My Soulmate My Everything

Somewhere, far away from here, there is a parallel universe. Somewhat literally parallel. There, you may not live in civilization unless you have a parallel – by the age of fifteen.
Some people, however, are lucky: twins. They have been born with their parallel.
A parallel, in this case, is a person who shares your hopes, your dreams, your deepest fears – someone, in fact, whom we call a soulmate.

On the first day of every year, a check is made. In every city, town and village, the people who have had the misfortune to turn fifteen during the past year must turn up and display their parallel for inspectors. If they do not have anybody, they are banished to the islands, disgraced and destined to be lonely for evermore.

Though one could fake one’s soulmate, right?
Wrong. When you walk the planet alone, you greatly resemble a faded sepia photograph. When you find your one and only, you turn… technicolour. There really is no other word for it.
But you mustn’t get this wrong: soulmate does not mean romantic love – that would just be messed up with the twins and all. No, romantic love doesn’t even exist here. Soulmates are only people who you spend the rest of your life with; reproduction is rather dependent on laboratories.

It is the 20th of December, 3330. We follow Theora, a fifteen-year-old girl, who has eleven days left to find her soulmate. With her travel twins Rachelle and Marie, 12.

“When can we stop, Theora?” Rachelle asked.
“Yeah, I’m getting kind of hungry,” Marie added, trying hard not to whine. We were traveling through the desert, in the sweltering heat of the midday sun, and our water had run out about an hour ago.
“Soon. I can see a town on the horizon; it shouldn’t be more than half a mile away.” Rachelle looked in the direction I was pointing. Sure enough, there was something resembling a small town. We could only hope it had a water source.
We got back on our GV’s – short for Gliding Vehicle – and sped off, leaving no dust clouds in the stillness of the desert.

Our first impressions of this particular town were in line with our observations of previous towns. Nobody was outside, preferring air-conditioning and a fully stocked fridge to the dusty streets littered with trash and dead rats. Although some houses were in bright reds, purples and greens to stand out during a sandstorm, the atmosphere was decidedly dismal.
I led the way into a small roadside café. The owner scowled at us; it looked like she was just going to close for siesta. Well, now she would have to wait a few minutes. Even though her hair was red, her shirt yellow and she was obviously over fifteen and still living amongst society, she seemed to fade into the grey background.
We all ordered glasses of cold water, sitting down at a corner table with the tall glasses that had probably originated from a thousand years ago. The glasses were grey and dusty, and only extreme thirst made us drink from them.
We were discussing where to go next when the bell over the door jingled. We looked up, and saw a boy about my age enter the café. He, too, was still brown and faded. My heart rate automatically went up, stayed there for one-tenth of a second – could he be the one? – and went right back down when he walked to the bar without a glance in my direction.
“Mind if I join you?” a male voice said, jolting me back to the present from where I had been for like, two seconds. I looked up to see they boy – who else?
“Um, yeah. I mean, no. That is, yeah go ahead,” I said, suddenly rambling. What was this? I had always been the leader, ever since the twins and I used to play in the yard behind our laboratory five years ago.
“Great! I’m Xaon Ruthbert, Jr. You?”
“Uh…” I said, not wanting to reveal my name. Why? I honestly don’t know. Luckily for me, I have Rachelle. She’s quite the little chatterbox.
“She’s Theora,” the bright voice piped up. “I’m Rachelle, and my twin is Marie.”
“Nice to meet you,” Xaon smiled. I never thought that was possible, I’d always laughed it off when people in books did it; but now the proof was right in front of me. Well, what do you know? You can always learn something new.
“So, Theora, I gather you’re fifteen as well? There’s no other reason to be hanging out in a tacky roadside café this close to the Check.” He pronounced Check as if it had a capital letter, which it did.
“I, um, yeah. I’m looking for my parallel… well, obviously. The twins are keeping me company.”
“Cool. Have room for one more?”
“Well, I guess. How are you traveling?”
“In a GV, just like you – at least judging from the three parked outside.”
“Yeah, okay. We’re basically just hanging around various towns, seeing if anyone sparks our interest.”
“Sounds like the plan I never had.”
And just like that, we had found ourselves a fourth traveling companion.

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