no guillotine

You've been dropped off at the edge of a dense wood that reaches beyond your vision on both sides. You can hike around, or go straight through. Visibility is your greatest weakness, above blisters and cold nights, so you head into the woods. You don't need to stop for food or shelter; the program provides a pop-up tent and provisions for approximately a week. They don't want you dying out here.

You keep looking down at your wristband, although there's no function it serves you now. You feel like an animal though, tagged and released.

You remember in the first year, they released everyone out in the same large perimeter as a free-for-all, which caused endless issues — two women banded together and set traps for their prospective matches. Onsite safety had to intervene before the men were killed. Another case where a man discovered a woman that was not his designated match, and pursued her instead.

Now, the program is clinically consensual and safe. Designated matches are separated from others by much longer distances to avoid cross-contamination.

Hours go by, and you're still in the thick of the wood, not seeing an end ahead. It's probably smarter to pop the tent and camp while you've still got plenty of energy, but something about setting up camp before you'd eat supper feels wrong. Feels a bit like shooting a flare gun up into the sky for your match to swivel his head toward and begin scenting your trail.

He's too abstract to think much of, some faceless entity that vaguely represents a possibility of your future, but it's almost comical how your brain compartmentalizes it to focus on the hiking and camping aspect. As if you're going to emerge within a couple days, a survivor that's phased out of the program.

You stop to rest on a deadened and weak log, unzipping your bag to drink some water and eat a rations bar. Appropriately flavourless and fulfilling. The June sun is still high, although it must be closer to suppertime by now.

The only real instruction you were given was "head north," which not only prevents you from heading straight into the arms of your match on day one, but acts as some vague target to keep you moving along. Nonetheless, you head north.

You won't stumble upon another living soul at any point. This is the solo leg of the journey; the chase sequence a slow unspooling across days. You're used to isolation, even with roommates. Being outside with yourself is just the same feeling under a new sky. So, you walk in long zigzagging trails and hike and stop and pee and rest and eventually you camp.

The program packed dry soup packets that just need a mix with clean water, no heating required to turn it into a thickened broth with some freeze-dried vegetables and reactivated noodles. It's as terrible as it looks, but at least it's not raising a "soup's on" banner for your general area.

In the last week, you’ve managed to carve out some sort of existence in the house. There are bookshelves in what you assume is an office, and you’ve found titles there that help occupy your time. Sometimes you even sit on the couch in the living room, eager to escape the same four familiar walls of the bedroom. You come out for meals too, since no one has brought food to your door again, breathing through your mouth as you try to block out their scents.

It doesn’t work.

They’re everywhere.

Their scents, their bodies, even their clothes. You find shirts shoved in couch cushions, jumpers hanging over the back of kitchen chairs or the stair railings. They’re in the living room in the evenings, in the kitchen in the morning, at the table for dinner. One of them is always at breakfast, talking to you even if you don’t respond, keeping you apprised of the day.

“Johnny’s out until the afternoon, chasin’ down a lead. I’ll be here if you need something.”

“Gonna go out for groceries. D’ye need anything?”

“Simon’s on a perimeter walk. Dinnae want to scare ye, but we thought we heard something in the woods last night.”

It does scare you though. The looming threat, the fact that someone wants to kill you, is always in the back of your minding, haunting you like a bad dream. You’re afraid to step foot outside the front door, and whenever you hear them talking in low voices that abruptly stop once you enter the room, you fear the worst. They swear, again and again, that you’re safe, but the worry never goes away, it just lurks in the back of your mind, reminding you why you’re here, why you’re trapped in this house with your mates, a logical, sensible thing turned insane as you balance rational thought with instinct. Your safety is an ever changing thing, crossing lines in your head, trying to do backflips to figure out who you need protecting from.

The outside threat, or them.

Your pills aren’t working.

It’s the fourth morning in a row where you’ve swallowed your usual dosage, one suppressant, one blocker, one painkiller… and felt nothing.

No relief. No numbness.

Nothing, except for the pounding behind your eyes, the nausea crawling up the back of your throat, the never ending muscle cramps.

It’s taking a toll.

“Dove?” Johnny’s voice cuts through the static between your ears, the impossible tug of war you’re playing with yourself. They should be working. Is it because you’re too close to your alphas? Are they being overpowered? Is your body working against them, making you sicker?

Simon says your name, but you ignore him.

Is it even possible? Could their proximity override the effects of your medication? Did the doctor ever say anything about that?

A hand touches your face. It snaps you back to reality and you jerk away, shocked.

Your reaction doesn’t deter Johnny though, whose fingers are brushing across your brow.

“Ye’re warm, sweetheart. Ye feelin’ alright?” You nod, but don’t say anything, tongue heavy like wet cement in your mouth. Johnny looks down at your breakfast plate and frowns. “Ye barely ate.”

“Not hungry.” You croak. You lean away from him. He’s too close, and the urge to crawl into his arms and press your nose to his neck is overwhelming. You think it could help you, he could help you, be a balm, soothe your pain, take it away and-

Stop.

You shoot to your feet. The movement is too swift, too sudden and you sway, your lack of balance automatically moving Johnny forward, his hands on your arms, holding you steady. “Whoa, easy. Ye alright? Do ye need to lay down?”

“I don’t know.” You look away, trying to hide from their gazes, Johnny’s bright and concerned, Simon’s dark and focused. Two walls closing in on you, squeezing you from both sides.

“Maybe ye should go back to bed, try to get some sleep. Or do ye want to lay on the couch?” You shake your head.

“No, no… I’ll go back to bed. I’m probably just tired.” An obvious lie, but you can’t admit to them how badly you’re hurting. Your pride won’t allow it.

“Alright…” Johnny says as his hand slowly moves from just above your elbow to your back. “Let’s go get ye comfortable.” You stiffen, try to pull away but his touch stays firm, grounded at the base of your spine like an anchor, steering you towards the stairs.

You look over your shoulder before taking the first one. You’re not sure why, something pulls you, some sort of gravity, your eyes finding Johnny’s, and then Simon’s behind him. A foul yearning ricochets through your soul, your body, a desire unlike anything you’ve ever felt spreading through your blood.

An infection.

They made you sick.

They’re making you sick, still. Somehow.

Buried deep, the want burns, begs you to lean in, to give up, to give yourself over. To fall into their mercy and their attempts to soothe you, to let them have you. It takes considerable effort to fight it. To gnash your teeth together and refuse to let it out.

You hold your breath all the way up the stairs, letting the fire grow in your lungs until you reach your bedroom, head swimming as you collapse into the mattress. You should tell him to leave, but you can’t. The effort would be too much.

“Jus’ rest.” Johnny murmurs, back of his hand pressing to your forehead again as he brings your blankets up to your chin. “I’ll check on ye in a bit.” You scowl.

“I’m fine. Just tired.” You bite out before rolling onto your side, staring straight ahead at the wall. He sighs as he stands, shakes his head.

“If ye say so.”

You’re full of restless energy when you wake up.

It’s after sunset, the only light in your room coming from the small lamp that’s on your bedside table, hazy yellow light spilling out from behind the shade.

You feel a bit better, more clear headed, but there’s this… unsteadiness under your skin, something volatile and turbulent trying to get out. Your chest feels too tight, your hands are trembling.

Anxiety, you think. Has to be. You’re not immune to it, have plenty of experience with stomach twisting worry, though it’s never felt like this. It’s a new manifestation, a new way of your body worrying, fixating.

The blankets you’re hidden under are too heavy now, constricting, and you sit up, glancing around, looking for something that may have triggered your discomfort.

There’s nothing, except for the empty bedroom.

The bedroom that’s too large, too open.

It’s problem needing to be fixed, and you know what to do.

You pull the mountain of pillows apart, stacking them in misshapen rows around the edge of the bed, effectively creating a wall between you and the door. All the blankets come next, the extra ones, the weighted one, folded and then unfolded, arranged so each hem is ready to be pulled up over your face at any time to hide you from the world. You reorganize too many times, unable to stop yourself from pulling them around the center of the bed, bundling them up into cozy little groups, ready to be laid in, or on, however you want. You rifle through your duffel, looking for more clothes, comfy pants and shirts, their cotton lengths or fleece insides bringing you a tiny bit of peace as you shove them between edges. The bed is smaller now, and you’re enclosed like a castle sitting inside formidable walls. Tucked away. Safe.

But it still doesn’t feel right.

That feeling in your body, the one stretching and straining in your bones, twisting you from the inside out, hasn’t gone away.

You eye the lamp.

It’s too high, you decide. Too tall. It needs to be on the ground, and you place on the carpet at the corner of your bed, just next to the table so the warm yellow glow is somewhat muted.

Better, but still not right.

Maybe it’s the scent. Everything smells like clean laundry, all the blankets and pillows bearing the same lavender, freshly washed smell, the one that you get from the expensive detergent.

Nothing smells like you except for your clothes.

You grab at a blanket and work the edge of it over your wrists, your neck, your face, doing the same over and over with the others. You rub your face on all the pillows, breathing them in as deep as you can, trying to figure out if the contact is making a difference, or if it’s a fruitless endeavor.

It should work.

It should.

You look around. Up. Down. Eyes dragging from each corner to the next, looking for an offender. A reason.

The closet catches your eye.

Maybe it’s too big, you wonder. Maybe the room is too large, too much. Overwhelming.

You crawl off the mattress on hands and knees, shaking hands reaching for the closet door.

It’s dark in here. Nearly empty, but you can fix that. Easily.

You drag everything you’ve assembled on the bed to the floor, pulling it inside the closet piece by piece, lining the walls with pillows, arranging the blankets so they’re perfect for burrowing, snuggling.

Still not completely right, but better. Something is still off, but this is safer, darker. Everything you need.

You’re not sure how long you’ve been buried in the mountain of your own creation when the bedroom door opens.

Could be hours. Could be minutes. Time is a little blurry.

Everything is a little blurry, if you’re honest.

The pounding in your head has returned, a small headache that grew between your temples until it was beating like a drum, forcing your eyes closed, pushing you deeper into your pile of softness. It soothes you somehow, makes things feel not as terrible.

You stay there, curled up, when the door creaks. When there’s a silent pause, and then footsteps, and you don’t move when the closet is opened, the small amount of light at the back of the alpha causing you to wince.

Simon.

Sea salt and leather floods the space, and you realize with dread it’s a part of what you’ve been missing, that itchy, anxious feeling under your skin partially calming as steps closer.

His knees crack as he crouches, lowers himself in front of you, without a word. The silence settles like a tightrope, too dangerous for you to walk, to speak. You watch him inspect you, the closet, the blankets and pillows, watch the calculation unfold in real time.

“This is nice,” he murmurs, running a hand over some of the blankets, “bit small for your nest though.” The horror is immediate. Is that what this is? Is that what you’ve done? It has all the markings of nesting, all the telltale signs, but for some reason, you can't see it. You've nested before, but it's never felt like this. 

No. You’re not nesting. You just needed to get comfortable. The room was too big, too open to them.

“It’s not a nest.” You growl, instinctively pulling a blanket up to your neck. “I was just… I needed to get out of bed.” He cocks his head.

“It’s not? Sure looks like one to me.” Dismay burns in your blood, and your scent turns sour. Distressed. “It’s okay,” he soothes immediately, “you did good, dove. It’s a good nest.” He’s speaking to your biology, your hindbrain, and your omega preens, the instinct inside of you lighting up at the praise. It’s like a knife in your heart, this betrayal of your sense, and the horror only grows as you start to purr, the light vibration coming from beneath your ribs earning you a small smile from your alpha.

Stop.

Stopstopstopstop please stop-

The purring gets louder. Your stomach tosses, bile burning in the back of your throat, but you can’t stop it. You’re paralyzed, immobile, two factions fighting for control, and you can’t do anything but lay there as his hand comes to rest on your ankle, thumb pressing in, down, working against you in a slow circle. “Such a good omega.”

That snaps you out of it.

The praising of your designation is always something that has disgusted you. It’s dehumanizing, reduces you to a role, a biological factor and nothing more. An omega is the same as any omega, when it comes down to it. All driven by need, by instinct, preening and purring and desperate for knots and bites. Animals done to their bones. 

You won't let that become who you are. You can't. 

You kick his hand away and scoot back, deeper into the corner. The purring and pride has vanished, and in its place is a black rooted, snarled mess of fear and anger and pain. There’s a moment where you think he’s going to tighten his grip and hold on, but it doesn’t last. He stands instead, looks down as he towers over you.

“Dinner’s ready.” You shake your head.

“I’m not hungry.” It’s not true. You woke up with an appetite, and even with this situation, this confusion, the anxiety, the pain, everything, it’s still there.

“You need to eat.” You’re about to refuse again, but his eyes narrow. “Do you need me to bring you downstairs myself?” He will, you know it. You don’t doubt he will drag you out of this closet and down the stairs.

“N-no.” You hate the stammer, the proof in it. How it exposes you, shows how scared you are, how unsure. How this entire situation has changed you, took your life and dumped it upside down.

“C’mon then.” He extends his hand, and the part of you that’s growing out of control tries to take it. Your arm twitches, moves like it’s being played by a puppeteer. It’s only once your fingertips almost brush his that you yank back with a scowl. He chuckles. “Suit yourself.” He’s not leaving, not until you’re out of the closet, and you know that. He could force you, bark at you, drag you out. He’s got you pinned to the ropes, no choice but to do as he says, so you reluctantly crawl forward on your hands and knees, unsteady as you start to stand from being curled up all day.

You give the closet one last look before you close the bedroom door, its dark mouth beckoning you, waiting patiently.

For the past five years, June has passed by uneventfully as any other month. You watch the announcement of newly matched couples, rarely recognizing the names but curious to see who ended up with who nonetheless. Your favourite barista got matched last year with some astrophysics grad student. You were happy for her and while you never asked her about it, you noted the new smile on her face when she poured your coffee.

You've registered on the website before the spring deadline, per the mandate, and clicked the usual drop-down selection:

I am not currently interested in PURSUING a match with another registrant for this calendar year.

And the next:

My current status as of the time and date of registration is VIABLE.

—

In mid-April, you have one (1) new message waiting in your inbox.

From: [email protected] Subject: Registrant 7840184492 — Match Pending — Confirmation Required

Dear Above-Noted Registrant, Please find your pending match details below for the current calendar year. Registrant 2605266261 Your confirmation is required no later than 11:59 p.m. on May 1. In order to confirm this match, please follow the link below. Failure to respond to the pending match may result in legal action. Do not reply to this message.

It's not sitting in your junk mail. It wasn't flagged as spam. You do a few cursory searches online to backtrace the email address; it's as legitimate as they come. Your stomach squeezes tight. There must be a mistake of some kind that's been made.

Hoping your laptop isn't infected with malware as a result, you click on the confirmation link, and sure enough, it does bring you to an official government landing page for the match. You've never seen this page before, never needed to.

It's an approximation of an inbox. You have one (1) pending match that you can view. You wonder about the people who have many matches to review.

Registrant 2605266261 Age: 34 Gender: Male Occupation: Government Salary: Full-Time Debts Outstanding: None Dependents: None

You wrack your brain; you don't know any viable 34-year old men at all. Your male friends have either aged out of the match, 35 and up, or are in committed relationships. You definitely don't know any that have such good jobs.

After speaking with a chatbot in the bottom-right corner of the screen, you've determined that this is not a clerical error. And after the first year of the program, there are no more jokes or pranks made in the system.

You are viable. You have been since you turned 30. Your status hasn't changed once in that time, although you did believe you were close to changing it to NONVIABLE a few years ago. Your friends were so happy for you and you thought you might actually be able to change your drop-down selection for once that spring. The man felt bad about it after, wrote you a long email that expressed he didn't think you'd take it so seriously and he shouldn't have led you on like he did when he didn't have any plans to change his own status.

Same cycle every year: everyone gets excited in the spring, hopeful for a match. Tentative relationships that might've burgeoned get tossed to the side for the hopes of a 'designated' match instead. You never know who might choose you, so there "could always be someone better out there" hangs over your head.

If a match doesn't bear fruit, everyone goes on a frenzy to couple up casually to make themselves feel better. You fuck and hang out. Until the next spring.

If you're lucky, you get matched early.

If you're unlucky, which you are, you remain viable for the entirety of the five years. A humiliation ritual by now.

And now, just as you're ready to be phased out, a pending match. You can obviously choose to decline; that option has been at play since the third year of the program. However, it's complicated and per your friends, becomes a big hassle.

You live with two others, which is your only possibility for housing. A match would mean a designated house: a freestanding house. You appreciate that this pending match doesn't have any debts to his name, which is not something that your registration details can say.

So, why would this man choose you? If not an administrative error or some confusingly elaborate prank, why you?

And who is he to you? He could be an acquaintance that met you at a bar. Anyone that you've run into or been introduced to at any point. A year's worth of possibilities branching out before you and no particular direction to run in. Maybe more, if they, for some reason, are willing to risk waiting that long or failed a match previously.

This is someone who did, intentionally and with a minimum level of effort, choose you to match with, knowing what it entails.

The worst case scenario is that the match is deemed a failure. Unmatched participants get a single column of their names printed out, so that wouldn't be much fun, but…it's the last year.

Click the confirm button below to confirm the pending match. If selected, further details will be relayed to your e-mail address on file shortly.

What do you have to lose, really? Your dignity or pride? Those were gone after your first viable year.