Ink | Soulmate AU | ✓

nineteen | finding him

   My brain was utterly blank; I walked on autopilot, not even knowing where I was going. The dark streets that now surrounded me looked foreign, like a black sea, and I was flooded with loneliness in this big, empty wasteland of a city. It occurred to me that the most awful feeling in the world was not caring about anything – or anyone – anymore.

   I just carried on walking, hoping the physicality of my actions would distract me.

   They didn't.

   Where could I go — home? And do what there? Try and sleep? That was a laugh; like I'd ever sleep again. I wouldn't go back to that park as long as I lived. Of course I had no reason – and no desire – to go to the Professor's house. Anthony, I silently corrected myself. He wasn't my professor anymore.

   I wandered around aimlessly for what seemed like both minutes, hours and days — could I trust time at all any more? — but no shops were open, nor cafés, not in this quiet part of London anyway; my legs were beginning to tremble with hunger and exhaustion.

   With no idea where I was, I gave up and sank to the floor, my back against a familiar grey brick wall. Somehow, I felt I knew it, though the bricks themselves were mundane enough. I looked sideways towards the grand double doors of the building, gazing up at the name: Her Majesty's Justice Centre for the Inked.

   I sniggered a little despite everything. Justice Centre. That's what they called it, to be diplomatic: everyone knew that it was just like a big death camp for anyone who was Inked.

   Why would I know this place? Why did I get butterflies just looking at it? I hadn't done anything wrong, not recently anyway. Or I hadn't been caught doing it, at the very least. Not that I could remember much or even think straight these days. But something told me, in an obscure part of my brain, I'd passed this place on my way to buy glue that night, a week ago, before all of this started.

   Suddenly, I heard the Professor's words in the back of my head: My son is in prison.

   I'd almost forgotten.

   George. George was here. Well, possibly — but it was likely, considering this was London's major Inked-holding prison. My brain whirred into life.

   Psychology never ceased to amaze me; but then again, maybe it had been something more than chance. My seemingly meaningless footsteps had brought me here, where my soulmate was supposed to be. I hadn't even thought about it, or about him; too much had been going on and I felt I could barely focus on anything anyway. But deep inside me, something had taken me to where he was, now that I knew. And now, here I was, leaning against the wall, halfway through a mental breakdown.

   Distantly, I wondered out of pure curiosity what cell block he was in, before remembering he was my soulmate and he was dying and that I should be more than distantly curious about it all. Desperate, I tried to determine when I'd become so detached from my emotions, from my body, from the worlds both inside and outside my head. Why didn't I let myself feel things anymore? Of course I wanted to save myself the pain, to an extent, who didn't? But that came at such a price. Without the pain there was no way to know I felt anything at all. Without the pain, I was just numb.

   That was why the Professor had done what he had with the scissors, to his hand, I realised. To prove he still felt things, still bled, still existed in the real world, because it was easy to forget.

   Had I forgotten? Become too self absorbed with my own petty problems? Didn't I remember that conversation, the first one we'd had, where for the first time in my life I felt like I knew who I was? That boy— that boy I loved— he was in prison, and I didn't seem to care. It seemed like I should care.

   But I didn't know him, not really – all we'd had was that night, exchanging soulful bits of each other through an illegal means of communication. It was all too much like Romeo and Juliet: one kiss. How could anyone possibly fall in love after one kiss? Looking back, I'd always thought that play was stupid, but now it was as if I understood. Once you knew the person you wanted to die next to, what was the point in settling for a life without them? You lived together, or you died together. There was no in between.

   That night was a risk we'd taken together, and we'd always have that. Maybe it was a small one, in the grand scheme of things. But I owed him that.

   Feeling guilty, I hastily took out a fountain pen that I'd starting carrying in my pocket.

   No time to talk. I scribbled on my forearm. Where are you? Which cell?

   It took me a few moments of waiting, the moon's silvery glow still illuminating the prison wall's grey blandness, to remember that he didn't have a pen anymore. I didn't even know if he was seeing my messages: he could've been asleep, or knocked out, which would have explained why I felt so much like a ghost.

   Part of me was glad it was the middle of the night, and there was no one around to see me sitting on a dark street corner writing all over myself, for lots of reasons. I could have been arrested. Taken into the prison right next to me, set to a life of being caged like a wounded animal with, but never really with, my soulmate. Was it worth it for a boy I didn't truly know?

   Alternatively, I could have been shot on the spot, like the Professor's soulmate. That would have been easier for everyone.

   No, I realised. No it wouldn't. Easier for me, maybe, but not easier for George. If he lost his soulmate, he would become like his father: an old tortured soul in a young man's body, broken by loss and longing for something that didn't exist. Yes he'd be free, but he'd forever be trapped by grief.

   It seemed every choice I could make was a selfish one.

   I kept writing, Are you there? Knowing it would make no difference. What else could I do? I kept going, in a blind panic. Are you okay? Can I help? I hoped, desperately, that someone else might see the messages, maybe someone with a pen, someone who could help me, help us both; I just needed to know. Where are you, George?

   Suddenly, I felt a strange burning tingle in my left arm, like the magical musical feeling of Inking, but on fire; it made my entire body feel hot and sticky despite the winter chill in the air. Rushing and fumbling I tore off my grey jacket, throwing it wildly away, leaving just my short-sleeved pyjama shirt. I was still too hot.

   The inferno raged inside me, consuming me, I could feel it; the blaze was unstoppable. It concentrated on the inside of my wrist. My exhausted but alert eyes watched as a message wrote itself, letter by letter, in a sinister red scrawl trapped beneath the skin.

   THEY CAN SEE

   THEY TRACK ME

   The words looked like they were carved, in angry capitals, like scars except underneath the top layer of skin. I'd never seen this before, never even heard about it, never knew it was possible. But somehow I knew what it was. He was writing, but not with a pen. He was writing with something sharp; I didn't know what, a nail maybe, but the words he cut into his skin were burning into my own just like Ink would.

   THEY ARE COMING

   Then the messages stopped.

   And my eyes fell closed as I felt a sharp pain in my neck. Like a needle.