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Philosopher Plato believed it is the power of a child’s mind that allows them to share their horrors with another person. Modern day scientists connect to this idea. It is consensus that the body and mind are underdeveloped, incomplete, and in moments of greatest emotion, reach across space through energy* to the person that is biologically most compatible to them, or, in popular culture calls it, a soulmate. One a child’s brain has changed due to puberty, the possibility of this connection is slowly severed, usually around ages 11-14.
*This energy is not yet understood by mankind. See Page 55 for popular theories.
-An excerpt from The Science behind the Soulmate Nightmares by Dr. Taylor Stevenson
1985
The first dream comes when Shawn is eight.
He is in the air, flying over a field of vibrant green grass. There are two boys running alongside him. They hold kites close enough for him to catch. Blonde hair whips around his face. Flying is amazing, until the boys start to run faster and faster and he flies slower and slower, strong winds pushing against him. He yells at them, “Wait!” in a voice so young and so desperate. “Ewan! Jacob!” His brothers leave him behind.
His mom told him the dreams would probably happen soon, but it still feels weird, like an invasion of someone’s life in his. He doesn’t like it. He doesn’t want his worst nightmares to be broadcast to some girl either. It scares him.
1987
Mom and dad are yelling, and Juliet curls into a ball in her room, covering her ears with her hands. She wants it to stop. Dad comes in the room, angry looking, telling her its time to go and practice her skills.
It’s so much like her own dreams, she wouldn’t have known it wasn’t her own if his dad didn’t come in. She doesn’t tell anyone about it. It feels wrong to.
1989
Strong hands grab her and throw her into the trunk of the car. The door slams down onto her, hitting her head.
She didn’t count the bandanas counted as hats, and this is her punishment.
“You know what to do!” a voice yells.
She frantically finds the taillight and kicks with all her strength. It doesn’t budge. “It won’t move, Dad!”
“Useless! Kick harder!”
She can’t breath, but she kicks over and over, bangs her fists against the trunk door. “Please! Dad!” He isn’t answering. “Dad! I’m sorry! I’ll count them next time!”
Juliet gets a version of this dream five times before they stop a year later.
1990
He is sitting on the steps of the house in the heat, watching the people in a block party laugh and dance. He is waiting for his father. He just knows he’ll be here somehow, like your lungs know how to breath. It’s summertime; food is cooking, music is playing, but he is far from happy. When he sees the man he is looking for he stands and yells for him, running forward. The man doesn’t turn back. He screams for his dad to stop walking away, but he’s lost in a crowd, and people turn to look at him as he runs past, not caring if he pushes people aside. He is gone. Why is he leaving? He does not want to go home. He wants his dad. He wants his dad. But the only person at home is a stand in.
Shawn wakes, and he cries.
It’s the last dream he has from her, and the worst.
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2006
When Juliet sees the man for the first time, her blood runs cold.
How could she forget his face? This is the man who locked her in that lightless trunk, left her there until she woke up crying.
Well, it wasn’t her. His son. But he had felt his terror.
“Carlton?”
Her partner looks up from his paperwork, annoyed. “What?”
“Who is that?”
Lassiter follows his gaze to the middle aged man who is talking to Chief Vick in front of her office. “It’s Spencer, Henry Spencer. Good guy and a great detective. I think they’re having a meeting for-
“Spencer?!” Juliet interrupts. As in Shawn Spencer?
Carlton sighs. “Yup, he’s Spencer’s dad. Guess he wasn’t as good at being a parent as he was being a cop.”
If only he knew.
As if called to them (or his paycheck for the most recent case), Shawn walks into the station with Gus, joking about one thing or another as he always does. She hasn’t known him long, only a month, but she’s also known him since she was eight, even if she didn’t know his name or face until this moment.
She leaves her paperwork behind. Juliet walks up to him, interrupting the conversation he and Gus are having, and grabs Shawn’s hand, pulling him past the doors to outside by the side of the building. She doesn’t even care what the others in the station are thinking right now.
“Um… Jules? What are we doing, exactly?”
She throws her arms around him before she can stop herself. She isn't really hugging him, not the now Shawn. But the child Shawn that has been in the back of her mind for so long. Her throat constricts. “I’m so sorry, Shawn,” she says.
“Did something happen?”
“Your- your dad, Shawn. I can’t believe he did that. Jesus Christ.”
“Came into the station?”
She can’t stop herself, can’t not say anything, even though once she says it he’ll know too and it will change so many things. No matter what nightmares he got from her.
She’s been wanting to tell the boy whose dad threw him in the trunk of her car that he isn’t useless. He isn’t those horrible things his dad says.
“He- the trunk. He put you in the trunk of his car. Bandanas aren’t fucking hats . He’s so stupid. ”
Shawn stiffens and pulls away. “How do you know that?”
A sudden blush creeps onto her face. Soulmates. They are soulmates. She’s read about how horrible and wonderful the first meetings are, the knowledge of what the nightmares mean and what they contained, making people both overjoyed and incredibly nervous. She knows if she tells him this, it will mean Shawn knows more about her childhood than some of her closest friends do. “I saw it. Your nightmares.”
For a psychic, he didn’t seem to see this coming. The shock on his face is clear. “Oh.”
They have a lot to talk about. They are friends and they’ve flirted, sure, but this… is knowing someone’s darkest secrets without knowing their favorite color. It will be a long time before they feel safe enough with each other to share details or even date.
But for right now, they just hug.