~everyone has multiple soulmates. when you were born, a timer was inscribed on your wrist with a button. if you press the button, a timer will start counting down the years, months, days, minutes, or seconds you have until you see your closest soulmate. however, you are not true soulmates unless the other person also pushed their button. you may be someone else's soulmate, but they may not be yours...
Ellie Jane Brenner had a complicated life for a twelve year old girl. Her mother passed away while she gave birth to her, so she never had a mother figure in her life. It didn't help that her father blamed her mother's death on her either. He was a raging alcoholic with an unpredictable personality. Outside of their home, Martin Brenner was seen as an intelligent, compassionate father, but inside the four walls of the house Ellie called home, he was a monster. When he'd go on one of his rampages and hit El, leaving her with welts and bruises all over her tiny body. Of course, she'd do nothing in return because what could she do? She was only a small, fragile little girl, but he'd soon pass out after he was drunk beyond belief. While he was asleep, El would clean herself up, eat, and study. Those were the highlights of her life.
Michael Wheeler also had a complicated life; he felt unloved and unwanted. His father was too lazy to care and his mother was usually too caught up in his little sister Holly. The only people that cared about him were his friends and his older sister Nancy, but she was away at college and couldn't be there when he needed her. To the world, they seemed like the perfect family, but what people don't know about is the daily fights his parents engaged in, dawn to dusk. The only peace he ever got was at school. Often nights, he'd curl up into a ball and cry to himself, locked in his room, alone.
For these two young children, life was more of a task rather than an award. Neither of them even thought of the timer on their wrists, let alone obsessed over it as their peers did. They had more important things to focus on in life. Well, until one cold night in November, that is.
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"Ellie!" El jumps up from her bed and lays the book she's reading in the spot where she was previously sitting. Her drunken father stumbles into her room, beer bottle in hand. Of course... He leans against the door frame and takes a swig from his bottle, not breaking eye contact with her.
"Y-yes Papa?" He stares at her for a little longer and stumbles froward a little more into her room.
"Didn't I tell you to clean up in here?!" Her father screams in her face, making El jolt a little in fear, but she quickly collects herself and makes contact with her father's harsh gaze.
"Yes, I'm sorry. I had some homework to finish. I'll get right on that." She quickly attempts to make an escape through her bedroom door, before her father's arm extends in front of her, blocking her only exit. Terror takes over her body as she sees the anger in her father.
"Don't bother." Before she even has the chance to respond, a hand is being slapped across her face, tears rushing to El's eyes from the contact. She looks at him and sees him coming quickly at her. He takes his feet and kicks her to the ground. He kicks her a few more times before he stops and begins to walk out of the room, but not before the second part of is abuse, his words.
"Your mother should've been the on to survive instead of you useless piece of wasted space." His boots hit the hard wood floor before he eventually falls onto the mattress into a long, deep sleep. El sits on the floor and cries until an idea pops into her head.
She packs a few clothes quickly and a few of her favorite books and pictures. After cleaning herself up and changing, she grabs her bag and walks to the front door, looking back at her disappointment of a father.
"No more Papa." With that, she ran of the house and ran to the edge of the woods, never looking back. She presses the button on her wrist, in hopes she will maybe find someone soon to take care of her. Someone to love her.
11 MINUTES
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Mike is awoken from his peaceful sleep to the sound of his parents fighting, again. He sighs and begins to prepare for his nightly routine of tears. He had just gotten a blanket when he heard the last thing he thought he'd hear. "I want a divorce." Sure, he'd wished they would get a divorce many times, but he never thought it would actually happen. He felt hot tears roll down his face as he heard the front door slam shut, leaving a bone-chilling silence to stand in the house.
He pulled himself together and lifted up the window to his bedroom and stepped out onto the lawn outside his bedroom, closing the window with ease once his feet were flat on the ground. He ran into the woods and looked down to his wrist and saw the button he had pressed those long three hundred and fifty three days ago. He felt hope in his heart when he first pressed it and now it was the only thing he was clinging to in this life.
11 MINUTES
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El had been running through the dark, lonely woods for quite a while before something stopped her and she fell to the cold hard ground. She figured it was just a tree before she heard the one sweet sound that would change her life forever.
The timer chimed from both of the children's wrists as they sat up and stared at each other in disbelief. They got up and subconsciously took a few steps towards each other before embracing the other stranger in a bone-crushing hug.
They were each other's saviors, but more importantly they were each other's soulmates.
YOU ARE READING
soulmates~mileven
Fiksi Penggemar"a soulmate is not found. a soulmate is recognized."
