Chapter 7 Lucy
LUCY
{Two months ago}
The News.
I’d been staring at the blog post from yesterday, the one I couldn’t manage to finish. Today wasn’t looking much better. I was still too down in the mouth. I read it over for the hundredth time, debating if I should delete it and start over.
Day… why even count anymore? Frowning, I deleted the smiley emoticon I’d originally typed. I think kept punching delete until the question mark and anymore also disappeared. I paused, frown deepening, then added back the question mark.
Day… why even count?
Today I tutored a ten-year-old math prodigy trapped in his own bubble across the country.
It helps to connect with other people like me.
We're members of an exclusive club nobody actually wants to join. Not sure why. All you healthy weirdos are missing out. Sometimes I think the kids I help online are the only ones who truly get my sense of humor about tasteless food, relentlessly bitter medicine, and why hospitals always seem to think yellow is the best wall call. Yellow isn’t cheery.
Yellow is waste containers filled with used needles.
Yellow is how dark my pee is when I’m horribly dehydrated and dizzy. Yellow is—
I probably would have sat frozen in front of the laptop all day if the airlock hadn’t whooshed, announcing a visitor.
Doctor Emerson's arrival was different this time.
I noticed it immediately—the slight hesitation as he entered through the airlock, the way he clutched my medical file against his chest like a shield, the unusual stiffness in his normally relaxed posture.
After seven years in isolation, I'd become fluent in the language of bad news.
Medical staff had distinct tells when they were preparing to deliver something unpleasant, and Doctor Emerson's averted gaze behind his protective visor practically screamed catastrophe.
"Afternoon, Lucy," he said, his voice muffled by the respirator. He moved to the visitor's chair but didn't sit, hovering instead like he couldn't quite commit to staying. "How are you feeling today?"
I studied him, cataloging the differences from his usual demeanor.
Doctor Emerson typically entered my room with a relaxed confidence, often carrying a new book or some small contraband treat that had made it through sterilization.
Today, his hands remained empty except for my file—ominously thick after years of failed treatments and downward-trending lab results.
"I'm feeling like someone who's about to receive terrible news," I replied, forcing my voice to remain steady. "Your bedside manner needs work, Doc. You look like you're attending my funeral."
A flicker of something—guilt or maybe fear, I thought—crossed over what little I could see of his face. "I wanted to check in after hearing about your breathing difficulties earlier. You look well.”
“I look like crap.” My bluntness didn’t startle him.
Not much shook Doctor Emerson’s composure.
So, I’d long ago given up editing myself.
“You’ve got that face, the one that says, ‘bad news incoming’.
” I held up my hand and swooped it through the air as if reading a billboard.
And the billboard was the good doc’s face.
He sighed, finally sinking into the chair. The yellow hazmat material crinkled as he moved, the sound unnaturally loud in the quiet room. He opened my file, though I suspected he didn't need to read it—whatever he'd come to tell me was already burned into his memory.
"Your latest bloodwork shows significant changes," he began, his voice shifting into the carefully neutral tone doctors use when delivering terminal diagnoses. "The disease is accelerating, and your body has developed immunity to all our current treatment protocols."
I'd known this was coming. Hadn't I? The increased chest pain, the difficulty breathing, the bone-deep fatigue that no amount of rest could touch—my body had been sending signals for months.
Still, hearing it spoken aloud sent ice through my veins, a cold certainty that froze me from the inside out.
"Define 'accelerating,'" I said, surprised by how normal my voice sounded.
Doctor Emerson's fingers tapped against the file. "Your white blood cell count has dropped by thirty percent in just two weeks. Oxygen absorption is down to sixty-two percent efficiency. Your body is essentially... turning against itself at an increasing rate."
I nodded mechanically, processing. "And since I've built up resistance to everything in your medical arsenal, there's nothing to slow it down."
"The current treatments, yes." He hesitated. "We've exhausted all standard and experimental options available through normal channels."
My fingers gripped the edge of my bed, knuckles whitening against the sterile sheets. The question sat heavy on my tongue, but I forced myself to ask it anyway. "How long do I have?"
His eyes finally met mine, and I saw genuine pain there.
Doctor Emerson had been treating me since I was eleven—he'd watched me grow up in this glass cage, had celebrated birthdays and milestones that my own parents had eventually stopped acknowledging.
He wasn't just my doctor; he was the closest thing to family I had left.
"Lucy..." He shook his head slightly. "It's not that simple. The progression could—"
"How. Long." Each word emerged as its own sentence, hard and demanding.
His shoulders slumped. "At the current rate of deterioration... months. Maybe less."
Months. The word echoed in my head, bouncing off the walls of my skull like a rubber ball in a tiny room. Months. Not years. Not even a year. Months.
A hysterical laugh bubbled up before I could stop it. "Well, I always wanted to speed things up around here. Guess I should be careful what I wish for."
"Lucy—"
"It's fine." It wasn't. Nothing about imminent death in your early twenties was fine. "At least I won't have to eat any more bland hospital food. Can I get, like, a last meal? Even prisoners get a last meal before walking the plank.”
“I don’t think our modern judicial system makes people walk planks.” Doctor managed a weak smile. He set my file aside and leaned forward, his expression intensifying behind the plastic visor. "There might be another option."
Something flickered in my chest—not hope exactly, but its anemic cousin. It was crazy that I could muster even a fragile, faltering hope after all these years. Dreaming of a cure was a dangerous thing. "What kind of option?"
"An experimental gene therapy program through The Eros Institute." He spoke slowly; each word deliberately pulled from his body.
I frowned, mentally cataloging what I knew about Eros… which wasn’t much. "The matchmaking company? The one that pairs Alphas and Omegas based on scent compatibility?"
He nodded. "They've developed a new treatment protocol specifically for cases like yours—rare Omega genetic disorders that don't respond to conventional therapies. It involves restructuring damaged DNA sequences using modified viral vectors, combined with synthetic hormone treatments."
"And why haven't we tried this before?”
“It involves snake venom, and I remember how you hated that reptile documentary. Didn’t think you’d be interested.” He winked, but it was such a forced action that it came off awkward and sad.
“Doc, I’d eat turtle shit if you said it was the cure.” I didn’t wink, but I didn’t let out a hollow, pitiful laugh. “What’s the real reason?”
“Because it's still experimental. Very experimental. It hasn't received full FDAlpha approval yet—just compassionate use authorization for terminal cases." He paused. "And because there are... conditions attached."
Of course there were. Nothing in my life had ever come without strings, without compromise, without sacrifice. "What kind of conditions?"
Doctor Emerson seemed to be choosing his words with painful care. "The treatment was developed specifically for The Eros Institute's client base. In exchange for access to the therapy, participants must agree to enroll in their Omega match database upon successful treatment."
"You mean their dating service?" The pieces clicked together in my mind. "If it works, I'd have to let them match me with an Alpha of their choosing?"
"Not immediately," he clarified. "The contract stipulates enrollment in the database once your condition stabilizes.
Matching would occur only when compatible Alphas are identified.
You would have some input in the final selection, but yes—you would be legally obligated to participate in their matching program. "
I stared at him, trying to process what he was offering. A chance at life, but with strings attached that would bind me for the rest of that life. Trade one prison for another. Exchange my glass bubble for a marriage certificate.
"So, my options are either die in a few months or sign myself over to be some Alpha's property if I survive?" The bitterness in my voice could have stripped paint.
Doctor Emerson winced. "The legal framework is more complex than that. Omegas have more rights now than historically—"
"But not the right to refuse a match once I'm in their system," I interrupted. "I've read the news. I know how it works."
He didn't deny it. Couldn't deny it. For all the progress in Omega rights legislation, the biological imperatives still drove the legal system.
Once matched through The Eros Institute, an Omega was legally bound to at least attempt bonding with their compatible Alpha.
The science behind scent-matching was too well-established, the biological benefits too significant for society to prioritize individual choice.
"What does the treatment involve?" I asked, changing tactics.
"Five treatment sessions over approximately five weeks, but that doesn’t include daily shots and monitoring.
Aggressive gene therapy combined with synthetic hormone treatments.
It would be... difficult." His tone suggested 'difficult' was a massive understatement.
“The success rate is… low, Lucy. You need to understand that.”
My hand moved unconsciously to my chest, pressing against the familiar tightness there. "And if it works? What then?"
"Then you get to live, Lucy." His voice softened. "Outside these walls. In the world."
The world. The concept seemed almost mythological after seven years in isolation. Air that hadn't been filtered through hospital systems. Surfaces that weren't disinfected three times daily. People who weren't covered head-to-toe in protective gear.
Freedom from this sterile prison, but at what cost? The promise of future bondage to whatever Alpha the algorithm deemed compatible with my genetic profile.
"I need time to think about it," I said finally.
Doctor Emerson nodded, reaching into his suit pocket to withdraw a thick document bound in a blue folder.
"This is the contract from The Eros Institute.
All the details about the treatment protocol and the obligations that come with it.
" He placed it on my bedside table. "Review it. Ask me any questions. But, Lucy..."
"I know," I whispered. "I don't have much time to decide."