega starts secreting a distress hormone in hopes it attracts help.

With all that said, I was still at the mercy of my omega. It wasn’t ready to go back to its secluded part of my subconscious as it was still scared. It wanted to be present in case it was needed again.

I was in control over my body, but my omega had strong influences on me. I could choose to leave Maelstrom’s embrace again, but my omega would just long to return. At that moment, I decided to agree with my omega.

Unlike myself, my omega wasn’t scared of alphas, so while I was still hesitant towards Maelstrom, my omega loved his attention. My instinct's affinity towards Maelstrom troubled me. Not just because of my fear of alphas, but because I shared a room with this alpha. Things could get real dicey if one of our instincts decided to draw out the others.

Although as a community we don’t understand how our instincts communicate with one another, we do know that they can. In years past, people used to believe this communication between instincts meant they were destined to one another causing many people to label it as pair bonding. Some people still believe in this, but science today shows that instincts can communicate with as many other instincts as it wishes and in many cases do. This means the destined for one another hypothesis just isn’t accurate and has caused many people to end up with people they later loathe.

In our history, there have also been stories about how we used our instincts to directly talk to someone who wasn’t nearby, but today, we don't know how to do that or if it was ever truly possible. It was crazy to think that our species has been alive for millions of years, yet we apparently lost a lot of understanding of our subgenders through the years.

The room was silent when the doctor walked in. “Hello there Mr. Soto. I have talked to the nurse and concluded that you need anxiety medication. I have two prescriptions here. One for prozac which will be a long term medication. It will take a little over a month to notice the effects of this drug, so I want you to use xanax for attacks that pop up while you’re waiting for the prozac to take effect. The prozac prescription is for a month so you will need to come back a week before you run out to get a check up and a renewed prescription. Do you have any questions?”

I shook my head against Maelstrom’s chest. I wasn’t going to speak to this man. I could tell he was an alpha and that made me uneasy.

I allowed my omega to growl when the doctor approached me. He was presumably to hand me the papers with my prescriptions on them, but I didn’t want him near me.

“Alright then. I’ll set these on the counter, and you can leave whenever you’re ready.” I listened as the door opened and closed.

“Are you ready to leave? I can carry you out; I don’t mind.” Maelstrom offered.

I took a moment to consider it. I could walk out on my own, but I was comfortable in Maelstrom’s arms. However, it was embarrassing to think that people would be staring at me in his arms. Then again, people had been staring while I was walking Maelstrom so what was the difference?

There was also the problem of where he was going to carry me. Would he take me back to the dorm, or would he give me a tour of the campus while I was in his arms?

“I don’t want to walk, but I still need to find my classes.” I admitted to him.

“Okay, then let’s go to the drill field and sit for a minute and just talk until your omega relaxes.”

“That sounds good.” I nuzzled my face against his chest, allowing my omega to get its fill of an alpha.

Maelstrom stood up with me in his arms. As he left the room he grabbed my prescriptions and shoved them into his pocket. Once outside the clinic I could feel Maelstrom slowly withdrawing his pheromones.

It was a nice sunny day, and the warm rays from the sun were refreshing as we sat in the grass on the drill field. I was no longer attached to Maelstrom, but rather rolling around in the grass letting it tickle my skin.

I looked up at the sky and watched the clouds move against the blue sky. The area was surprisingly peaceful with few people interrupting the silence.

We stayed like this for some time before Maelstrom spoke. “Are you feeling better now? Is your omega still tugging at you?”

He was asking if I was in complete control over myself which I was. “Yeah I’m fine now, but I still don’t know why that happened.”

“Your omega decided you were in trouble. There’s nothing wrong with that.”

“Did you come to me because a nurse asked you or were you responding to my pheromones?” I wanted to know how close his alpha was to my omega.

An alpha could choose to respond to an omega’s distress call, but most won’t interfere if they can’t tell what the threat is. In some cases, the subgender directly calls to another subgender which usually gets a better response from alphas. By asking Maelstrom why he came to me, I was basically asking if he came because he was asked to or if my omega called for his alpha.

He responded with a small snort before answering, “You didn’t release any pheromones, so I couldn’t have responded to that, but a nurse also didn’t ask me to come in.”

“I don’t understand. Then why did you come to the room?”

“Let’s just say I think you omega fancies my alpha.”

“I don’t get it.” I groaned.

“Your omega told my alpha you were in trouble. My alpha then told me, so I came to see what was happening.”

I didn’t say anything in return. I wasn’t sure how to respond to something like that. I hoped that Maelstrom didn’t think too much into the fact that my omega liked him. My instincts may like him but that didn’t mean that I liked him too.