Erika Belion wanted to think that being a single 26-year-old omega wasn't actually as bad as you might think... every time she got out of bed she wished with all her might that belonging to the bottom of the pyramid of society was just an unimportant addition instead of something that would mark your entire life no matter how much you tried to change it.
But the cruel reality is... that it's much worse.
She still remembers when she was a nonconformist teenager who tried everything to change her chances, even if it was just a little.
When you turn 18, the peak moment of your development comes, and that is called presentation. And no matter how much you hope, pray, or beg once your second gender presents itself there is nothing you can do.
Still, young Erika hoped that even if she didn't become an alpha she could at least qualify as a beta. It wouldn't be the best, but it would be ideal.
Unfortunately, life ended up deciding that she would end up being an omega. Something that, looking back now as an adult, the truth was that as much as she denied it at that time she already showed signs of presenting herself as an omega.
She remembered having tried everything: changing her habits, exercising, changing her diet, taking supplements, and hanging out with consecrated betas.
She even went so far as to take some of the beta demonstrative hormones they had in the school lab for practical classes… which didn't end very well, let's say… she admits it was monumentally stupid, but in her defense she was desperate.
Still, over time, thanks to having to mature very quickly, she somehow managed to get ahead. One way or another, she not only managed to accept and cope with her situation by getting a decent job with a bearable salary, with which she managed to live until she reached the competition.
All in all, she was doing pretty well, considering she was a single omega with no family help who had to drop out of college due to lack of funds, she could have been worse.
She realized too late that she shouldn't have thought that.
And it was that a few days after the ominous thought, her promiscuous mother Beatriz Doll along with her idiot sperm donor father Darent Doll showed up at the door of her apartment, which they somehow found, and introduced her to her 2 younger sisters and then left them and ran away with a little money she had on her kitchen counter.
At that moment Erika thought that she could simply take the girls to an orphanage that was nearby, she could barely keep herself eating just enough, she couldn't provide or take care of 2 more mouths that were also going to require direct attention.
It would have been so easy.
She would simply have to look the other way and excuse herself that it was better this way, forget that the encounter happened in the first place, and continue with her own thing... but she couldn't.
Erika knew all too well firsthand what it felt like to be ignored and passed over as well as abandoned by her own family who left her the moment she became an omega leaving her with such a bitter taste that she even changed her name and surname.
She knew what it was like to drown more and more only being able to stay afloat by sheer force of will only to have to keep swimming constantly without any kind of float or surface in sight.
She couldn't do that to two little girls who saw her as the most important person in their lives. Not after her inner omega became so attached to these little sweeties.
This is how they went from being just 6-year-old Melina and 4-year-old Rose to Melina Belion and Rose Belion, Erika Belion's younger sisters.
Once she made the decision to adopt them, Erika found a new apartment, just in case the trash would ever show up at her door again, she began looking for part-time jobs close to her location that would allow her to run back in case of emergency.
She stretched every paycheck she earned, squeezing out every last digit, spending nights without eating a bite so that her little angels could get one more bite, bathing in ice-cold water so that they could occupy the hot water, working triple shifts, perfecting both her knitting and sewing.
She did everything she could and more so that her little sisters would have what she lacked for years... hope and support.
It was difficult... not only did she have to work hard, breaking her back for every single dollar she earned.
But by having to work wherever they could pay her, she was more exposed to the world that she disliked so much, so she also had to learn to endure discrimination and the clear preference of hiring alphas for the most paid jobs.
She understood in a certain way since they were the dominant lineage on the planet, so the success of the job was in a certain way qualified by how many beings with a dominant attitude together you could have under your command and still manage to work, but that didn't mean that it hurt any less when despite trying hard and preparing for so long for just one interview, you were rejected just for being born into an "inferior" lineage.
Added to the harassment poorly disguised as flirting, if you reacted defensively, they would go after you saying that you were the one who misunderstood or thought badly. No matter how kind or cordial the refusal was.
The arrogance and over-the-shoulder glances of alphas who passed by as if she owed them something for merely existing burned her more than she cared to admit, and the indifference of betas who passed by with the occasional look of pity or sadness but never really interfering made her sick.
The only saving grace was that there were laws in place to protect Omegas nowadays so that Alphas couldn't take advantage of them like in the old days.
"If it weren't for those laws, living as an Omega would go from being difficult to being a nightmare."
The memory of his little girl Melina's opinion when he told her about that came to mind since he remembered very well the face of disgust that she put on while saying it causing him some amusement... which didn't last long since the alarm on his cell phone on his nightstand started to ring.