Vanilla Cherry | random stories

Red Strings V1.0

I was born different, something that I realised only when I was eighteen.

You see, on my eigtheenth birthday, things started to appear in my vision. I started seeing long red threads, threads that went in and out through doors and windows, that wrapped around streetlamps and trees, that wound tightly around my pinky finger.

After a short Internet search, I found posts and blog entries from people like me, who could see the thread too. They called themselves 'Seers', the ones who could see the threads.

The 'red strings of fate', they called it. A small business was open where people could, for a small fee, hire one of the Seers to take them to meet their soulmate.

During my spare time and holidays, I worked part-time for the said business. It was pretty easy money, if the trip was long, accommodations and travelling expenses had to be paid for by the one who hired us. After some time, I gathered a small some of money.

It wasn't until a while later, that I took the time to go investigate my own thread.

And by a while, I mean three years.

With enough money saved up, I decided 'what better way to spend my month long holiday than to go soulmate hunting'? I had the means to do so, after earning enough.

I packed a small luggage, and slowly began to coil the thread around my finger, collecting it as I followed its trail.

I followed it to the outskirts of town, and right to the edge of the cliff.

But it still had not ended.

The thread led down, off the edge of the cliff, and into the rocks below. I slowly backed away, dragging my luggage behind me.

Who was connected to the other end of my thread that I'd have to climb down a cliff for?

Disheartened, I headed home, with a heavy heart.

A year later, I flew to another country for an internship. I was taken on a tour of the area, and to some of the special tourist spots relatively near by.

I was surprised to see that while I was standing at the foot of a volcano, that my thread was leading up, and what seemed to be into, the fiery lava within.

Shaking my head and turning away once again, I was sure I would never find my soulmate.

Another year passed, and I had returned home. My older brother had a daughter, my niece. She asked me to bring her to the zoo to have some 'grown up girl bonding time', to which I agreed.

She had pulled me to the tiger exhibit, where she gestured excitedly upon seeing the tigers. I was too busy staring at my thread, which lead into the tiger enclosure, and right into a tiger's mouth.

As the years passed, my thread's colour grew more and more vivid. While it had been a dull carmine when I was eighteen, it was now a shade of crimson.

You are closer to meeting your soulmate, one of the Seers had advised me. I wondered how much longer I had to wait.

Even more years passed, and soon my hair was a light grey, my thread a bright and shining scarlet.

As my eyes closed for the last time, I could only feel regret that I never met my soulmate.

The next time I opened my eyes, I was lying in a bed. Scrambling out, I realised that my legs were functioning properly, and that my arms had no wrinkles. A nearby mirror confirmed my returned youth.

A short rapping of knuckles on the door jolted me out of my stupor. "You have awoken, my lady. Please, the master would like to see you now," a chiming voice called from the other side. "May I come in to help you get dressed?"

Upon receiving my approval, the helper entered the room. She refused to answer any of my questions, saying, "All in due time, madame."

Still in a state of shock, I let her usher me towards a set of glistening black doors. "They're a mixture of onyx and obsidian, my master would settle for nothing less. Now, if you please, enter the room. He has been waiting for you for a long time."

With trembling hands, I slowly push open the doors. I would finally get to meet my soulmate. I walk into the dimly lit room, and stand in front of the marbled black desk.

I take note of the word printed on the desk, and gasp. All the pieces slowly fit into place, the cliff with sharp rocks below, the fiery lava of the volcano, the glistening teeth of the tiger's mouth.

Hearing my gasp and realising I am here, my partner turns to face me, and engulfs me in their warm embrace.

"Hello, my name is Death, and I am your soulmate. I've waited for you for such a long time."