Believe - Chapter 3: Omega

The happiness of Imya did not last long. Only a day everything seemed to slow down with the snow fall. The pups played together in the snow and for once Imya was part of it but the next morning all went back to business of the pack.

"Repeat!"

Her father lectured all pups together today.

"The Alpha is our leader.

The Beta is his paw.

The Gamma is his teeth.

That is the pack law.

The Alpha is the leader.

He leads the pack with might.

He teaches the way of the Moon.

He will take every fight.

The Beta is the paw.

He helps the Alpha's cause.

He watches over the pack.

He watches over the laws.

The Gamma is the teeth.

He hunts, so we can eat.

He is loyal to the Alpha.

He follows the Alpha's lead.

Be strong, become an Alpha.

Be Beta and you are the best.

Be loyal to be Gamma.

Omega is the rest."

Imya still did not get every line right and not only the stern eyes of Polar made her duck but also the other pups snapped at her and pushed her around when she fell behind.

The pack was one family and a union but they were unforgiving to those who did not fit in. Imya learned this shortly after she had been born. Only her mother cared for her and was soft and nice with the pup. She got called on that by Polar a lot. The Alpha had the impression that Imya was weak because her mother was too soft to her.

Imya whimpered and tried to evade as many bites of her half-brothers and half-sisters as possible. From the chant, they just repeated, she knew which was the position she was in right now. Her father, all the others, every wolf on this mountain except her mother saw her just as a nuisance. If they left her alone Imya did not care but sometimes she wished she had a friend.

Sometime, like just the day before, she felt like she belonged to the pack. She played happily with the other wolfs. But while she did not grow much, all the other pup got bigger nearly every day and the biggest were already twice her size.

Imya thought that maybe her father also blamed her for the death of her siblings. Her mother, song, had have 3 pups but all but Imya died a few days later. It was the natures law that some of the pups would not make it. Song had been afraid that Imya also would die, because she was so weak, but somehow she survived. That was maybe the reason why her mother protected her so much. She was afraid to lose her last pup.

"Out of the way, rat." Her oldest half-brother, Demon, a pitch-black pup over twice her size and with green evil eyes, pinched her into the hind and pushed her so hard that she slithered a few meters down the hill. Her mother directly was next to her and made sure she would not continue to slide down and maybe fall off a cliff. She bared the fangs at Demon and the pup snarled back but went on. Even at his young age he was already picking up fights with the younger adults even though he still was not strong enough to win them.

"Are you okay?" her mother asked afraid and Imya snuggled into her fur and sniffed. She felt so miserable. Why did all the other wolfs hate her. She followed her mother, who had guardian duty at the borders today, and snuggled up with her while her mother lay down on a rock to look downhill and make sure no intruder would cross their borders.

"Mom? Will they ever stop biting me?" she asked and her mother looked down to her for a moment but did not respond. Imya knew that this was as much as a yes.

"What can I do to have them stop." She asked with a tearful voice.

Her mother lowered her head and started to lick the face and head of Imya to calm her down.

"You should listen to your father and try to learn the rules of the pack. That would be a start." She whispered into the ear of her daughter.

Imya lay next to her mother the whole night. She watched the other pups play in the snow a bit further uphill. She saw the moon slowly circling around them through the cloudless dark sky and the start sparkling like thousands of fireflies. She drifted into her night dreams and before she realized she fell asleep and drifted into her dreamland. She did not even notice when her mother picked her up and carried her home into the den when her watch was over.