Through Your Eyes

Chapter 12: Valarie

I crashed onto my couch, groaning loudly as I closed my eyes. Another exhaustingly long day chasing around some mystery criminal who's constantly terrorizing the city. After that massive supermarket burned a few days ago, they committed crimes relentlessly. None of my coworkers, me included, could catch a break.

Cars, houses, and stores were all stolen or robbed. Throughout the nights, every part of the city got trashed, with us getting countless panicked phone calls begging for help. Worse yet, tons of lives were lost too, as though this criminal had no morals. No matter what the time, that crazed criminal was always up to something; it was like they never stopped or slept.

Everything happened so fast that I never got the chance to figure out any of my own issues.

My initial plan had been to take a break from work so I could figure out what to do about my soulmate, but I couldn't get a break from work. I really needed time to clear my mind and decide on a plan, but I didn't even know where to start. I didn't have anyone to turn to for help, or any similar experiences to compare this to. How would I know how to handle my soulmate being a literal devil?

I was still stuck deciding whether to tell my supervisor about my criminal soulmate when he suddenly called me that day, begging me to come into work even after I'd already requested the day off. Work has been endless ever since.

Because of my hectic work schedule, I never got the chance to figure out a plan to deal with that monster or mention it to anyone else. We had all been super busy racing around the city trying to catch that psycho. I even went three days without going home to sleep, only getting in an hour-long nap while my coworker drove the car. Because of this, I was fully ready to sleep the rest of the day away.

Unfortunately, my mind wouldn't let me get that escape. As soon as I closed my eyes, that devil haunted me. A scaled monster looming over me, smirking wickedly while preparing to end my life. It matched my sister's scenario almost perfectly. Now I had a cruel soulmate who clearly wouldn't care for my life either. If we ever did meet again, there was no doubt in my mind Reese would ensure I didn't make it out alive. As a cop, wasn't I a threat to their life of crime?

With a sigh, I opened my eyes and turned over to gaze out the window. But as I slowly sat back up, a strange feeling surged through my whole body, leaving me frozen. I was chilled to the bone, my fingers stiff.

Was this strange feeling from the sleep deprivation?

No... this was different. Because of my line of work, I dealt with plenty of sleepless nights. Strangely, I didn't have my usual chronic headaches from not getting enough sleep, so that couldn't be the root cause.

I rubbed the side of my head to ease some of the pain, but as I stared deeper at the window my vision gradually blurred. I blinked a few times to try and fix my eyes, but it only got worse. What the hell was going on?

I turned my gaze away from the window and towards my bedroom. I instantly fell backwards onto my couch and shrieked. Standing before the open bedroom door was Reese disguised once again as a human. While they seemed the same as before, something was certainly off...

An unnaturally wide grin was plastered on their face, the ends of it nearly reaching their eyes. The rest of their appearance looked blurry, distorting their figure quite a bit. It shifted between human and monster, unsure which form to stick to. This was especially evident as Reese extended their left hand. Their 'human' arm ended in a monstrous claw, merging both sides of themselves into one hideous abomination.

They stalked towards me as I sat still, all my muscles frozen over. Right before that strange claw managed to grab hold of me, the unstable mirage vanished into thin air. Even as my fingers twitched and movement returned to me, I couldn't sit up and stayed completely stunned.

My mind raced as it attempted to explain what just happened to me. I had heard horror stories of people who hallucinated about their soulmates and what it could mean, but I never thought I'd experience it for myself: soulmate withdrawal.

There were many reasons why soulmates always stuck together. Not only were our lives bound, we often experienced dangerous symptoms after being apart for too long. Being apart from a soulmate for too long would literally be painful as the mind gradually deteriorated to the point of insanity. These hallucinations were the earliest stages... it only got worse.

I had never expected to experience this withdrawal so soon, though. It was strange since only a few days had passed since I last saw Reese, and we'd only just met too. How could it affect me so strongly? I thought it usually took a few months, if not a few years to get this severe.

Experiencing soulmate withdrawal caused so many more problems on top of the ones I already had to deal with; I was already struggling plenty because of work. Would I even be able to get any sleep tonight?

I inhaled deeply to calm my spiraling mind and gently lifted myself off the couch. After carefully stumbling into bed, I buried my head in my pillow and desperately wished for all this pain to go away. Was my only option to go find the monster who now had control over my life?

Even if I actually wanted to avoid them for the rest of eternity, it would at least be fairly easy to find my soulmate. Whenever soulmates wished to find each other, a strange pull would bring them together. There's always this tug leading me towards Reese, reminding me that our lives are bound. If I wanted to find them, all I had to do was follow that feeling because soulmates could always find eachother—even at the end of the world.

Now I at least had a plan for tomorrow morning. I could call in sick, since I was actually feeling awful, and then begin my search for a devil.