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Crossed Souls

The day we met was like any other day, at first. I had woken up on this snowy Friday for college like any other day. But as the day of classes went on, I just got this feeling, not quite like I was being watched, more being looked for. At the time I didn't understand.

Why was I getting this feeling? How am I getting this feeling?

When I went home from my last class, I started to get the feeling of being watched. It wasn't until I was laying down to go to sleep did I start to hear the noises. There were tiny, almost inaudible clicking noises and the sound of a man's laughter. I started freaking out, only one thing going through my head: There is a man in my house, I'm alone, I'm going to be killed.

Boy was I wrong.

All of a sudden, I could smell the ocean. This was odd. Now, if I had lived on the coast, it wouldn't be odd, but I lived in Clarksville, Tennessee which was at least 600 miles from the nearest coast. Then, out of my horror, the blanket that I had been covering my head with was ripped away. With a terrified scream at what I saw, I bolted off the bed. There was a tall being glowing gray and floating!

"I'm sorry to have scared you, sir. My name is Jace. Are you Ollie Callister?" The being asked.

'This can't be real.' I thought as I couldn't make words form, so I just nodded.

"Thank Gods. You wouldn't believe how long I've been searching for you. Now, for the reason I'm here."

I just stare at him blankly. Did he just say Gods?

"I have been given the power to manifest in front of you because my life had ended too soon. It was unfairly taken away from me before I could meet you. This may sound crazy, but soul mates are real, and you are mine, I yours. Everyone meets their soul mates eventually, whether it be in their first life or the one after, it's destined.

"Do not be afraid, for I will not harm you. I came to meet you and warn you. Your life is in danger. Now that may not be a bad thing for me, 'cause then we'd be together. But that's just selfish. You're so young and I don't want your life to be ripped away from you like mine was."

My mind was racing. I was going to die soon? What will that do to my mom? She'd be all alone. And Abbie? I don't even want to imagine it. Wait, back up a moment. Soulmates? They are real, true, and mines floating right in front of me?... My soulmates dead?

My heart just broke. If soulmates are real... and everyone only has one... that means if I don't die anytime soon, my one true and real love will never be with me, and me him. I suddenly just get this feeling that I don't want to live without him. Which is really odd because I have just met him not half an hour ago.

"Can... can you tell me something?" I ask hesitantly.

"Yes, anything." He replied agilely.

"How did you die?"

He paused for a moment, as if hesitant on telling me his story. Finally, he sighed. I could tell that he wasn't expecting me to be asking him of his story already.

"Before I tell you how I died, I'm going to tell you a little of how my life was. When I was ten, my mom died of brain cancer. My sister and I were heartbroken, but our father was worse. Two years later, Cynthia, my sister who was 15 at the time, Was walking home from her art club meeting. She was kidnapped by a guy who was in his late 30s. Five days later her body was found in a ditch off a road that led to the local lake.

"Now, I had lived in a small town in central Tennessee called Bell Buckle. There weren't many people, the population under six hundred. So no one expected it. Once again my dad and I were heartbroken. After the deaths of both the love of his life and his little girl, he resorted to alcohol.

"Whenever h had alcohol in his system, he tended to get violent. One night when I had known he was working, or I thought I had known, I called him to pick me up from where I worked. I had padded up going to college to stay home and help pay bills and take care of my father. It turned out that he had gotten fired for showing up to work drunk and was still drunk.

"I couldn't smell the alcohol on him until after he had started driving. I looked at the speedometer from my place in the backseat. It seemed like we were going too fast, and he was going 15 miles over the speed limit. I calmly tried to tell him to slow down but he only kept going faster.

"Eventually, we ended up out of town limits and onto the highway, which was bound to have a few cars on it. I tried to open my car door because if I jumped out, there was a better chance of surviving than if we crashed, but it didn't open. Then I realized that he must have put the child lock on."

He paused for a minute, probably hoping I would know which way this was going and wouldn't need to continue. I didn't say anything, so he sighed and continued.

"Not even five seconds after that thought, there was a flash of headlights and then nothing. The afterworld isn't how you'd think. There's no light or dark, only gray. Those whose lives ended too soon are sent to the gods. Most people's thoughts are wrong. There isn't one God. There aren't 12 or 14 like the Greeks and Romans thought. In fact, there are twice as many, though only seven main Gods and Goddesses.

"Goddess of Nature, Avis; God of Life, Meyer; God of Death, Coal; God of War, Egon; Goddess of Wisdom, Rainer; God of Love, Amadeo, and his sister, Goddess of Love, Amadea.

"Amadeo and Amadea deal and create the soulmates, thus you and I. The twins Meyer and Coal deal with life and death and if someone becomes in our situations. The other four deal with what they've created: nature, war, and wisdom."

He pauses for the benefit of me taking it all in. 24 Gods and Goddesses, soulmates, ghosts, death.

And that's when I black out.

*Five Months Later*

With every day that passes, I think that night was just a dream. It is now June and nothing has threatened to take my life away.

"You know, you're a really bad listener." My best friend Abbie says from the driver's seat. We're currently driving from Clarksville back to Collierville, our home city.

I quickly take a drink of my vanilla coffee to get the taste of a salty pickle out of my mouth. "I'm sorry, Ab. You know I haven't been thinking and listening very well since that dream. It was too real but so unbelievable." I defend myself.

"You know, it might not have been a dream. You never know what may or may not happen in this world," she reprimanded me. "But hey, listen to me now. I was talking about what we're going to do for your birthday."

Ah yes. My infamous 21st birthday that just so happened to be in a week. June 19.

"Sleep," I mumbled. There is no way I am going to let her drag me anywhere. After knowing her for 20 years, I just know she'd drag me to a club or something.

"You, sir, are not going to be staying in on such a day." She turned her head to glare at me. In that moment, a semi truck on the other side of the two-lane highway swerved over into our lane and crashed into us head-on.

Everything was grey. Just like he said it would be.