Prompted Short Stories

Soulmate Song - Stupid Murderer

The image above is the prompt.

Scarlette sighed. Writing essays for English was tiring. Of course, she had procrastinated on the assignment and it was to be due the next morning at 8. And here she was, at 11 writing her paper and eating icecream out of the tub.

She brushed her hot pink hair out of her face and put her earbuds in. She was about to play music when she heard a door open. She was alone in the apartment, her roommate was visiting family that weekend. Scarlette shrugged, thinking it might be a neighbor and went back to her writing and her music. A minute later, she heard the door creak again.

This time, she went to investigate. Scarlette grabbed one of her textbooks and crept to the bedroom. When she got there, she saw a man, about college age, with his back turned. “You’re not going to find anything in here, you know.”

The man startled and turned around. “I’m not here to steal anything, I promise!”

“Yeah, sure you aren’t. I’m calling the police.” Scarlette looked him over to make sure she knew what to tell the police if she had to provide a description. He was tall with light brown hair. Besides that, she couldn’t tell much. He had what was basically a bandanna covering the area around his eyes but with holes for the actual eyes to see through.

His eyes widened. “Nonononono, don’t do that.”

She lifted her phone. “You have ten seconds to come up with a reason I shouldn’t call the police. Change my mind. I’m counting. 1, 2, 3, 4–”

“Fine, fine, fine!” He lifted his hands in surrender. “I have information about your parents. About them before they died.”

Scarlette stopped counting and looked at him suspiciously. “My parents. What about them? You know what, no, I don’t care. My parents are dead and they have been for a very long time. What I do care about, however, is how you knew that they were dead. So, spill. I have a heavy college textbook and I will throw it if need be. Don’t forget that I’m still contemplating about calling the police. Sit down and don’t move anything other than your mouth.” She pointed at the chair in the corner. He complied quickly,

“First, your name?”

He opened his mouth as if to say something, then closed. After a second of thinking, he spoke. “Liam.”

Scarlette nodded. “Alright, that’s obviously not your real name. Which means that I get to choose what to call you. I can’t really see what you look like, but you look a bit like a Kenneth. So I’m going to call you that. So, Kenneth. What do you know about my parents and what are you here for?”

He leaned forward to speak. Before he could open his mouth, Scarlette interrupted him, “I said don’t move. I want to be sure that you’re not up to something.”

I have no idea what I’m writing. This is going to make absolutely no sense. But, like I said earlier, you’re going to have to deal with it.

“Well, I don’t know much about your parents. I just said that to get you not to call the police.” Scarlette slowly put her hand on her phone and poised her fingers to call 9-1-1. ‘But,” he said hurriedly, “I know a bit. They were part of… an organization of sorts… I’m here because you were their daughter. I was looking for clues about them here–”

“Which you’re not going to find. The last time I saw my parents, I was a little kid. Even before that, I barely saw them”

“Yeah, well. You never know. Besides that, if I found you, I’m supposed to kill you.”

This is so bad. I don’t know what I’m doing.

With that, he grabbed a small gun from his pocket and shot it at her, leaving Scarlette no time to react.

As it turned out, she didn’t need to react. “Dude, you have the safety lock on.” She walked over to him and grabbed the gun. “I’ll take that.” He just sat there, dumbfounded. “Thanks for the gun. You know, you’re really bad at this whole assassination. First of all, Kenneth, I could hear you. Second of all, I caught you and you didn’t even try to leave. You acted scared. Third of all you didn’t even get the gun to fire. Honestly, that’s just disappointing. Why would anyone send you of all people to kill me? You know, I’m really this close to calling the police.” She pinched her fingers, almost touching. “But, back to the discussion. You said my parents were part of some sort of… organization?”

“Yeah, I can’t really explain about that…”

He can’t explain because there isn’t anything for him to explain. I haven’t thought this through enough.

“Oh, you better explain, Kenneth. Like I said, I will call the police. And if I throw this textbook at you and you get a concussion, I have the legal right to say I was defending myself. So, talk.”

“Alright. Just, give me a minute to think on how to explain this. I don’t know much and I’m not supposed to tell anything.” He sat there for a while, stewing it over. As he thought, he started to hum.

Scarlette squinted at him suspiciously. That was her soulmate song. Or, at least, a similar sounding tune. If it was the same, the two of them were soulmates. But, if they were soulmates, would that really help her in this situation? Or would it make things worse? She decided to hum along with it and see if he realized. It took him a while to notice she was humming, too; he’d spaced out for too long. When he did realize, he startled again.

“You're… my soulmate?”

“Apparently so. Now, keep explaining, I need to hear this.” She interlaced her fingers and looked at him pointedly. “Well, I’m waiting.”