Soulmates.
The entire crowd clapped.
I did too, smiling huge for their union, meanwhile inside myself I withered like a flower in winter.
Where was he?
Where was she?
Where were they?
It did not matter their gender, it did not matter their choice of toothpaste, it did not matter their education, it did not matter their family…I just wantedthem.
The other half of my soul.
Every person was born incomplete. With only half of a soul, we had to search this bitter earth until we found the person that made our soul whole. For most, it started at about eighteen years old. That was when your heart begun its hard thumping, desperately plunging out of your chest, trying to reach the other heart it belonged to. It guided you, moving your feet to where they were, even if it were across entire continents. Your heart knew exactly where to go. The hammering did not cease until you finally found your person and pressed your chests together.
Once it did, and two people connected, our souls were puzzled in harmony for all eternity.
Conventions like this were popular. Thousands of people gathered in a single auditorium searching for their Soulmate. We travelled states, we travelled countries. Uandra sponsored it all. It was vital we found our person.
And if you did not find your person?
You were Soulless.
A Soulless person could not love, and no one could love them in return, because they were wicked. Their heart did not thump furiously because they did not have a soul.
My heart did not thump at all.
There was something wrong with me.
Since childhood, I knew I was odd. A girl who rarely blinked. A girl who did not care. A girl who could look at the corpse of an animal, bloating and bleeding, and find it interesting.
A girl who did not cry.
I closed those thoughts away and opened new thoughts.
I was not Soulless. I was a good person.
I dug into my pocket and pulled out a wrinkled piece of torn paper, reading over the address. When someone walked close, I hid it.
I had to sell my great grandmother’s emerald earrings to a man in a pawnshop to hold this piece of paper.
On the street outside, the city buzzed with a hive of cars and people, swimming in their lines of traffic all flowing with ease while I stood alone with my personal guard who glared at anyone who dared near me.
Far away someone took a snapshot of me.
It was no secret a member of the De Astor family was nearing twenty-five years old without a Soulmate. I was posted over social media more than puppies rolling over themselves.
Soulless people were the wicked of the earth. Uandra did not take kindly to wicked things. The only use of a Soulless person?
To be killed.
Steps away, through the ambush of people, an elderly woman lost her cane and toppled into a signpost.
I ran to her, catching her by the arm before she fell into the pavement. “Are you okay?”
“Oh!” She huffed out a blow of air and clasped my arm like a lifeline. “Thank you, Honey. I just—” Her lips turned down once she lifted her head to me. Her eyes narrowed in on my features. “You look familiar.”
