Surrogate For Alpha Dom

Trigger warning: suicidal ideation – please take care!

Ella

I’m about to hoist myself up onto the frozen railing when two robed figures appear on either side of me, their faces both familiar and strange. There’s something about them that sets off alarms in my mind, but not the usual kind. It feels as though I’m trying to remember something from another life … from someone else’s life.

I don’t have the faintest idea where they came from, and I don’t really care. Cora’s safe at the orphanage and it’s not as if they can do worse to me than what I’ve already survived. Maybe this is even fate answering my question, giving me a way out in her typical morbid fashion. Perhaps an icy plunge is too easy an end for me, perhaps I must know one final agony before I go. “Are you here to kill me?” I ask in a voice I don’t recognize.

“Do you want to die?” One asks, leaning his arms against the icy metal.

“It’s not that I want to die.” I hiccup, tears falling from my lashes and freezing against my cheeks. “It’s just that I don’t want to live if this is all life has to offer… and I’m afraid that this is truly all there is for me. I have no reason to believe otherwise.” I shake my head forlornly, “they say the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over but expecting different results. So I would be crazy to think I can keep meeting the sun each morning without inviting more heartache… wouldn’t I?”

‘That depends. What you call crazy, others might call hope.” The second man replies, making no move to look at or touch me. The three of us simply stare out at the frozen expanse with the same melancholy spirit, watching the river rushing below the ice so far below.

“Hope is a privilege for those born in the light.” I reply, not entirely understanding where these words are coming from. “They know that the darkness is only temporary because they don’t belong there… but how am I to believe in light when I’ve never seen it?”

“And if we were to give you a glimpse of the future?” The first man offers.” If we were to show you a vision of the life you might have one day, if you find the will to believe despite your experiences?”

‘You can do that?” I ask, turning to look at him for the first time.

you are brave enough to take the

are willing to fight for your future.” The first man adds.” The vision we give you will only be a possibility – one in a hundred – of the person you might become if you refuse to give up. It is not guaranteed, and it is not entirely in your control. Countless actions and decisions shape our futures, and we can only

me.” I beg, somehow believing they have this power even though there’s no such thing as magic. Perhaps I’ve lost my mind. Perhaps I’ve already jumped and this

glare, but it does not hurt – it does not burn me as it probably should. Energy surges through my body, so potent and wild that I feel like I’m being electrocuted. I open my mouth to cry out, but before any sound can escape my lips

and pale. She’s clean and healthy, wearing a dress which must cost more than everything I’ve ever owned – combined. She moves with such an easy grace, and when she smiles I

at something I cannot see, grinning with an overwhelming joy I can’t even begin to understand. In the next moment I see a man more than twice her size, who is as handsome as he is terrifying. He moves with the lethal grace of a predator, and there’s a vicious edge to his bronzed, raven-haired beauty. He approaches her like a wolf stalking his prey, but she isn’t afraid. He pulls

hair and a pink bow, pulling faces and tickling the infant’s swaddled tummy. Then a rush of pure exuberance bursts into the serene scene, and three bundles of energy come zooming into sight. There’s a boy around five years old, who is the spitting image of the huge man. He races forward and crashes into his parents’ legs, wrapping his arms around each and grinning mischievously up at them. A pair

the youngest. I can hear their laughter, but I can feel it too. Their happiness is foreign to me and yet so contagious, merely watching them makes me feel as if I’ve swallowed the sun. Is that what they feel every day? Is it possible to

they’re full of tears. “That’s me?” I choke,

it.” The second man repeats. “Nothing is handed to us in life, especially not this. It will be a difficult road ahead, but there

already been through enough?” I ask, wondering why some people do seem to be handed

have to enter

get my answer. The men turn and walk away, and ten minutes later I don’t remember meeting them at all. In fact, I don’t remember why I’m out here in the middle of the night or what I’m doing standing on this bridge. Certain I’m going to catch my death from cold, I hurry back

the present,

his lips grazing my tear-stained