Prologue Fragment
"History forgets the day the world was reborn. But I remember the silence that came first — the moment before humanity realized it had rewritten its own design."
I was there when the first Alpha riots broke out.
They started in the lower districts, where the air still smelled like burnt metal and protest smoke. Newly emerged Alphas — stronger, more instinct-driven — clashed with the Betas who refused to accept their sudden dominance. It wasn't about politics then; it was instinct wearing the mask of rebellion. I remember standing on a rooftop, watching men and women move like creatures driven by something older than language. Pheromones hung thick in the air, invisible yet heavy enough to choke on.
Within a year, the government that once funded GENESIS dissolved under its own creation. Leaders, scientists, soldiers — everyone carried new classifications. Alphas began to rise in military ranks almost overnight. Betas took up administrative roles, the "neutral middle" that tried to keep things functional. Omegas… the world didn't know what to do with them.
For a while, the media portrayed them as miracles — beings of extraordinary empathy and emotional resonance. "The Heart of Humanity," they called them. But the narrative shifted quickly. When the first recorded heat cycles disrupted entire cities, fear replaced fascination. People forgot that Omegas were once ordinary humans. They became symbols of instability — beautiful, dangerous, necessary, and feared.
By the third year, the world had rewritten its laws.
The Hierarchy Acts divided society into castes — not by birthright or money, but by genetic signature. Pheromone scanners became as common as ID cards. "Compatibility Certificates" were required for marriage, work, even proximity. Entire districts were zoned for specific designations. The once-mundane handshake became an act of defiance between incompatible ranks.
I remember walking through the Alpha sector for the first time — streets cleaner, quieter, guarded by the hum of drones programmed to detect "pheromonal disturbances." There was a scent in the air — sharp, commanding, like metal struck against stone. People said it was the natural aura of dominance. I didn't believe it until I felt my chest tighten, my pulse involuntarily slowing as if my body recognized something it couldn't defy.
And then there were the Omegas.
They lived behind reinforced glass, their homes shielded with scent-neutralizing walls. Government ads claimed it was for "protection," though everyone knew it was containment. I passed one once — a boy, maybe sixteen, eyes too bright for his age. He looked at me like he could see through the silence I carried. I'll never forget it. There was no fear in him. Only knowing.
That was the moment I realized the experiment hadn't just changed our bodies — it had changed the way we felt.
By 2035, the world no longer remembered the time before designations. Children were born already classified, their futures dictated before their first breath. The word human had fractured into subcategories that could never again be unmade.
But rumors persisted.
They spoke of those who didn't fit — people whose scans returned unreadable, whose scent profiles shifted from one form to another. The government labeled them anomalies. The people whispered another name: Enigmas.
No one had seen one openly, though there were stories — a soldier who could nullify pheromones with a glance, an Omega whose scent sent even Alphas to their knees, a child whose eyes changed color depending on who looked at them. Myths, they said. Fantasies built from the longing for balance.
I didn't believe in myths. Until the night I met one.
It was in the ruins of the old city — the place where GENESIS had begun. The laboratories had long since been abandoned, their walls overgrown with ivy that glowed faintly under the bioluminescent street dust. I remember walking through the shattered halls, tracing my fingers across rusted metal and forgotten equations. That's when I heard it — a faint hum, like the heartbeat of a machine long thought dead.
The air shimmered. And for a moment, the world felt like it was holding its breath.
Then I saw him.
A figure standing in the middle of the debris, dressed in white, motionless as if carved from the remnants of the experiment itself. I couldn't tell what he was — Alpha, Beta, Omega — because the air around him carried everything. Warmth, command, stillness. It was like standing before the source of all the chaos and calm that had reshaped humanity.
He looked at me — eyes pale, distant, and impossibly human — and said only one thing:
"Do you remember what we were before this?"
I couldn't answer.
Because in that instant, I realized I no longer remembered, either.
That night, I wrote my first entry for the Chronicles of Division — the record of how our kind came to be. Not to glorify it, but to remember that even creation has its fractures.
The world calls it evolution.
But I've seen what we left behind.
And I know better.