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Long ago, soulmates were seen as something wonderful; a promise, of sorts, or maybe something more akin to a gift, made by the universe, where you were destined to have someone, or someones, who would love and adore you, no matter your flaws or mistakes. People used to tell tales of true love and true families and all other kinds of truths that came with soulmates, because people believed soulmates were something good, something treasured, the one guaranteed happiness a person could have in life.
Of course, even back then, there were people who knew better. People who would point at this narrow oversimplification and warn against it, whispering of all the times where soulmates weren’t good, where they didn’t work out. Where soulmates hurt more than they did love, or loved in a way that was different from the norm, or even instances where someone didn’t have a soulmate at all, and isn’t it just unfair to claim they’ll be unhappy because of something they have no control over?
Most of these arguments went unheard, for a long time.
And when the end of the world started and most people turned into something not-quite-them, twisted in a way that no longer resembled their original selves, leaving few behind to hide and scramble and fight for survival—well, such things stopped being a priority.
After all, one can’t worry about things like love or happiness when their life is in danger at every turn.
Six looks down at the mark on the palm of her hand, rocking back and forth slightly as she huddles near her music box, the poor lighting of the cabin just barely illuminating the faded outline of a stranger’s hand. She flexes her fingers and watches the muscles of her hand move.
She does not wonder who her soulmate is.
She does not wonder if they are alive.
She does not wonder what it would be like to meet them.
But, she does wonder—feeling the ghost of thin, spindly fingers wrap around her waist, exactly where her second soulmark is—if such a meeting would be doomed at the very start.
She’s afraid to find out the answer.
A boy with a paper bag breaks down the door to her prison.
She startles, at first—and of course she does, because who wouldn’t jump and try to hide at the sound of someone breaking down a door in this hellish world they live in?—but then she realizes the person in front of her is not the Hunter, but a child, just like her, and she crawls from her hiding place because she can at the very least handle another child.
“Hi,” the boy whispers to her, bending down on one knee. His jacket, which looks all too big for him, nearly touches the floor as he gets down to her level, holding out his hand for her to take.
Six looks to the kind, comforting eyes peering back at her from behind the bag to the hand outstretched to her, the skin of his fingers dirty and calloused.
She almost reaches out and takes his hand.
Almost, because right as she’s about to grab his hand and allow him to pull her to her feet, she notices something. A mark, similar to the one on her own hand, dark and shimmering as her hand gets closer to his.
She hesitates, blood freezing in her veins.
And then she shoves him aside, fleeing from the room.
If there is one thing she won’t do, it’s get attached to someone she can lose at a moment’s notice.
And everyone knows attachments are weaknesses that can be easily exploited.
(She should have expected that he would follow her. But still, you can’t fault her for trying.)
She doesn’t manage to get away from him. She succeeds even less in getting out of the cabin, because she’s tiny and not nearly as strong as the Hunter, and as such can only do so much to pull on the latches and levers barring her from her escape.
So, it’s no surprise that, when they cross paths again, she whispers a quiet “Hey!” and waves for him to come over, ready to lift him up to reach the latch she can’t open by herself.
It’s also no surprise when, after he takes her hand and leads her forward, her hand burns and her heart feels like it’s trying to squirm its way into her throat.
It’s no surprise to her—but it must be a surprise for her companion, who turns with her in shock, then excitement, pulling her along with enough force she nearly trips.
She doesn’t know what to think of it—but, Six hopes, if anything, it’ll make surviving easier.
She doesn’t need love, but if it means they’ll be alive, she’ll put up with whoever the universe has granted her as her soulmate.
(But attachments are weaknesses, and Six, though she allows the boy to hold her hand and lead her along, does not allow herself to feel anything for the boy. There is no use setting herself up for heartbreak down the line, after all.)
The boy’s name is Mono, and he is a very odd child.
These are two things Six learns about her soulmate, albeit at different points in their journey.
The first she learns after they’ve escaped the forest and are halfway across the lake, sailing along on a door that Six frets will sink at any moment. The boy leans against her shoulder, radiating a warmth she wants more than anything to lean into but doesn’t, Six looking at him curiously through her bangs.
“What’s your name?” he asks her, in that same hushed, whispering tone they use. Something a bit odd in and of itself, considering they’re in the middle of a body of water and nobody else is out here.
Six hesitates, looking down at her toes. She curls her arms around her knees, “Why do you care about my name?”
“Because I want to get to know you, silly,” comes the reply, and that’s even weirder, because who cares about something like that? The boy’s eyes narrow a little underneath his mask, and she wonders briefly if he might be smiling at her. “I’m Mono. You?”
“…Six,” she murmurs, shivering from the cold. Looking out to the water, she says, tone flat, “What kind of name is Mono?”
Mono…huffs, and maybe it’s out of offense but maybe it’s also a laugh, too, though she doesn’t know for sure. “What kind of name is Six?” he counters.
She doesn’t flinch, but it’s a near thing, and the conversation ends there.
The second fact she learns slowly, with every step they take and every whisper they pass back and forth and every enemy they manage to evade or kill.
It’s little things, like—
—like the fact that Mono had no qualms shooting and killing the Hunter or beating in the heads of the doll-like Bullies but winces at the sight of a dead frog, because “it’s just a little guy, he didn’t hurt anyone,” which is about the most absurd thing Six has ever heard because death doesn’t care whether you hurt people or help them, it just comes for you when it’s your time and that goes for humans and animals alike—
—or the time where he held up one of the toys at the hospital, some stuffed teddy bear with a haphazardly-stitched face and crooked eyes, giggling and handing it over to her with a quiet, “it’s cute, here, look,” and he left her standing there with some stupid toy in her hands because he thought it was cute, of all things, when he should be worried more about things that were useful or at the very least could guide them forward—
—and there were the times where he’d walked up to one of those terrible TV screens and just put his hand on it, like it was nothing, like it had no power over him and didn’t want to reach into his soul and tear him to pieces and leave nothing but an empty shell behind, and then the way he leaned into it and had started moving through the screen—
—but the times where he holds her hand and whispers to her, insisting on the fact that they’re friends and that they’re a team so that means they have to stick together and always seems to be looking at her like she’s not some terrible, unspeakable monster—well, those are the strangest moments of all.
But then again, Six thinks that, what with the times Mono has seen her ruthlessly kill the schoolchildren and break the fingers of mannequins and take comfort and joy at the death of that cursed doctor, maybe Mono finds her a bit strange, too.
(Though, she has a nagging feeling that her strangeness isn’t the same as Mono’s.
(She hopes it doesn’t matter.)
Mono almost makes her forget about her second soulmark.
Almost.
But then he has to go and mess with one of those stupid TVs again, has to walk out of her sight for just a moment and go stuffing himself into one of those stupid screens, and now he’s gone and unleashed a monster.
She makes an admittedly foolish mistake, on her part. She should have hidden under the bed, where that man, or whatever he is, couldn’t see her; but instead, she’d hid underneath the table, because she’s scared and panicking and Mono is still behind her and what if he gets caught, what if she ends up alone—
There is a small, miserable part of hers that suggests the possibility that, if Mono is taken, the monster might lose interest in her, forget she exists, and leave her unscathed.
But of course, that doesn’t happen, and in a lot of ways she doesn’t want that to happen, either, so she is both disappointed and relieved when she sees Mono duck underneath the bed, looking in all the world like he’s gone mad from fear, his wide eyes turned to her in horror.
It’s then that she notices that the table she hides under does not hide her from the man’s view, who now stares at her with a kind of single-minded intensity it makes her every hair stand on end.
She tries to scramble for the bed. Tries to reach for Mono’s outstretched hand.
But the man is faster than them, and she feels his fingers wrap around her waist in the same spot she knew they’d be, her horror graduating into full-blown terror the moment she feels him pull her up.
Her screams are drowned out in static.
She expects the Thin Man to kill her. To torture her, or break her, or eat her. It would only make sense, given all the other monsters she’s come across.
But instead, the man simply…holds her, for a moment, as though considering what to do with her, or perhaps trying to decipher who and what she is to begin with, before setting her down in a room in the signal tower full of toys and warm, comforting light.
“For you,” he tells her, and his voice is gentle with kindness but harsh in its overlay of static, his voice making her shiver just as much as his words do.
And then, just as quick as he had appeared, he vanishes.
And Six.
Six does not know what to do with that.
But it certainly does not ease the anxiety in her chest nor the nausea in her stomach, and as she looks around at the room, at the images and items strewn about that are familiar-but-not, the oppressive weight of the air pressing down on her, Six wonders why.
Why her?
And what is she supposed to do now?
The music box materializing in front of her seconds after the thought crosses her mind is answer enough.
Six does not know how long she’s been in the tower, but she knows what it shows her, and it’s nothing good.
It’s the same events, over and over—the same ending, again and again. She starts off alone, only to be found at the cabin; she travels with a new friend for a while, only to be separated, captured, time and time again; she’s taken to the tower and transformed into this…this…creature, this twisted body of bitterness and hatred and vengeance, reduced to the evil that lives inside her; and then she escapes.
Alone.
Abandoning the one person who did nothing but help her.
And then she goes on to become a different type a creature, a different kind of monster, one that eats and feeds and consumes to fill a hollowness that will never fade.
She sees all of this, knows it, the images replaying in her mind as she winds her music box in that twisted form, unbothered and unaware.
But there’s still a remnant of her, just a sliver of her former self, a glitch in the universe, that sees all of this and digests it like it would a piece of meat.
This is a cycle, the remnant realizes. This has happened before—and it will happen again if something doesn’t change.
But what, the question remains, needs to change?
A boy she does not recognize comes into her room.
“Hi,” he whispers to her, though he sounds strained, sad, almost. Mournful.
She does not understand this. She cannot understand it.
But she hears him, watches as he wanders around her, and she feels…not safe, but comforted, by his presence.
She shows him her music box—see? This is nice, why don’t you listen? It will make you feel better—and he considers it, resting a hesitant hand on hers, so small and featherweight it’s almost laughable to her.
She no longer finds it funny when he picks up an axe and smashes the one thing that gives her comfort.
And still, the remnant within her stirs.
This is a cycle, it repeats, it has happened before.
But we will find a better ending, this time.
The boy—Mono, she has to remind herself, fighting through the haze and dizziness to remember who he is and where she is and what they’re doing—frees her of her prison. Returns her to her original form, brings her back from that hell of rage and fear and back into something that still might be angry and fearful, but much less.
Mono has rescued her, just as he has before.
She looks at him, studies him, meets his relieved, hopeful gaze with a look that is more calculating, more considering. Memories of lives she’s lived and lives she has yet to live flash before her mind’s eye.
This is the boy who saved her.
This is the man who kidnapped her.
This is her friend.
This is the person who let her get captured.
This is her soulmate.
But Six never wanted a soulmate, and she doesn’t even know what to do with a soulmate, so why—why should she care about something like that—
The tower around them begins to collapse. Six and Mono look around, alarmed, before meeting each other’s eyes. They both think the same thing.
Time to go.
And, taking each other’s hands, they start running.
Six knows what’s going to happen before it actually happens.
She knows, so this time, she’s prepared.
The path behind her crumbles, and she doesn’t hesitate to turn around, to kneel down and hold out her hand.
Mono makes the jump, just as she remembers, trusting her with his very life as he jumps over the gap.
She catches him. Catches him in the same hand with the mark on her palm, holds him with the same hand he held that very first time they met, clings to him with the same hand he’s held countless times before.
She looks down at him, at his exposed face, at the open expression looking back at her there, a mix of relief and confusion and urgency.
She looks at his face and she recognizes, just as she has many times before, the man who had taken her. The man at the root cause of their suffering, the reason behind the world’s suffering and despair.
The man she created.
The man she tried to kill by dropping Mono all those times before.
But Six knows better now. She knows what not to do.
And so, the signal tower falling apart around them as she steels her nerves, she tightens her grip on Mono’s hand and pulls him up.
Neither of them looks back as they pass through the TV.
Neither of them pays any mind to the remains of the signal tower as they crumble away, leaving nothing but ash and masses of bubbling, rotting flesh in its wake.
Neither of them cares for the resounding screams of the viewers as the world falls into chaos and monsters fall one after one, piles of corpses buried underneath the collapsing skyscrapers and power lines that make up the city.
Neither of them acknowledges this—but, they know, deep down, that something has changed.
And this time, they feel, it has changed for the better.
The aftermath is quiet.
Not quiet in the way one sucks in a breath and holds it as a monster passes them by, or quiet in the way the dead sleep and the leaves settle over a freshly-dug grave.
No, the aftermath is a quiet much like when the sun rises in the early morning and sleep begins to recede from one’s mind, leaving them in that in-between state of aware and unaware, calm but stirring. It is comfortable. Pleasant.
Six and Mono emerge from the TV and collapse on the floor, huddled together as they catch their breath. The silence is only broken by their sharp breaths, their breathing slowly evening out over time. Their hands remain clasped between them.
Mono looks to her first, his eyes searching, wondering. “Six?” he asks, barely above a whisper as always. “Is it over?”
Six feels like a single gust of wind could blow her over, the girl standing shakily on her feet. She squeezes his hand, willing herself to stand still. “Not sure,” she says. “It…it feels like it might be, though.”
“You saved me,” Mono points out, and something about the way he says it makes her stomach flip, but if the feeling is guilt or admiration, she isn’t sure.
She nods, slow and deliberate. “Of course, I did,” she tells him, “we’re soulmates. Soulmates stick together.”
Mono smiles at her, a smile that she almost returns, though hers doesn’t reach her eyes like his does. “I wasn’t sure if that would matter,” he admits to her.
Six hums. “It didn’t, before. But it does now.”
And it does. It had for a while, really, though she had denied the warmth in her chest and the fond flutter of her heart when he’d look to her or laugh or hold on to her like she was the only person in the world.
But now, knowing what she knows now, knowing the role they play in the end of the world and the things they’ve done to each other and to other people, it matters so much more now than it ever could have before.
It’s almost terrifying, when she thinks about it.
So, instead of thinking on it a moment longer, she says, conversational in tone, “So, what now?”
The boy frowns. Climbing to his feet and turning to the room around them, he says, lowering his voice to where she can barely hear him, “Well, I’unno. I guess that depends on what you want to do, right? I’ve kinda been calling the shots all this time—only seems fair.”
Six hesitates. Letting go of his hand, she turns to the window, her soft footsteps echoing in the small space.
The world outside is not like it was before she’d been taken to the tower. Instead of mindless, violent monsters and dangerous, deadly landscapes, there is nothing and no one, silence residing where screams and groans once did. The buildings, or what remain of them, lie broken into pieces, the crevices in the ground filled with rubble and black, hardened flesh now that the tower has fallen and that thing, whatever it was, can no longer sustain itself.
Briefly, she catches a glimpse of a small, shadowy figure, child-like in size and shape, peeking out from underneath one of the fallen buildings and running off. Probably off to somewhere else, somewhere safer.
Somewhere new.
“I think,” she says, turning back to him with the shadow of a smile, “I would like to find somewhere to call home.”
Soulmates were once seen as a sign of love. Of happiness. Of good memories and good happenings and a happy, fulfilled life, one that ended with the comfort and affection of another.
Some saw through this idea and pointed out, rightfully so, that this was a narrow, simplistic view of the true reason behind a soulmate.
Six finally thinks she understands what they really are.
Soulmates do not necessarily mean love—but they do mean change. They show someone, or someones, who will come along and change you, whether it be your person or your life as you know it, for better or for worse. They are the ones who will teach you something about the world and about the people around you and about yourself, and some of these things are good and some of these things are disturbing and rotten, but they are lessons one needs to learn regardless.
Six curls her fingers against Mono’s, leaning against him as their makeshift boat drifts idly at sea, the boy humming a familiar tune under his breath that brushes against her hair and puts her worries at ease.
Six has learned many lessons from him—and she hopes, however scary that might be, that now, having put their nightmare to rest and woken up to a brand-new world, those lessons might be something better, something where people can be a little less like survivors and live in a world that is just a little kinder than it was before. Something worth living for.
And Six, however wary she might be, is excited to see where this new path will take them.
She’s determined to make it count.