Christine feels content with not meeting her soulmate for the past seventeen years she has been alive. It doesn't matter that blue, glowing, and floating streak in her hair tells her that she should have one. She likes being single, making lots of f...
Synopsis: Christine feels content with not meeting her soulmate for the past seventeen years she has been alive. It doesn’t matter that blue, glowing, and floating streak in her hair tells her that she should have one. She likes being single, making lots of friends, thank you very much. But then a new student with floating blue hair just has to crash into her school with his snarl and blasts of lightning.
Genre: Urban Fantasy, Young Adult, Comedy, Romance
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October 2017
I POUNDED MY FEET HARDER ONTO THE concrete pavement and I was sprinting, wheezing as though I was dying because whose idea was this to get me to run at all? I had never been athletic. I’d rather nap on my couch, crunching on chips, than run after boys. And yet, here I was running after one desperately, even though I told myself I would never do it.
This was absolutely not the plan.
Here me out; my plan was sound—or at least, it used to be. I was going to enjoy my hard-earned freedom, making many friends, and for years I did exactly that. We’d play as much as we wanted; going out, gossiping, talking about boys or girls, shopping, making inside jokes to last a lifetime. We’d be happy. Then, maybe, after graduating high school, I’d get to go to University of Samas, majoring in obscure things like metaphysics or something because I liked thinking about the odd way the universe worked. Or maybe I’d be a singer, or writer, or illustrator, I didn’t know—but at least, there was a plan, damn it. I was supposed to be doing whatever I wanted. Not this.
My mobile phone buzzed in my pocket and I picked it up, still panting.
“Christine!” Jenny, my best friend since second grade shouted into my ears. “Where are you? Have you seen—”
“I did,” I cut her off, running across the street, almost getting run over.
“Holy shit.” Now she was panting like me. I was guessing it wasn’t due to running. She was probably in the middle of Samas city, walking with her date, which would mean—
Then, there were screams on the other side of the line, followed by the sound of something big cracking and some other things shattering. “Holy shit, Christine. You’ve got to be here. He’s going absolutely nut case!”
Goddamnit. “He’s already a nut case the first time we saw him, Jen.”
“Yeah, but this is much worse.”
“Worse how?” I stalled, almost getting run over. Again.
“Like, I don’t know, a deranged lunatic!”
“Wow, okay, that’s terrible.”
“Christine!”
“I know, Jenn. I’m running there and I’m tired!” I growled at her.
“Why didn’t you take your car?” she shouted back, becoming angry because I was angry. Another boom followed by cracks in the background. Another scream.
“Because someone got me in trouble last Saturday and my dad took it for the week!”
“Well, how was I supposed to know you’re going to need it this week?”
“You’re supposed to be the clairvoyant!”
“Part-time clairvoyant,” she corrected patiently.
I wanted to hurl myself into a wall. Maybe then I’d fall asleep and never wake up.
There was a strange electric sound in the background. Then, faintly, the melodious voice which had become familiar to me over the past two months spoke. I couldn’t make out the words, but Jenny said to me, “Dear Lord, what is his problem? He’s furious and he’s talking in tongues.”
Which was a language I would understand if I were there myself. As it was, I was still two miles away from the city center and my legs and lungs and everything inside me was already a pile of goo. “He’s probably—” I panted, “—displeased someone didn’t serve him—the correct cereal for—breakfast.”
“What? That’s outrageous!”
“I’m joking—Jen.” Not really, though.
“I’m dying here and you’re joking?” Jenny shouted in my ear indignantly.
Not my best moment, I admit. “On my—way,” I gasped. Why did humans need to breathe? Why did humans need air? And why did my body reject the air it needed to live?
“I can’t believe you, Christine. After all we’ve done? I would—” She abruptly paused, and I felt chill on the nape of my neck. I knew it before she spoke that it was coming. The next thing she said was, “Run, little one, run / fire and ashes, the world would become / find your midnight sun / or into darkness, you will succumb.”
Fan-fucking-tastic.
“What did I say?” Now my friend Jen was back. No more eerie overlapping clairvoyant voice that she got when she was possessed. For a moment there, I worried about her. She tended to stand still in the middle of the room, eyes shining light flashlights, when it came. She didn’t have control over it and she didn’t remember any of it. Oracle of Samas, in flesh.
“We’re—succumbing—into darkness—apparently.”
“Great. You’d better get your ass here faster, I’m getting flashlights.” Then, she hung up, pissed off.
Well, it wasn’t my fault the supposed other half of my soul was destroying everything in his wake. I told myself he had his own moral, his own thoughts, his own ability to choose and deal with the consequences. Not my fault that he was born a little bit unhinged with daddy issues.
