Men are... dogs. I know something about it. I am one of them.

We didn't really have a choice to be like that. We had simply survived as we could, in shit, chaos, and murders. And for good reason, if humanity were a bitch, we could only be too. Beat the fire with the fire. We were the puppets of our desires, and we tried to resist them, sometimes, but nature was stronger. Humanity was stronger, and it had proven it to us more than once. She crushed us with her reality.

We were at the beginning of a month.

Kaïry was fourteen years old. He was a young boy, so young that his secondary sex had not yet been revealed. He had miraculously known how to avoid trouble until then. Like the last little star visible through the only skylight of the prison, he had shine, honestly, with a naivety that some of us had appreciated. But the darkness had caught up with him. I didn't know what had pushed others to fall on him, but they were really enraged. They had beaten him, and his little voice had broken, mingling with the enthusiasm that this situation had triggered.

They had broken each of the joints of his hands. One of them had even broken the knees of the little one. It was nothing human, or at least I thought so. Human or inhuman, the border was thin, too much. It seemed to me to have a vague sense of justice. Killing a child seemed too much to me, but did it mean that we would have to forgive the crimes of every kid? No one hadn't spared mine. Never. Why would it be different for Kaïry?

His blood had spread, and the blueness of the latter almost attacked our retinas in all this monochrome decor. He was dead in agony, screaming for help and crying for pity, but no one had raised a finger. The warders had remained behind, weapons in hand: "If it doesn't affect us, it doesn't concern us," had they always said. And that had been the rule of all of us. From "prison", this place had only the name unlike the others that the prisoners had been able to visit.

I would have called it more of a kennel, an arena, or a firing squad. Some had the chance to know the surface before doing the biggest bullshit of their lives that had brought them here. Those people never remembered how it was up there. And we could only look through the skylight: a pile of gray clouds or a simple star. What was above us? Who could know? Those above us... Those who had sent us here  never showed themselves.

The warders barely spoke. They were good docile dollies.

I looked away from the little one and put my eyes on my shitty food, in my dish. This sight had made me lose my appetite. I pushed back my tray, and as soon as the space freed up, a hand landed on the table. The weight of a heavy body pushed against my shoulders, and I looked up, jaded. I met some amused glances while the lips of the stranger were in my ear. Surprised? No. As I said, we were at the beginning of a month.

It meant that the new ones had arrived this morning. Spirits had naturally warmed up to the idea of the unusual, and it was always like that. The new dogs were moving their tails. Those who came from the surface came here with the wacky idea that we, the omegas of SOTA prison, were weaker than the others. If they forgot everything about where they came from, their animal instincts remained.

The truth was quite different.

"I had never seen someone like you. Where are you from, beauty?"

His wide hand grabbed my chin and, with strict pressure, forced me to raise my head towards him. He was nothing different from the others. A big guy, looking hungry, slave to his body and bullshits. A satisfied smile cut his lips, and I knew what he was going to refer to.

"Fuck, they look like real amethysts! You have a fucking look!"

I put my hand on his chest and pushed him back. I got up in order to properly face him. I took great care not to lose his attention. I waited, patiently. He could still step back and be reasonable, but the animals of his kind did not seek to resist. He wasn't trying for it. His dirty hands clung to my hips and suddenly brought me back against his body. His pheromones had already been driven away by the drugs, but I could still perceive some disgusting scents.

His fingers went down against my ass, visibly judging that I was his. I tightened my jaw. His? Who did he take himself for? We were all hounds, but there were really some of the worst species. I then raised my hands against his firm jaw. I held him firmly while a satisfied air filled his face. I smiled at him, and his smile disappeared immediately. I planted my fangs in his throat, and hearing him scream in pain made chills rise in my body.

The human was curious.

Faced with death, everyone acted differently. Some had tried to push me away; others had screamed in agony; and those who remained had frozen in the pain of the moment. He tried to push me away. With a jump, I wrapped his hips with my legs, holding him firmly against me. I pulled my teeth into his throat as hard as I could. His trachea resisted under my mouth. His body felled to the ground, and I untied my legs to put my feet on the ground before I was stuck.

I held his face and pulled even harder. A piece of his throat gave in at the same time as he lost consciousness. I got up, shivering with satisfaction, and contemplated his corpse. Ha, I didn't go easily! I took off with my tongue the pieces of flesh stuck between my teeth and spat on the ground. There were cries of euphoria around me. They had a bunch of contentment whistling. Some people advanced, only familiar heads, and they leaned over the body.

Break touched his pulse, and Ivan noticed the state.

"Dead," said Break.

"You took off his cartilage from this one, Dante!"

Following his statement, Ivan whistled with admiration, and I winked at him.

Those on the surface arrived here thinking that we were there for their desires.

But the truth was quite different. We were real enraged dogs. And we were certainly freer than those up there. You didn't have to be a genius to understand. It was enough to see how most of the new ones tried to treat us, we omegas. We were perhaps considered, all of us from SOTA prison, to be less than nothing. We had little honor, but obviously always more than this shit on the floor.

I advanced towards them and pretended to fall into Ivan's arms. He caught up with me, and, with a falsely indignant face, I exclaimed my disapproval.

"My love ball has wreaked havoc again! Why did I look so beautiful!"

They laughed heartily and leaned with the same movement towards my throat. Understanding the intention, I gently threw my head backwards. Their noses came to caress my neck, and I closed my eyes when they went so far as to nibble. Break was a mass killer; Ivan was a weapons dealer, one of the most important that had been. They too came from up there; they too didn't remember anything, but it's been years now. The only thing we could all know about each other were our crimes.

These two were alphas—real human shit. They had killed more people than me and many of us. They were unrecoverable, but for some reason I didn't know, I loved them. Yeah, it wasn't just comrades we never hoped to meet once out of here. No, I loved them so much that I wanted to see them again once out of this shit. So I closed my eyes. The suppressors we took every two days suppressed our pheromones, but it was not only that that calmed us down.

Contacts with trusted people were incredible. Feel their smells, their noses against my flesh, their reassured moans, and their bites, that... that was fantastic! They were not trying to go any further. These guys were just making sure I was fine; that I was better now. And shit, fuck, yeah, I was serious! Ivan kept me against him, but their faces moved away. Break slipped his long boney fingers against my cheek, then under my eye before smiling.

"It's the same refrain at the beginning of every month. We always find an asshole or two to try to jump on everything that moves in this palace." explained Break.

"And it's every time on the first day. Like, their tails can't last a few hours!" added Ivan.

"But wait, it's not you who tried the first day too?"

"You're kidding, of course it's him. But I admit that he at least tried to discuss it before, which I made fun of."

Ivan raised his hands and tried to defend himself with an unlogical apology. He was just a big pervert, and everyone knew it—Break and I even more. But he was... respectful. He was not forcing it. Even in this shitty place, we had periods, and the new ones learned it at their expense. I glanced at the corpse, and when the alarm sounded, I walked on the body to return to my cell. Strident and nightmarish—that's how I called this shitty alarm: ten times a day, every day.

"Who will share your cell now? It will be a new one, like always."

Break was not wrong. With what had happened in the courtyard, I was going to be assigned a new cellmate. Ivan leaned towards me, and his hand joined mine. I felt the coldness of metal, and I understood that he was giving me a makeshift weapon.

"Don't get caught with that, Dani," moaned Break. "But…"

"You've already torn off a guy's throat. The others will be suspicious now, so keep it on you. If your new teammate is an alpha, he will look for you." explained Ivan.

And it wasn't new. These two told me the same thing at the beginning of each month, but it reassured them, and me too. I nodded wisely, and we took a few minutes before arriving. We each settled in front of our cells. We were in pairs in tamper-proof steel cages, stacked on top of each other. Hundreds of billions upward, hundreds of billions to the left and right, hundreds of billions in front of us; everywhere. Break and Ivan were my neighbors.

There was no privacy. Everything was visible in all the cells. Piss? Shit? Kiss? It was a show shared by all! You don't even need to approach!

« Hi. I'm Frani. I... I share your cell!"

Our three heads turned to the voice. And I wanted to laugh. Fuck, it was a joke? Was I going to have to live with all the little ones in the prison? A kid of... damn, but how old was he? Fifteen or sixteen years, maybe. What did this bastard do to get here? Frani? The others were going to make only one bite of him. I was giving this kid two days. Two days before, they were demolished to death, or worse. Often, beating to death was the sweetest here.

Sound "beeps" resounded throughout the prison, and the latter was briefly illuminated with a green glow. At our wrists, our bracelets confirmed that we were all in our respective areas. If it hadn't been the case, "boom" and a rain of guts! Who wants good spaghetti with tomato sauce? Huuum, yum!

The cells opened, and I collapsed on my bed. Break and Ivan did the same on the latter's bed, thus settling back with me. Break's gray hair even tickled my neck.

"What's your name?"

I looked up at the new kid. He wasn't going to let me go.

"What if you told me why you're here instead?"

"Thief," he replied bluntly.

I agreed. His hopeful look breaks my balls. I didn't know what the kids saw in me, but fuck, I attracted them like flies! I raised my knees to my chest and put my arms on them. There is no way it will start again. I was going to fix things right from the start.

"And you? Why are you here?"

I lost my words for a few moments. I was going to send him a scathing reply, but Ivan got involved.

"Dani is not like us. He was born here."

I pulled his hair for the obvious purpose of hurting him, to make him regret it, but in view of the painful cry he uttered, I imagined that Break had hit him at the same time. Frani's eyes were sparkling with curiosity. He was... so alive.

"Dani, that's your first name, right? And you were born here? I didn't know it was possible! Do you…"

"It's Dante for you and the others," I interrupted him.

My voice was accusatory enough for him to stand up, like a scolded child.

"Let me guess, kiddo. You saw me jump at the throat of an alpha, and you told yourself that I could be your savior. Did you think that because Ivan and Break, alphas, were friends with me, you could take advantage of them? You're not at home. I don't know what they taught you up there or who taught you, but here, it's different."

I leaned toward him.

"The kid who occupied your place for quite some time just got his face burst to death. Kaïry was younger than you, and he had the good sense to shut up and be forgotten. And he should have continued. Do you want to live? Shut up. Attack when it's necessary and who it's needed, but don't come and look at me as if I were your fucking messiah or worse, your mother."

And he was silent. He lowered his eyes, and I saw the little hope he had extinguished with my words. It was better like that. We survived better without selling each other out of the dream.

"Wow, you weren't tender with that one!" Ivan laughed.

Break remained silent, but I felt his fingers against my neck.

Kids were the worst.