The Legend of the Alpha-Omega

Her Reality

Kayla wills herself awake, her cold sweat somewhat dried from the extensive time she’d stayed in bed dwelling on her past. Kayla snorts at the thought of a bed. When was the last time she was allotted a bed? Bed… her sleeping arrangement was a cot, and while it smelled like death, nightmares, sweat, and occasionally blood depending on what she managed to scrape herself on this time, it was still far better than sleeping on the cold floor.

Kayla’s makeshift room was the best she’d had her whole life. It was small, sure but it was in an abandoned airplane hangar well outside of the city of Los Vegas. It used to house small aircrafts for a retired air crew chief by the name of Herald, who had taken her in so to say. He was an older gentleman, Alpha of course, the first she’d ever warmed up to in terms of having the chance at a conversation for more than asking to use the bathroom or for the possibility of having something to eat. He and his German Shepherd, Chief, would sit and eat with her there where she felt safest.

Something about being around machines made her feel whole. Herald seemed to admire her for it, weakly, actually... as he did with his wife. It was odd honestly, and more times than not, Kayla wondered about his reactions to her. She remembers seeing Herald’s Mate in photos around his office when she was new and sometimes in his wallet when he would pick up a food order. She was pretty. Her eyes shone brightly as if she was looking towards her own horizon, overcoming obstacles, and Kayla had to just wonder if she was faced with a life such as her own because of it. Regardless though, Herald never really spoke about her.

Kayla wondered here and there if she was sick or passed, which she could understand if that was the issue, if that was why he refused to talk to her about family. Sometimes Kayla would drift off in her mind, wondering if he had a family with her, if they had kids and couldn't help but feel some sort of jealousy towards whoever they might be. It was silly really. The only person to treat her like a person deserved to have a family to love. Kayla nodded to herself and out of the conversation. It wasn’t right to have one with herself on that level. She couldn't afford to lose him based on something she made up.

It would have been nice though if he did consider her something of a daughter. Kayla nodded to herself, she would make a damn good daughter one day.

Kayla smiled at the small times and memories she had of Herald. How he would say positive, kind things to her and say that his dog, Chief “thought”. It was as if he was feeling out her stableness each passing day and depending on her answer he’d either give her the space she required, or came up with things she should go find in the sheds off in the back, or tell her he ordered a pie for her and one for himself. His kindness was never matched, not by anyone else she’d known for that stretch of her life and she found she would always remember him no matter where life threw her.

By age eleven, Kayla worked on and sold enough engines and fixed parts for multiple machines, including cars, planes and lifts that she had enough money to buy the old hangar from Herald. Her Alpha companion made sure that he put away the money for her for another time and told her about it then and there. Kayla had never been a crier, but there was absolutely no reason for him to be so good to her and there he was making sure her hard earned money would be seen again.

He’d told her that he figured it was a way to look out for her in the event that he passed before she was ready to move on past this place, the thought of which both broke and soothed her heart. Kayla is nearly positive he couldn’t possibly understand how much he’d done for her that day. He wasn’t always a forward thinker, he did have his own things to mend, she was sure of it, but this was… it just was…

And the moment he cleared his throat, ready to return to his usual day, Kayla knew it was time to move on from the emotions he’d called forth in his actions.

The next day he was gone. Herald was just like that. He would be in and out and as she aged so did the hangar. Being that he wasn’t really there to maintain it, Kayla did, except, she did her tune-ups with another vision in mind. She built it up quickly. Kayla created a forge in the back left corner which would help her machine parts in house. Anything that she only had one part of, that she needed on the regular would be created right there in the hangar. The first attempt in completing the ventilation almost burned the whole hangar down with her inside it. Luckily, it poured that night.

If Kayla knew anything, it was certainly Nevada and when specifically to give up and try again based on it’s temperatures alone. The state had it’s high heat and quick drops at night, which was why it was so devastating when the forge damn well burned a hole in the side of the structure. Not only was it inviting all sorts of things in, but it was freezing. At least while the hangar was closed it was livable without heat, but with that gaping hole in the side of it, there was no way to stay warm. It caused so much grief going forward but she wasn’t willing to give up and walk away.

No.

Kayla was a fighter.

Her second attempt happened after she’d recreated and welded new walls to the old ones, sealing them up for the time being so that she would be able to get back to working at night, or whenever she would wake up in terror from her ever pressing nightmares. After they were up, she received burns from a smaller explosion which she took in stride. The blast hadn’t ruined the walls and while it flared up warning flames around it’s belly, they weren’t blowing chunks of molten metal at her which was indefinitely a step up. Kayla swore to herself while she mended her arms in bandages that she would get that thing to work that night and that was exactly what she did.

Her next projects were a washing machine, followed by a refrigerator and that was just the beginning. All of these things had to have power to work. Fidgeting first with the one wall in her room upstairs, she prepared the circuit to mimic the ground wire. Kayla then flipped the lever to allow the industrial lights down stairs to come on and beamed with pride when she noticed that the plug in her room was active. She then spent time setting three more there, then worked on replacing the units all throughout the building as they showed age and wear. After the blow outs with the forge and circulation, Kayla wasn’t for overlooking anything. If a small thing were to go, she would pay for it, she was sure of that!

Every piece of her project became hers entirely, and there wasn't anything or anyone that was going to get in her way.

Each morning was more than a new day. It was a reminder to her to change her past, that she was in control and that she could do anything that day that she put her mind to and it was fantastic no matter what happened because she would learn from it each time. Kayla would greet the day and head out back to scrounge around through the hoarded devastation Herald would leave. She smiled at the thought of him but felt the absolute need to own the property with dignity. If it was hers, she thought, it didn’t have to be a mess.

By thirteen the grounds were kept tidy. She built the hangar itself into a shop of her own, Kayla’s Mechanics, and secured the sign at the top of it. Once it was up, it easily became one of her favorite places to be at all times of the day. Sunrises and sunsets painted the sky for miles, but when the moon rose, blankets of stars shone beautifully throughout the inky twilight, and she was sure in all of her years of being alone, she hadn’t truly ever looked up long enough to care. The very fact that she could by then had been a game changer. One of many she held onto.

Projects continued throughout which had her trying again at a better sort of ventilation system, one that wouldn't provoke another tremendous explosion, or any for that matter. Since the vents were already sort of in place from her last installment, it was time to come up with a way to keep it cool. Cool air was ideal but without the proper equipment or interest in paying an obscene amount to pay for air conditioning, her next opportunity was industrial sized fans, which honestly, weren’t terrible. Just as everything else, though, Kayla still found the will power to create the large fans, blade by blade by heating them up and banging them out with a huge mallet until it was safely curved to press wind downward to her or at least ease the heat of the day. Any cooler change would have been welcomed by that point in her life. Nevada’s dry heat could burn anything to a crisp… and after spending her first Heat alone there in the hangar, she was damned if she was going to let both the heat of her biology and that of the elements destroy her again.