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It was strange how your vision blacked out so suddenly. What happened exactly? Why your side hurt so much, but only for a second or two? And weren’t you walking through a pedestrian crossing? Then why did you felt sand underneath you?
You moved your hand, tried to, and to your surprise you moved it with no problems at all. Your side didn’t hurt anymore and the silence around you was comfortable. Well, silence as in, the normal, city’s loudness was gone, replaced with a soft sound of sea waves reaching the shore and splashing softly against the sand.
Your eyes snapped open as the realization came to you that something was very, very wrong. The view above stunned you. The sky in a light blue color enveloped the land, reminding you of an early morning, the time when birds were beginning their concert. You sat up slowly, your eyes coming across the sea you heard before and a vast horizon, where the sun was yet to come. The sand was strangely warm, as if the sun was shining brightly just a few minutes ago. But how was that possible?
“Took you long enough to wake up.” You almost jumped when you heard a voice nearby. Your head snapped in the direction, your eyes falling on a tall figure of a man, standing not so far away from you. He wasn’t facing the sea, he was looking at you instead, hands in his jacket’s pockets. His black, messy hair covering most of his face, as the wind coming from the sea was blowing them slightly.
“Who are you, Mister?” you asked, because only that came to your mind. Figuring out that you somehow appeared on a beach was easier than trying to figure out who was this stranger. Although you could swear that you saw him somewhere.
"Jim" he introduced himself, like it would be nothing. A smile crossed his face as he saw your astonishment. "Who might you be, the one interrupting my peace?"
"Ah, sorry that I did." You felt a bit bad. "(Y/N)" you introduced yourself as well. "I didn't know I will appear here, honestly. I..." You stopped, trying to find good words to describe your situation. "I don't know how I got there."
Jim blinked, thinking about what you said. "You appeared here out of nowhere?" he asked, receiving a nod from you. "Huh, seems like this place works like this."
"Same happened to you, Mister?" you asked, making Jim roll his eyes.
"Call me Jim, little girl" he said. You took a quick note that calling him mister was getting on his nerves, before Jim answered on your question. "It did. I don't remember what I did before, but I can't get out of here." He kicked the sand beneath his feet. "Been stuck here forever.”
Wanting to be polite, you moved a bit from your sitting place and patted the sand next to you. "Want to sit with me?" You offered. "It's kinda uncomfortable to talk when there's so much distance between us."
Jim had nothing to lose, so he had joined you very quickly. Somehow, you two felt very comfortable, being so near each other.
"Did you explore this land?" you asked. Jim nodded.
"It's neverending" he explained, showing the left direction. "Once you go there, you'll quickly loop back and come out here." He pointed at the right side.
"Did you try to swim?" you asked.
"I considered it" Jim said, sighing. "But gave up on the idea. If both sides are looping, I would waste my time and energy. Wet clothes aren't the most comfortable thing to wear, you know?"
That made you laugh as you noticed Jim's kind of flirtatious look, the corner of his mouth forming a small smile. You covered your mouth, feeling a blush raising on your cheeks. "Sorry for suggesting something as stupid as this" you quickly apologized.
"It was worth making you laugh" Jim kept looking at you like that, before he turned to you, to not look at you from the side anymore.
"Oh, was it?" Still covering your mouth, you felt a little tug in your heart.
"Yeah, it's sweet" Jim said, reaching his hand to your one, which was covering your mouth. He caught your wrist and pulled your hand away. You let him do that, not protesting. "Ah, you're blushing" he noticed, quite amused by it.
"Well, I do, can't do anything about it" you said, placing your hand on the sand once Jim let go of it. "Never heard someone compliment my laugh, let alone a guy..." You looked at the sky again, the color was still the same. "But it feels in place...somehow?"
"You heard that before?" Jim asked, taking you completely off of guard. You nodded, your eyes wide.
"In the same situation, in different place, worded exactly like that, but never heard" you said, not understanding what you were saying yourself.
"That's weird..." Jim's voice got lower as he looked at the sand, facing the sea again. The wind blew softly, pushing your hair away from your faces. "Same situation, different place and the same closeness, but never happened..." Jim's voice seemed to almost echo in the land or maybe it was the sea that carried his words, making his voice louder. "And only the two of us here."
"Plus, I have the feeling that I recognize you from somewhere" you added, seeing how Jim slowly blinked, as in pondering your words. "That I saw you, that I know you."
"Strange" Jim almost whispered. "Strange that we feel the same." Jim eyed you from head to toe. "I saw you somewhere as well, but I can't figure out where."
You two looked at each other for quite some time, the only sound surrounding you were the weaves of the sea and the soft blowing wind. Time seemed to stop as you couldn't tear your gazes away. Jim was the one to look away, smirking, laughing quietly. "No, it can't be" he said, not explaining what he thought about. He looked at the sky, you did as well, ignoring the curiousness nudging at your mind to ask what he thought about. "Do you remember the color of the sky when you first opened your eyes?"
You thought for a moment, before looking up. "Light blue. Huh, the sky is more blue now..." You noticed, scratching your head. "Do you know what is happening?"
"Sun never came here" Jim explained. "The time started moving again when you appeared." Jim stood up, looking at the vast horizon. You followed him, brushing the sand off of your clothes.
"The sun is rising" you both said at the same time, seeing how the first sunlight appeared from behind the horizon.
Sudden joy rushed through your body, the feeling of finding what you were searching for enveloping your entire system. You got so mesmerized by the sight that you unconsciously caught Jim's hand, like you would do so countless times before. He squeezed it, tangling your fingers together. Both of you took notice of it after a good while, looking at your connected hands. You felt shy, but didn't pull your hand away, while Jim felt that something he had been missing finally found its way to him. It was when your vision started to blur.
Jim felt that, as your hand almost slipped from his own. He looked worried at you, seeing how pale you turned. "(Y/N)?" he called you, but you couldn't bring yourself to speak. You only looked at him, with somehow apologetic look, before you lost your consciousness once more, the feeling of his hold on your hand disappearing, his last words slowly fading away as you heard. "I'll be waiting for you..."
Jim was left alone once more, the time in the land stopping, the sun still behind the horizon. He was looking at the place you were standing at, mere seconds ago as he put his hands to the jacket's pockets, sighing. At the moment when you two started talking about the weird, familiar feeling, Jim recalled that he once heard about people being born in wrong decades, never to meet their soulmates, until their death. The soulmate had to wait for their second half in an empty world, between the land of the living and afterlife. "I didn't want to believe in it" he said to himself, knowing too well that he thought it was stupid back when he was alive. "And now what? I will wait another eternity for her to appear." He glared at the horizon. "You couldn't place us in the same time period, could you?" he asked, kicking the sand. He was upset, but he couldn't do anything about it.
Jim sat on the sand, rubbing his forehead. There was something to hope for. He left things in the world of living, his poems and music. "Please" he mumbled, probably praying for the first time in his life. "Stumble upon my music and poems and remember me."
***
You barely remembered the strange dream you had. You woke up in a hospital, hearing that you were hit by a car, but was lucky to survive the accident. You felt happy that there was a chance you'll be let out of hospital soon, so you were patient, having time to think about the small fragments of the dream. You could only recall the feeling on your left hand. So warm and familiar. You couldn't remember anything else, that's why you were usually seen looking at your hand, curling your fingers, as if wanting to make sure that the dream wasn’t real.
After this accident years seemed to drag on, passing slowly, almost making you forget about the dream until one day when you heard a song by The Doors. You were drawn to the vocalist's voice, quickly learning how he was called. It was when something clicked in your mind. Sitting in a park on a bench, you typed the name in your phone and waited for the page to load. You wanted to see him, feeling that growing excitement inside.
The page loaded as you gawked at the screen, instinctively typing on the photos. "You heard?" Passing conversation made it to your ears, but you barely listened to it as you looked at the guy on the black and white photos. "Lonely people still believe in the soulmate myth of being born in the wrong time. As if it was a good excuse for them to keep being single!"
"You're so stupid at times." Another voice. This time you raised your head, looking at the two women. The one who spoke right now was clearly annoyed at the other one's behavior. The second was drunk as you could see that she was barely holding herself on her legs. "Someone will hear you and you'll hurt them."
"So what?!" The drunk one almost shouted. She wanted to say more, but her friend covered her mouth and pulled her after herself.
You were left speechless, recalling that you heard about it as well. Some of your friends even suggested, that maybe it was the reason you couldn't find anyone. "You know" you recalled words from one of your friends. "Maybe your partner is waiting for you somewhere, to go with you to the afterlife."
You dropped your phone, the screen shattering upon the impact with the hard ground. You didn't pick it up, sitting at the bench, slowly connecting the dots. Only after you realized what could have taken place you grabbed your phone, praying for it to work. Once the screen turned on you were met with the same black and white picture of Jim Morrison, looking up, focused on something. You felt your face turning red as the memories of the forgotten dream came back to you.
"I'll be waiting for you..." you mumbled to yourself, hearing his voice in your head. You couldn't believe in that, but you weren't someone to speak about this discovery. You still didn't know if you should believe it or not, but for now you had to get your phone fixed.
Keeping it to yourself you lived your life, being more and more convinced to believe in this myth. No one ever was interested in you, no date, no flirtatious gazes, no nothing. That made you sad as your other friends were finding their partners one after another except you. You weren't jealous, instead you felt happy for them, being glad that nobody forgot about you and you were almost treated like a part of family in some cases. It was like that until the final day of your life arrived.
You couldn't say if your life was long or not, but one of your friends was with you at this day. You two agreed on a meeting at your home to drink some tea, like the two grannies you were. Your friend nearly laughed when she saw that you had one room for listening to music only. You even bought a few guitars during your life and somehow learned to play them, but your hands were too old for that as of now.
"Didn't think you would still be so deep into music" you friend commented, looking through the CDs you have gathered. She whistled, seeing your complete collections. "Oh, you even have all The Doors' records!" she noticed, amazed.
"You don't know how difficult it was to get them" you said, recalling the years of going to the same shop just to find nothing.
"And what do I see here?" You friend took notice of the three books you had stashed near the player. She took one, flipping through it. "Poems?" she asked, looking at the cover. "Oh, Jim. That explains it!"
"Am I that obvious?" you asked, which made your friend giggle. Your friend placed the book back on its place.
"Yes, as your devotion to this guy can't be measured" she stated a fact. Then, she pointed at the posters on walls. "See? You even have five posters of him."
You felt a bit embarrassed. "Can't say I don't love the guy, because I do."
"You know what would be funny?" Your friend looked at one of the posters. The one you loved the most. Jim's side profile was shown on it, his long hair a mess as he smiled sweetly, showing the joy he probably felt at that point in his life. "If he was your soulmate and that's why you're alone for your entire life."
Someone would say that her words would hurt you, but they didn't. Your entire group was joking about you being the person born in wrong time for quite some time now, taking guesses who could have been your soulmate.
"I wouldn't mind" you joked along. "Jim was a very nice guy, despite his drinking habit."
There was silence between you two as you caught yourself staring at the same poster your friend was. "You're talking about him like you know him" you friend noticed.
"Because I do" you wanted to say, but you only smiled instead. "I would love to know him" you said, asking if she wanted to listen to something. The meeting ended at evening when your friend's husband came for her, reminding her of the time. You said your goodbyes and plopped on the armchair, feeling so exhausted that you didn't find strength to clean the cups.
You just felt like closing your eyes and fall asleep and so you did, feeling as if someone covered your eyes and left a kiss on your forehead, before everything went black.
***
The sand under you felt familiar, the position you were laying in was too. You opened your eyes, feeling young again. The light blue sky greeted you and right next to you, you've noticed someone. Jim was standing above you, bending over, smiling at you.
"You weren't in a hurry" he said, greeting you. Your features brightened as you sat up and hugged him, forcing him to fall on his knees. Jim hugged you back, even tighter than you did to him.
"Sorry that I made you wait for so long" you whispered, feeling a soft kiss on your cheek.
"Don't mention it. We're together now." Jim took a hold of your shoulders, pushing you away, just to look at your face and kiss you passionately. You've kissed him back, your hands laying on his chest, gripping the ends of the jacket tightly. You were meeting in dreams throughout your entire life, but this just felt different, more real.
Jim broke the kiss when you two were out of breath, but happy. You felt his arms wrap around you, bringing you as close to him as possible. "We'll be always together now" he said, looking at the slowly raising sun, as you cuddled into him, laying your head on his arm.
"At long least" you said, before the sun raised up, enveloping you both in a warm light.
Jim patted your back, bringing your attention to the sea. The waves calmed down, the wind almost disappeared as the sun got on the highest point on the sky. You both stood up, holding hands, just like you did last time, facing the sea. Jim was the first one who did a step forward, pulling you after him. You followed and once your feet touched the water, you felt like going through a barrier, your bodies disappearing from the unknown land, going to the place in the afterlife.