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.