Reside Within Me

Chapter Two

I remember her. A blond that everyone would stereotype as stupid. A slut even. And she was. To the world. To everyone. Everyone she wanted to view her that way.

To me, her family, people that were special, she was more. She was like π. Everyone knows pi equals 3.14. But not many know that, as a whole, it equals 3.14159265359. That's how she was.

3.14 to the world. Only to be used for finding the radius.
3.14159265359 to her small world. Used for finding the surface area unique shapes.
That's how I saw her. I was that special shape and she was pi. The entire pi. Not just 3.14. Because everyone "knows" what a blond is. But no one knew what kind of blond she was.

And I say was for a reason. She died, shortly after I met her.

We were both eighteen and fresh cookies. But we'd been eighteen for seven years. We just didn't realize it. She never got that chance to realize it. I mean, she died. And when she did, everything changed.

I had repeated nightmares of the scene. The flying car. Her body, which was literally just her body. The blood. The screams. The coppery smell of death.

After it all, she died. All that was left was the memory of her. And, like her, I stopped aging. Except I was alive. I never learned, until after she died, what happens.

My world is unique. Perhaps the only world to sustain life. The only world to sustain this kind of life. Where people stop aging at eighteen until they find their "true love" or "soulmates" or whatever else someone may call them. Once they meet their other half, they age together. Until then, when you reach that age, you stay that way.

But there's also something else. Writing. On arms. You could be sleeping and then feel a pen caress your skin. Letters spelling out different things. Sometimes even pictures. And they're from the same person you age with.

So many times I've seen them on my skin. Seen them and followed them to different people. But I've known that I would just end up killing the author. I would become selfish as my thoughts engulfed me. The thought of death and how much I wanted to avoid it. All I knew was that, if my so called soulmate died, I wouldn't.

Until now. I don't want to kill. Not anymore.

Someone is reading the writing on my skin.