Chapter 1: The Mirror and the Memory
Jack Bormann bolted upright in his bed as beads of sweat pooled across his forehead. He let out a frustrated groan. He placed his head and his hands and let out a pained cry of anguish as the memories of that night flooded him.
Again.
He had a family once. A wife, two daughters. He knew love then. He thought he had made it in his early 20's, but reality said no.
Jack wondered if it was him that pushed his wife to drink. He wondered if he had done something that made her want to get away from reality. Was he too clingy? Too Distant? Didn't do enough around the house? Did too much? Did she even like him, or did she think that she had hitched herself to some loser and saw no reasonable way out? He didn't know.
He saw her consume a lot of wine for the last year and a half, but he always assumed she was responsible about it. He trusted her enough to bring her kids to the choir concert for their local school that snowy night. He had gotten off work early that day to see them. He arrived, they didn't.
The police informed him that his wife had been driving with a blood alcohol level of .09. She wrapped the car around a pine tree. From what the coroner said, none of them suffered long.
The funeral was just before Christmas, Jack wondered what his In-laws truly thought. Did they see him as responsible? Another victim of a sad tale? Maybe they didn't blame him, but saw him as weak or unable to protect his loved ones, thus failing the one job every male human has. He didn't talk to them, he didn't want to. They never reached out to him.
Perhaps that was for the best.
He had long since gotten rid of his wife's and kids' things. Too many memories, but hadn't replaced them with much. A largely empty space, filled with dusty books and unused furniture. While he still lived, his house was a tomb, a mausoleum where his hopes and dreams lay buried under an endless cavalcade of thoughts and questions.
If only, if only.
It had been five years, and the pain had given way to numbness, only with painful stings of memories coming when he least expected it.
He looked over at his clock, 3am. He sighed, and pulled the covers off of him.
He swung his legs onto the cold hardwood floor. He exhaled and let the chill seep into his bare feet. He stood up, never turning on the lights as he made his way to the bathroom.
The house was silent, save for the groaning of the old radiator in the hallway. He ran his palms through his thick, unruly hair. His reflection in the bathroom mirror was haggard. Sunken green eyes, normally a sharp, piercing colour, sagged with exhaustion. His 5'oclock shadow looked more like a wild thicket now. He gripped the porcelain sink edge and stared into the mirror. His breath fogged the cold glass.
He stared into the dark pits of his own eyes, searching for something he knew he wouldn’t find—not here, not anywhere. His fingers tightened around the porcelain, knuckles whitening. The pressure grounded him, at least for now.
A notification pinged from the laptop sitting open on the kitchen counter, its screen glowing faintly in the dark. He didn’t remember leaving it on.
Jack exhaled through his nose, a slow controlled release. He didn’t move toward it right away. Some habits die hard. Some memories cling like burrs.
He shuffled to his laptop, about to turn it off, when the title of the email made him confused.
"Boys should be Strong, Girls should be Pretty." He stared at it. Trying to interpret it's meaning.
It was an odd title. He skimmed the email and shook his head. It read:
*"An experimental community designed to address isolation and disconnection in modern life by fostering authentic connection through structured daily activities, shared responsibilities, and guided personal growth."*
It advertised for a "revolutionary new way of living" where participants could "reclaim purpose, strength, and community." Jack raised an eyebrow. He didn’t know what that meant, but the phrasing reminded him of those self-help books his wife used to read—before she stopped trying altogether.
He scrolled down further.
The email promised "structured daily activities", "shared responsibilities", and "guided personal growth". Jack exhaled sharply. More empty words. More promises of meaning where there was only silence now.
He was about to close the email when his cursor hovered over the embedded link. He hesitated. Curiosity had been dead for years, but something about the email's bold header had made his thumb twitch.
"Join the Omega Project," it read. "Rediscover your strength. Rebuild your life."
Jack barked out a humorless laugh. Strength? He'd lost all of that when he stopped trying. When he stopped fighting. When he let the numbness be his only companion.
He moved to close the computer, but then he saw who was offering it. NDSU, SDSU, and the U of MN. Three colleges? Well respected places of higher learning? Why would they be running some cult commune?
He kept the laptop open and let the screen’s blue light wash over his face. He squinted at the sender’s address, nearly dismissing it as spam before the domain finally registered. OmegaProject@ndsu.edu—that was legit. North Dakota State University, not some fly-by-night server in Belize.
He tapped the link with the pad of his middle finger, expecting a scam page to load or a virus pop-up to freeze his screen. Instead, a single paragraph unfolded beneath the header.
It read:
*"The Omega Project is a six-month residency program located on a 400-acre parcel of donated farmland one hour north of Fargo. Participants—called ‘Residents’—live in shared cabins, engage in daily manual labor, and participate in group therapy sessions. Past projects have included building a greenhouse, installing irrigation systems, and constructing a community sauna. Residents are expected to contribute equally to all aspects of communal life."*
Jack read it again. And again.
"What kinda Vault tec bull..." Jack mumbled to himself.
He scrolled back up at the top of the email and clicked on the embedded site. His screen loaded a simple, almost archaic webpage. White background, dark blue text. No ads. No pop-ups. No clickbait. Just a single photograph of a group of people—men and women—all standing in a loose circle around a fire pit. Their faces were smudged with dirt or sweat, but their expressions weren’t grim. They were smiling. Really smiling.
Jack leaned closer, squinting. Jack noticed something, off about the photo. There was something, strange about the people in it. The women were all, well, gorgeous beyond words. They looked well beyond the ideals Hollywood presented.
Large chests, Wide hips, thin waists, large eyes, perfect smiles, flawless hair, perfect skin, gorgeous, gorgeous, gorgeous. Jack's jaw went slack.
Pull his eyes away as the blood flooded his crotch he turned to look at the men, which Jack found just as interesting, but not for the same reason.
Jack had to squint to make sure the men weren't in costumes, but as far as he could tell, they weren't. He saw their large muscles, their huge bellies, the thick pelts of hair, Jack could almost convince himself that a few of them even had tusks, or horns. The women leaned on the men, the men robust and sturdy, seemed to be unmoved by the gorgeous women surrounding them.
The women made no secret of touching the men, hands tracing over thick arms and broad chests. The men’s eyes were mild and accepting, like they were used to the attention but did not seek it out.
Jack felt something inside him, a longing, he had been alone for years, he hadn't been touched in as long. He looked at the beasts, expecting to be repulsed, but instead he felt... envy? Not just to be with the attractive women, but for the beastly forms they took. He wanted to be like them, large, wide, strong, full.
Beastly.
Jack’s gaze lingered on one woman in particular—her dark hair cascaded in ringlets down her back, her lips parted as she laughed at something one of the men had said. She wore a simple white tank top, the fabric stretched tight over her full breasts, and a pair of denim shorts that barely contained the swell of her hips. Jack swallowed.
He had not looked at a woman like that in years. Not since the accident. Not since *before* the accident.
The woman in the photo hung on to one of the beastly men, as if she was afraid of losing him. The beastly man looked uncomfortable with her groping. As if the woman was harassing him.
Jack licked his lips.
He reached out, about to close the laptop, but his fingers hovered over the touchpad. He couldn’t look away from the screen. The men in the photo—Jesus, they were like something out of a myth. Broad-shouldered, thick-necked, bellies rounding over the waistbands of their worn jeans. One of them had a beard so dense it looked like it could muffle a scream. Another had arms so thick they made Jack’s own look like twigs by comparison. And the women… hell, the women were unreal. Perfect, untouchable, untouched—until they weren’t.
Jack breathed in deep, and thought about the email. He clicked on the link, and began to read more.