Soulmarked

Age 16

Author notes: hey guys trying something out which is writing with no actual plot but a thought of point A to point B and see what happens as we go and I'm writing this from my phone so bare with me. Make it a journey as we go. Hopefully it'll turn out like a couple of my other stories and end up pretty good. Anyway enjoy

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Raven hated birthdays, even at a young age. With birthdays came everyone remembering her for once in a blue moon. Everyone would say happy birthday and ask her how she was but no one would stick around after the festivities to actually hang out like friends they claimed to be.
"Raven, come on. You're birthday waffles are gonna get cold!" My mom called. She treated me like my friend, my sister, the only friend I had. Yeah, she's my mom but I had that perfect relationship with her. She didn't criticize me for my dark clothes or my piercings. She just smiled and made compliments and occasionally well placed jokes.
"Coming!" I called and threw off the covers. I got out of bed in my gray lacy boy shorts and a large school t shirt that hung off one shoulder. Our local school was the Havenfall Heathens. My hometown of Havenfall resides in a small place in the near smack middle of Texas.
I changed out of the shirt and tossed on a  black v neck and pair of dark washed jeans with my platform boots with my usual jewelry. I grabbed my hoodie and noticed the strangest thing on my arm
Bright red ink. It was doodles of .........something. It was smudged probably from sleep but it was there.
That wasn't the strange bit. The strange part was I hate writing on myself, even if it's my palm.
I shrugged it off.
'Probably slept on a pen' I thought to myself.
"Morning mom." I sighed as I looked at the bacon chocolate waffles with butter and syrup drenching it.
"Breakfast of the champions, am I right?" She said turning to look at me. Her eyes showed her age and her energy. The crows feet was completely lost to the spark in her blue eyes, I inherited. Her hair was her natural red-brown with the gray starting to take over but me? No I dyed mine black.
"Excited for school?" Mom asked, offhand.
"Not especially, but hey, today's a new day." I sighed and shoveled a fork full of waffles in my mouth.
My mom rested her hands on the counter and sighed.
"I know it's hard, just you and me, but it's not all bad." She smiles as best she could.
My father left when I wasn't even born and mom had to pick up the slack everywhere. We were fortunate enough my grandparents gave us this house out of sympathy.
It was a nice two story three bed two bath. Mine and my moms room were opposite of the house and I had my own personal balcony over looking the privacy fenced in yard.
"Hey I'm gonna be late for the bus. I'll text you when schools over." I said noticing the time on the microwave.
"Ok, honey. Have a good day. Please." My mom emphasized.
"Love you!" I called as I sprinted for the bus.

I love the bus. Sure it was loud but I had my music to drown everything out. I love listening to SkullJack on Mutube on the bus. He's this amateur artist that writes these nice acoustic pieces with a techno or rock spin. Too bad he doesn't have any lyrics to them.

"Excuse me. Sorry." A guy said squeezing into the seat. He had a Aussie twang to this voice. His book bag was spilling out papers.
I scooted closer to the window and ignored him.
Arriving at school I waited till everyone got off and noted a piece of paper on the floor and pick it up.

Sheet music? Hand written. Cool.
I pocketed it to check out later or have one of the band nerds check out.
Rushing through the halls like mindless animals, I ignored everything.
The pushing, the hollering, the ringtones, the teachers, anything that wasn't the strings on the guitar in my ears.
It brought peace to me. A body shoved into mine and I went sprawling. The music on my phone was disconnected from my headphones and began to play.
"I am so sorry! Me mate was joking with me and pushed me and I'm so sorry!" It was the boy from the bus. That accent wasn't hard to place in a small Texas town like HavenFall. I fixed him with a hard glare and dusted off my hands.
"It's fine." I grumbled and stood. He grabbed my phone and my bag to keep them from getting trampled.
"I'm Jax. I'm a freshman." He offered holding out my possessions. His
"Thanks for grabbing my stuff." I said and grabbed them, walking away.
I didn't have to look to know he was following to the cafeteria but when I entered I went to my usual seat away from everyone and he followed. Before someone grabbed him and dragged him away.
The bell rang not to long after and I trudged off to my first class. English.
Sitting in the back of the class I doodled in my art book. This woman I was drawing was affirming in a nice red dress with sugar skull tattoo on her face and roses and bones tattooed on her arms.
"Class I would like you to give a warm welcome to Jax Strider. He's a transfer student from Australia. Find a seat." Mr. Lampert said in his monotone voice before continuing with class.
Jax found a seat next to mine. Class continued as normal. I endured it and the other three classes till lunch. Our school was fairly open meaning unless you wanted to trek or drive ten miles back to town, you're not really leaving.

Eating lunch by myself aside from the occasional people was the norm for me.
I looked down at my wrist and noticed something strange.
"You are ok." Was written in black sharpie in nice strong bold cursive.
"Alright, Raven." I told myself and dug a pen out of my bag and inserted "not"
"You are not ok." It read now.
The bell rang and I grumbled continuing to my next class.
The new kid, Jack or Jax, was in my other four classes and he would sit in the back with me as well.
The final bell rang and I decided to peel off my jacket before getting in the bus and I noticed the sentence on my arm had been edited.
"You are not ok." But not was crossed out. With another sentence under it.
"Who are you?"
I sat there against the wall of the hall walkway staring at the writing on my arm.
If this was a prank, it was well thought out and going too far.
I pulled out a pen and began to write.
"Call me B."
"Alright Raven. You can't be crazy if you watch your arm right? If an answer appears, I'll see who or what it is." I watched my arm. Sitting with my back against the window, I propped my arm on my knee and waited.
There it was. Words began to appear on my arm like a ghost or invisible entity was writing.
"Call me S."
I pulled out my pen and began to write.
"Am I crazy?" My hand was starting to shake and it showed in my writing.
"I don't think so."
And so it began. From the school to home, I began to lose space on my arm till I had start scrubbing the ink off.
Whoever this S was, they were pretty funny but for some reason wouldn't divulge where they lived. S loved music and dabbled in their own stuff.
"Mom I'm home!" I called dropping my bag in the couch.
"In here!" She called from her office. My mom is a translator. I mean that as in she translates books into other languages. I never really picked up anything other than English so I tend to lose interest in her work. She's been working so hard for this job for years and she finally landed the big one translating for the big authors.
"How was work?" She asked as she glanced at the stack of papers on her desk before typing furiously on her laptop.
"If only I was paid, mom. It was ok. Got a new student from Australia." I commented.
This made her pause.
"Pardon?" She asked looking up at me.
"Yea some Jax Stryder."
"That's nice, sweetie. Dinner is on the stove. Sorry but I really need to finish this book today." She replied glancing from the screen to the book beside her. Judging from the size of the book left to type up, she had a while.
I shrugged it off and walked to my room. Closing the door behind me I started to shuck off clothes looking for any new writing before I noticed in my mirror there was a message.
Ok. Not a message but a doodle. On my left butt cheek, was a kiss mark in bright red.
The blush burned my cheeks that this stranger had put that there. Well, I assumed S put it there. I lunged for my desk and grabbed a black eyeliner pen and the mirror. I tilted my head and decided to return the favor.
After pain staking effort, I finally stepped away from the mirror happy with my work. A perfect almost realistic bite mark with vampire fangs sat on my neck. The message on my arm was almost instantaneous.
"What the fuck did you use on my neck?" It read in blue pen.
"Waterproof eyeliner." I replied with a ballpoint pen.
"How do I get this off? I can't get caught with another tattoo."
He had tattoos? How old is he?
"Make up remover."
"Where do I get that?" The writing went from strong masculine strokes to frantic hasty scribble.
"A store?"
I didn't hear much from them for the rest of the night. I checked myself before heading down for dinner, after dinner, before my shower, during my shower, and after my shower.
I found something that scared me much more than pen marks on my skin.
Dark black bruises.
Long and a inch wide. My side. My back. My legs.
I watched for almost an hour before I scrabbled to find a pen.
"R U Ok?" I didn't waste time being grammatically correct. These bruises were from a belt and I'd known if I got them.
Almost another hour went by before tiny letters appeared under my reply.
"I'm fine. Goodnight." The reply was neat but shaky at the end.
I didn't sleep that night. Not with the knowledge someone was getting beaten to this degree. I stayed up tossing and turning. It was obvious they didn't want to talk or my brain was playing tricks on me and I was still asleep, dreaming of sentences appearing on my skin.

I squeezed my eyes shut so tight and forced myself to try to sleep.