scars.

Chapter 1

I looked into the mirror and tried to pull up my shirt to hide my scar. Some people wanted to find their soulmate as quickly as possible and so they show off their scar. But, me? No, I hide my scar, not because I don’t want to find my soulmate, but because I’m scared of finding my soulmate. Some people get matched with forty-year old men, some get matched with eighteen-year old hunks. It was like a game—you spun and you either got all or nothing. I was scared of getting nothing, so I didn’t spin at all. My scar looked similar to a bird, but it also looked like a butterfly. My scar rested just below my collarbone, revealing it to almost everyone that looks at me.

It might seem like this system is easy to break, right? Wrong. From the moment we are born, we have a chip implanted into our skin. This chip doesn’t do anything but give us our scars when we are children and get alerted when we’ve been hurt or if we’re making our own scars. Lots of people used to try to create the same scar as their lover or their crush, but after a while the government realized this and created a punishment for messing with the system. The punishment was 10 years in prison and a $200 fine. Between the ages of 5 and 8 we are usually scarred. I remember mine. Little 7 year old me was walking home from school and all of the sudden, I jus collapsed, while clutching my collarbone. After a few minutes, the pain stopped and went away like nothing had happened. I even thought for a moment if perhaps I had dreamed it.

It’s not even possible to have a permanent scar by accident anymore. See, science has allowed us to make it so when we get hurt, we bleed and the cut magically disappears. I’m not sure on how exactly it works but its somewhere along those lines.

And for their own sick amusement, the government added a twist. It was actually kind of beneficial for us, too. Before you ever meet your soulmate, you see everything in black and white. But, when you meet your soulmate, you start to see in color. If your soulmate dies, you see in black and white again. The government treated this as if it was a game. I say that it is beneficial for us too because now we don’t have to search people for their scars. But, some idiotic people still search each other for scars, instead of just waiting to see in color again. But, people still know not to search random strangers.

I looked at myself in the small mirror. I began to wonder what color my eyes were, what color my hair was, what color everything was. My mother tells me that the grass is a beautiful green and the sky is a light blue. But what is green and what is blue? I’d always ask her. She’d just open and close her mouth before giving up and saying, “You’ll find out soon, honey.” I snapped out of my daze and picked up my backpack from the floor.

Before walking out I yelled, “Bye, Mom!” and I was gone. I walked down the same sidewalk I received this scar. I lived near the school, so I walked everyday. I stood before the familiar blue doors and took a deep breath. “Here we go, another day,” I muttered to myself as I pushed open the doors.