Beyond The Stage

Her World Begins

Alexis's POV

I was twelve when it first started. My siblings were in their rooms, while I was helping Mom make some cookies.

"You can't let them have any, Mom. They didn't help make them. We should eat them all ourselves." I argued. 

I just wanted the cookies for myself, but I was going to let Mom have some too. I helped her pull weeds earlier, after all.

"No Ali. That wouldn't be nice, sharing is caring, besides, you just got over a sickness." I started to whine, but she threatened the cookies. That's when I had to give in.

The reporter on the news was talking in the background. Mom always likes to watch the news when she bakes. I just ignored it and hummed to myself until the cookies were done.
The oven dinged, signaling that the cookies were done. Mom grabs the oven mitts and opens the oven when my brother walks in. "You can have some, but only a few." I tell him.

"Ali...." Mom scolds.

"Fine, we can all have the same number of cookies." One day I'll make my own cookies, and only Mom and I can have them.

The TV makes a loud ringing noise, signaling an emergency broadcast. Mom's phone makes the same sound on the counter top. She picks it up, her eyes widening, "My gosh, it's playing the news!" 

Why would her phone play the news? Even amber alerts don't do that.

"Attention, all U.S. citizens. Attention, all U.S. citizens. An international phenomenon has been detected by the CDC." This message keeps playing over  for a few minutes until a live recording shows some man in his early forties. His blonde hair has started to gray, and there are tiny wrinkles in the corner of his eyes that are visible behind his glasses. He looks professional in his white lab coat.

"Hello, I am Professor Rome Stokes, head of the CDC. I have come to share some extraordinary news. About two days ago, a new phenomena has been occurring around the world. So far, as we have identified it is not lethal, however, people throughout the world have been experiencing this. It seems to be effecting young adults between the ages 19 and 31, for an unknown reason." He pushes up his glasses, and that's when I see how tired he is. He must be really busy during all of this.

"As you all know, if you have family members or friends within this age range, all people of this age group passed out and got high fevers around three days ago." Mom looks at me. I'm not in that range, but three days ago I vomited badly all of a sudden, and had to be rushed to the hospital because of dehydration. It was chaos in there.

He continues, "The very next day, is when these instances had started. As we have observed first hand, when two certain people touch for the first time, regardless of gender, a random activity starts. Some examples are, the changing of hair colors unnaturally, the body becoming extremely hot and melting items it comes into contact with, an intangible... rope, as you would call it, connecting the pair attached at body parts, visible electric currents throughout the body, and more.

"When the activity ends, the pair confesses to have a slight physical attraction to each other. One recorded instance of a woman who turned 19 yesterday, found her soulmate this morning, when brushing past a man in a breakfast and brunch restaurant. This shows, that the children under 19, are expected to experience this also, when they become of age." Mom looks at my brothers and I. I start crying, scared of what might happen. She pulls me into a hug, and rubs my back, kissing into my head. My brother comforts me too, which makes me feel like the only baby, because he isn't scared.

"Currently, the end result of the phenomena is only positive, leaving you with a lifelong partner. As that is the case, we at the CDC have decided to call this 'sickness,' a Soulmate Bond, since it seems to connect you with your soulmate." He smiles, as if everything he just said didn't screw up the entire world.

♡♡♡

After that announcement, the news had been showing a daily chart of the population of soulmates in the world. There is an entire segment on it now. It tells how many soulmates there are in each country, and gives reports about uncommon bonds, such as intercultural, and even teleportation between soulmates. They even made a soulmate bond hotline, to inform people about bonds, mainly soulmates themselves. If a pair experiences a bond, but doesn't know who it was with, they teleport to each other after a few weeks, so even if they wanted to ignore each other, they couldn't.

What caught the most attention, however, was the very first multi-person soulmate bond. It occurred three years after the CDC announcement. A woman in Russia experienced two soulmate bonds with two different men. I felt bad for the trio when I saw them bombarded by news channels throughout the country. 

What I admired, was how her soulmates always protected her and shielded her from the cameras. Every time I saw them on television, the men looked at her like she was the most amazing being in the universe, and she looked at them with just as much love. That was what made me start to be excited for my future bond, instead of scared of it.

The only thing that topped that, was when another trio had a shared soulmate bond, but it was a Chinese woman, who had a bond with two men from America.

Five years after that, there are millions, if not billions, of soulmate bonds around the world. Those who turned 32, could still find their soulmate, or kept the bond they had, as the future was guaranteed to be filled with nothing but soulmates.

There are five multi-person bonds known today. The Russian trio, the intercultural Chinese and American trio, then a four-person bond from America with one woman and three men, a trio in Italy between one man and two women, and the most famous bond of all.

There are five people. Two men from India, two from Thailand, and one woman from Brazil. The whole world celebrated at the news, at the sheer bizarreness of it. 

And after all this time, out of the millions of bonds, there have been zero break ups.