Ink | Soulmate AU | ✓

twenty-two | self portraiture

   They didn't want me to know they were going to kill him.

   Or maybe he was already dead.

***

   I must have fallen asleep, lying on the sofa, because I awoke to the dinging sound of a notification on my phone, set for 8:00am: Final final.

   Oh my God. My final exam. The one that decided my grade for the course, that the Professor had warned me about a while ago.

   That was today.

   I don't know why, but it hit me like a ton of bricks. Although I had reached a place in my life where anything I tried to care about ended up slapping me in the face – and so it was easier to not care about anything – I found myself, inexplicably, caring. I think it was something the Professor had said, something that had stuck in my mind. No, he'd whispered. They win that way too.

   If I gave up now, everyone who wanted me to give up would win.

   I sat up.

   I had a lot of work to do. Not artwork, or anything that should, logically, have helped my situation. I needed to save George somehow, of course I did, but I also needed to save myself. In what order, who knew, but I'd try. Maybe both at once.

   I knew that time wouldn't be on my side, but at least I sensed, for now, that he wasn't already dead: I could feel his heart beating with mine, his breath resonating in my lungs, his poetry, although no longer on my arm, living inside me, because that's what it was like to be Inked.

   The haunted souls that roam this path
   Just aching to be free.

   That line. That one line captured it. We wanted to be able to love freely, or if we couldn't, we wanted to be free from a life without love. It was that simple, really.

   Which was worse? The Professor had asked, his words again etched into my mind no matter how forcefully they tried to remove it. To live without a heart, or not to live at all?

   It was like I decided in that moment. Something had to happen. Oh yes, just another little revolutionary I was, but it was true— the world couldn't keep on being like this. Persecuting people for something they couldn't change, and shouldn't change. For being true to themselves. For being Inked. As a self-confessed coward (despite the internet quizzes telling me I was a risk-taker – I knew that wasn't true), my stomach filled with dread at the thought that I might have to be the one who does something about it.

   For everyone who had ever died because they were Inked, and for everyone who ever would— including, if I didn't do the thing soon, my own soulmate. He would die and be forgotten, just like the guy he was named after.

   Just like the Professor's soulmate.

   With that thought, I stood up, wobbling a little, and made my way to the tiny kitchen. I filled the kettle and, for lack of bread, took a few dry crackers for my breakfast. Better than nothing.

   Steaming mug of coffee in hand, I went to sit at – for a change – the dining table. I'd done nothing to prepare for my exam— at least some things never changed, but I usually at the very minimum had something last minute to rush through; maybe I could do it now. I had, what, an hour, right? I could draw... something... in that time.

   Shit, wait wasn't I... off the course? My heart fell into my stomach with a thud, as I realised— that was a memory that had remained in tact, somehow. They hadn't touched anything that didn't have George in it, or so it seemed, and so that time with me and the Professor in the park, with the knife... and...

   I shook my flailing head to clear it. I was off the course, wasn't I? All of this panicking was for nothing.

   Still, with all that had happened, would the Professor – or anyone else – remember that? And even if they did— I'm sure I could persuade (by which I meant blackmail) him into forgetting. I knew things about him. Things like attempted murder, a memory they clearly hadn't seen and I didn't want to relive. I needed this course, this grade, even if I didn't pass with flying colours— I just needed to pass, to get out of there, and to save my soulmate's life as well as my own, to prove that... whatever it was I'd wanted to prove. Something noble, I'm sure. Either way, I wanted to do it. And what did I have to lose?

   Not that it mattered. This would all go smoothly, of course.

   Okay, control, I told myself. Don't stress out. I reached for my phone— then realised I'd left it on the sofa, and I wasn't prepared to walk that far. Where was the clock? It was wrong, I actually remembered, after the last disaster it had caused; I needed to add five hours to whatever the clock said. Was that right? I hoped it was.

   So, what day was it? Monday, the calendar just beneath the clock told me. I had had no idea how long I'd been out after the memory wipe— it had been early Sunday morning I reckon, so— maybe around thirty-two hours?

   At least I'd made up for all that lost sleep now.

   Monday. Class started at nine on Monday, I knew that, and it was... half past eight. It struck me that that time had passed remarkably quickly, considering I woke up at eight...  and then I remembered George. If he knew these were his final hours, like I did, they must be passing very quickly for him.

   That was what happened when people were dying, right?

   Okay, I told myself. Repress that awful thought, and move onto the next. I also knew, thanks to some obscure piece of memory, that I had to give a presentation for this exam— a presentation describing the piece of art I was supposed to have done. I pushed that small matter to the back of my mind. I'd do it in class. One small question: what was the art supposed to have been about?

   I remembered, surprisingly clearly, the Professor telling me before any of this happened.

   'Our next, and final, project is self-portraiture. I don't want to have to do this, but if you don't get a passing grade this time, I'm going to have to throw you off the course without a reference or a grade.'

   Great. Self-Portraiture. I had no artwork, no presentation skills, and no chance of a passing grade. I didn't even know if I had a self at this point. I wasn't sure if it really mattered anymore – I wasn't sure if anything did – but I decided I had to do something to get my mind off the fact that any time now, my soulmate would be... shot? Poisoned? Hanged? Whatever they felt like, I supposed. God only knew why they hadn't shot him on the spot that night, but that was not to be questioned right now. He was going to die, imminently.

   And the Professor had been right.

It was my fault.