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Cross
The timers slowly ticked away above him, their methodical ticks the only noise in the room. Sixty seconds make a minute; sixty minutes make an hour; twenty-four hours make a day; seven days make a week; four weeks make a month; twelve months make a year; ten years make a decade. Okay, so none of his soulmates were that far away, but it was still years before the timers would run out, years before he'd meet even the first of his soulmates. 'At least I meet them all soon after each other.'
It was rather incredible when you thought about it; according to the eternally ticking timers, he'd have to wait years to meet just the first of his soulmates, but then he'd meet the rest in a matter of days. A jet black clock with cyan blue lightning on the frame was the closest to being finished; followed by a white clock with black, symmetrical lines just a day after; a white frame with red highlights would cease within the next few hours; a timer where red and purple clashed together would come to a stop two days afterwards; a black clock with a red and yellow design would be the last to finish, closing a little more than a week after the previous one.
The sound they made was maddening; Cross had come to dislike quiet rooms, almost always putting on some kind of music, or starting a conversation, or something; to hear anything other than the quiet flick-flick that echoed off the walls, a reminder of just how long he would have to spend without his soulmates. Sometimes, though, sometimes he just listened to them, willing time to go just a little faster. He wished he could touch them; have tangible proof that they were real, that they stood in for real people, that he wasn't waiting all this time just to be disappointed. But they moved with his body; if he moved towards them, they moved away. So he was just going to have to be patient. He shook his head; he had to get up, he had to do something, anything. Whether to make time go faster, or to distract him from the eternal timers, he needed something to do. He was going to go crazy just sitting here, listening to them counting down. But he couldn't resist trying, just once more, to see if he could touch them; but the timer just moved out of his reach. It took him a while to set down his arm afterwards. Truthfully, he wasn't sure what he expected. If he couldn't have any physical proof of his soulmates existence, then he'd just have to believe.
"Wait for me. I'm coming, as quickly as I can. Just, please, wait for me."
Dust
An unseen, but steady hand etched the words 'Training with bro in the morning' down his radius. Smiling faintly, Dust ran his finger over the emerging words, following the path they created. It had been a while since Steady, as he'd come to call this writer, had scribbled anything onto themselves, and thus onto him. He wondered where they were, and what they were doing; why it had taken them so long to write again. Steady had been a consistent writer, the most active writer of all his soulmates in fact. They seemed to be always busy, always needing reminders for things they had planned; certainly more active than his own. He'd wondered, back when he'd first started his desire for EXP, when the words would stop appearing altogether, when his bare arms would tell him that he had killed his own soulmates. But they never stopped; even when dust blanketed his world, and not a soul was left alive, did the words stop being printed. There'd be breaks in between them, some wrote very rarely, but never did they stop entirely. He wondered what that meant, that they had somehow all remained alive despite his world being remarkably dead, but would never come closer to an answer, no matter how much he pondered.
He had five soulmates, oddly enough; a truly large number, considering the most he'd seen anyone else have was three soulmates. They were all distinctly different as well. Steady had even spacing and sizing, it looked more like it had been typed instead of written. Steady was also the most frequent writer, whether with reminders or the occasional little doodle. His own lazy nature buckled at the idea of a place that was always busy. Curvy was the next most frequent; despite the name, their writing wasn't elegant, but rather had a tendency to curve mid-sentence, as though they'd gotten distracted and finished without looking at where they were writing. He wondered if it was by awe-inspiring or threatening sights that distracted them so much. Bullet wrote maybe once a week, in a style of one-word sentences that felt more natural as bullet points. He pondered whether that meant they were a 'to-the-point' being, or if they were too lazy to write more; maybe they were both. Twitch wrote as little as possible, it seemed; then again, their handwriting was so bad it was incredibly difficult to make out, and it seemed as though they had a very shaky hand. He desired to know what had left Twitch always so shaken. Smudge wrote the least, even less than Twitch somehow. So little that Dust had seriously believed that he'd killed Smudge during his dustings for quite a while, until they'd written a tiny reminder to check their back room. Their handwriting seemed like it would be neat, if it wasn't constantly smudged. He wondered if Smudge lived somewhere wet, where water smudged his words even as they were writing them. Dust often had little more to do than daydream about his soulmates; he wondered where they could possibly be, and what they might be doing. How old were they? What were their jobs? When would they meet? Would they ever meet? Or would they live their lives entirely unaware of him in his dust-filled world?
Dust wondered about a lot of things. Most of all, he wondered if he would ever receive any answers.
Horror
The words were the same today, just as they were yesterday. Not that they had ever changed, mind you, but it had become a habit to check each day. Ever since the Underground went to shit, Horror had made sure to check the words written on his bones every day, just in case it was the last day they would be printed on his body. The thought that even one of his sentences, one of his soulmates, might not have survived through the night left his soul feeling ice cold. There was reassurance in the fact that he had their first words to him printed on his bones, but fate had proved fickle to others. He just had to hope it was merciful to him and his soulmates. Even if one were to disappear, there wasn't much he could do; but even more than he hated the idea of losing his soulmates, he detested the idea of his soulmates' potential dusting going unnoticed. Of them going unremembered. And he wouldn't let that happen. Not that he could; he'd long since memorised the scripts that wound their way down his radius and ulna. A short compliment in a thick script; a battle challenge issued in a whimsical tone; a question on weaponry in a clipped sentence; an invitation to dinner with an embarrassed tinge; a half-compliment, half-insult written with an incredibly shaky hand. Five soulmates; five people who fate had decreed would love him. Some days he wondered how anyone could possibly love anything in this wretched world of theirs, but he tried not to think about that often. Most days, he just let the idea that there was someone(s) out there for him. He didn't have a lot of things to place hope into, but the words had stood the test of both time and disaster, and remained secure.
There were some days he really needed it.
Killer
Killer ran his fingers gently over the new, blue mark that had appeared on his zygoma overnight. It was faint and thin; nowhere near as bad as some of the other marks he'd received in this colour, but it still agonising for him to know that, somewhere, his soulmate was in pain from yet another wound. Scratches, bruises, once his entire left humerus had turned blue; broken in at least one place. Either his blue-tinged soulmate was supremely clumsy, or, more likely, there was an abuse or bullying problem. The proof decorated his body every day, and his soul cried for the pain his soulmate must be enduring. It wasn't just his blue coloured soulmate whose wounds he bore; there was a large, red patch on his parietal, a wound that had never healed and likely never would. Periodically, large slashes would cut across his rib cage in a deep purple colour, only to fade away the next day. Yellow wounds would show up at random, in large quantities, and slowly fade away, then be replaced soon after with a new batch. Black wound marks were the strangest, in that they never stayed stationary; they'd jitter and seem unable to define the outlines of where his black tinged soulmate was actually hurt. Of course, there'd be the times when they'd be hurt in a more traditional sense, and those would show up fine. He'd be quite the sight, his bones covered in so many different colours, if not for the fact that only he could see his soulmate marks. At times, he thought it would drive him mad. They were in pain, they were all in pain, and he couldn't do anything about it. He couldn't find them, and he couldn't save them; instead, he was forced to watch, each day, as his body bore the proof of the cruel worlds that each lived in. And he wanted to save them; he didn't know if he could, but he wanted to at least try. His pessimism scoffed at the idea that he'd be able to help any of them, he couldn't even help himself, but it was maddening not being able to do anything. His power was small, but he could get stronger. He had to get stronger. He needed the power to help his soulmates.
He was willing to do anything to get it.
Nightmare
The sky had turned red, and all around him lay the dust and blood of the people who once occupied the village. The corrupted land had spread as far as he could see; it wouldn't be long until it encompassed the entire world. A chuckle bubbled up within him as he caught sight of a dead face, still frozen in shock and terror. What ever was the matter? They had wanted him to be a demon, didn't he just give them what they had wanted? 'Of course', Nightmare chuckled to himself, 'They probably hadn't wanted me to become too powerful for them to control, but they should have been careful of what they wished for.' He felt the power flowing through him, and it felt good. He felt good. Why hadn't he done this sooner? He was no longer the village's weak little scapegoat. His old tormentors lay dead around him. He had enough power to take over his entire AU, and possibly even more. He was free; free of his old life, free of the pain that came with it, free to do as he pleased, free-
There was something wrong with his left hand…
He ignored the odd, constrictive feeling at first, assuming it to just be blood or something similar left over from his murder spree, but when he shook his hand to clear it, the feeling didn't fade. Disgruntled, he brought his hand up to his face to see what the problem was. The shock was so great he might as well have been punched in the rib cage. Maybe he screamed, he wasn't sure, and no one was around to verify. His external acoustic meatus filled with white noise and his vision became tunnelled. Tied innocently, delicately, to each phalange on his left hand were little strings of fate. He wasn't sure when his legs had given out, but when he returned to his senses, he was kneeling in the dirt.
His sockets stung with tears; Why now? Why so late? Why did he have to receive his soulmates after he'd turned himself into a demon? Why was the universe cruel enough to only give him soulmates after he'd become something that couldn't be loved?
His cervical vertebrae burned red hot; He wanted to spit and curse until he lost the ability to speak. He didn't need soulmates! No one had ever helped him, and he didn't need anyone now! Whatever higher power that was laughing at him right now could go screw itself!
His jaw twitched into a smug grin; He wanted to find the remains of his greatest haters just to laugh at them. To find those who had whispered behind his back (and those who hadn't even bothered to whisper) that he had no soulmates because he was an unlovable demon, and mock them in their death. No soulmates? B*tch, he had Five!
And a tiny piece of who he used to be was filled with hope. Whoever these strings attached to, they were his soulmates, correct? That meant, they were supposed to love him, no matter what, right?
He laughed to himself, shaky and unsteady. It would be the greatest irony; to be hated when he was good and loved when he was evil. He thought he was going to have his right hand rip the strings right off his phalanges, but he wound up cradling his left instead. Maybe he was crying; he honestly couldn't tell anymore.
His soulmates. His. Whoever they were, wherever they were, they belonged to him. Some great irony of the cosmos decreed that these five people would love him and that he would love them. And he was going to find them. He wasn't going to let anything stop him from finding them.
Error
His world had always existed in black, white, and an endless sea of greys. Well, technically, he couldn't remember his creation or anything of his younger days, but he was certain that, even then, his sight had been just the same. The first time he'd heard Ink rambling about 'colours' and 'tones', it had taken an enormous amount of self-restraint to not scoff in the glitch's face. There was nothing 'bright' or 'vibrant' about this multiverse; it was dull and flat as far as the eye could see, with nothing to break the monotony. (Sometimes, the whispers wondered if there wasn't something wrong with everyone else, and rather something wrong with him. He ruthlessly ignored those whispers as much as he could.) (He later destroyed the AU that Ink had been speaking so highly of out of sheer spite. It made him feel better about the whole situation).
Perhaps, then, it could be considered slightly shameful that, when his vision finally did change, it took him quite a while to realise it. In his defence, it had only been by one colour, and it wasn't like they'd been in a place with a lot of blue for him to see. And so, it had taken him an embarrassingly long fifteen minutes for him to realise that Nightmare's eye wasn't a shade of grey; and then proceed to make a complete fool out of himself upon said realisation. He'd beat a hasty retreat from what was supposed to be an assessment of a potential ally, and run off to try and figure out what the f u c k just happened. It took him three days of scouring the nearest abandoned library to figure it out, and he'd nearly laughed himself sick when he did. It was the greatest irony of the entire multiverse. Soulmates. He, destroyer of universes, had some of the very glitches he despised as soulmates. And more than one! According to the text, if it had only been one, he would have gotten a whole range of colours. Instead, he got just one, implying he had more soulmates that he hadn't met yet. Nuh-uh, nope, not gonna happen; he wasn't going to let some fate curve ball prevent him from doing his job, so he was just going to conceal himself here, until he worked out how to fix this mess. Simple.
But nothing was ever that simple, because Nightmare tracked him down, and he brought the rest of their soulmates with him. Horror brought him vibrant reds, and Dust gave the deep purples to match; Cross offered him bright yellows, and Killer brought up the rear with the oranges and greens to complete the spectrum. He'd never thought that the world could possibly be this bright; but even more stunning than the new colours, was how well he got along with his soulmates. Perhaps it shouldn't have been surprising, considering they were his soulmates after all, but there simply wasn't any way he could have been prepared for such a thing. To have monsters who didn't flinch at his job; who weren't horrified when he spoke about his work, but would rather provide suggestions; who revelled in his tales of destruction. And so, when they had to leave to go back to their home, Error didn't hesitate to accept their offer to join them. He wanted to stay with those whose souls matched his own; he wanted to see more of their colours.
He never wanted to be without their colours again.