The Countdown

Chapter 1

10 minutes left on the clock that had been attached to my wrist since I was born. We're all given them, a little watch that counts down the years, days, seconds until you meet them....the person whose clock stops at the same time yours does.

Soulmate.

A term that once used to be nothing more than what fathers told their little girls to make them believe in happily ever after's.

I don't know how, and nobody seems to bother to ask, but scientist developed the product 20 years ago. Everyone since then has found the person who completes them. Right on time. Perhaps this is the reason no one questions it.

The only reported times that people failed to reach the end of that time was when the clock stopped counting down. But even those instances were explained when someone with the same stopped time was reported dead.

The "New Rules" that accompany this - shall we call it, phenomenon aren't very extensive.

Unless your clock is stopped due to unfortunate events - no dating anyone who is not your soul mate.

How do they fact check your soulmate, you may ask? Well it's simple really. Once your clock runs out and you've met your soulmate, a unique mark is imprinted into your skin upon contact.

Aha! Loophole- tattoos. Well sorry, yet again, because they have special scanners that tell the difference.

All soulmates are required to check into the office of Fates to document the special bond. Likewise to report any stopping of the clock.

Rule number 2 is a bit more relaxed. You can check in at any time you wish as long as you do so within a year of meeting. No one has really failed to do so because once they've found "the one" they're so over joyed that they're always bursting to share the news.

Rule 3- Do not remove your clock. Not only is this dangerous, but I also disrupts the process.

This last rule is only there as a reminder. Who would ruin their shot a forever?

Nine minutes left on my wrist and I've begun to sweat. What if he doesn't like me? What if the clock stops, before zero is finally reached? But honestly those aren't my biggest worries.

As I look around my barren room I'm reminded of the results that happen when people try to find love on their own.

My step mother, a lady who didn't even get a watch, because when they first came out you either had to get it a birth or pass the scantron, and she failed the scantron, for one reason or another. The people had given her some false hope that perhaps she had already met her soulmate. Which had only been worse when my father, her boyfriend at the time, had also been denied.

This had been fine up until I was born and the affair was brought to light. My father had been dating my step mother, and my mother on the side.

She died in childbirth at the age of eighteen. My father, who had no choice but to admit he had been with my mother whilst she was underage, had gone to jail.

No one knew the true story only my father's side of it, but my mother was never able to tell anyone if she had knowingly broke Rule #1, or if it had been against her will. She died with 24 days 6 hours and 10 minutes on her clock. The man who would have been her soulmate heard the news of her death and killed himself.

He never got the chance to know about me.

Since my bio father had married my stepmother and no one else could be traced as family, I was left to live with Marie and Lizet Sorenson. My half sister Marie who is 16 months older than me, hates me simply for taking her father.

Lizet...well I ruined her perfect mirage, her marriage, and worst of all her social standing.

It wouldn't be so bad if she simply ignored me - no - instead I'm left here. A symbol of her life crashing. to smithereens. Something punishable for her to take her anger and frustration out on.

I can deal with it though. 7:30 left on my clock and I've got a plan.

Stupid - but a plan.

Lizet doesn't pay enough attention to me to know how close I am to freedom. You see once I meet him I'll be free even at the age of 17, I can leave to live with him or his family.

Anywhere but here. 16 is the age you become an adult, but only if you've met your soulmate and have registration. Nothing, not even Lizet can keep me from escaping once this timer runs out. The only real worry is if Lizet will be able to tell I got my happily ever after by just by looking at me.

Imagine the anger she would have once realizing I got what she blamed me of taking from her. A shiver trickled down my spine. I ignore it as I grabbed a hoody and climbed out my window onto the roof right under it.

5 minutes to freedom.

I starred at the clock embedded in my wrist in hopes that this little stunt wouldn't cost my soulmate's clock to stop.

4 minutes, 45 seconds.

That, my friend, is when I jumped from the second story and prayed the ground would give me mercy. But even if it didn't, I'd still have broken free from a harsher fate of being left in that house to rot.

(It's short, yes, but this is sorta the introduction/explainer of how the soulmate clock thing wor