Euphoria

Map Of The Soul

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Written by Authoress Kamara

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Chapter 6: Euphoria

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“What about you, Finn? You have a soulmate ?”. Jax asked.

It obviously wasn’t a serious question, just something to get off the topic of how miserable Adonis was, but it hit him all the same.

Smacked him in the face, slammed him with a brick wall, more like that, really.

The word coming out of Jax’s mouth, the word the one he hated, and the one he feared, and the one he despises with all of his being, directed at him, pulled some sort of trigger in Finn Pattison, making his breath catch in his throat.

“No”. He wanted to say. “No I don’t, he’s dead, he’s dead to me, I don’t have one, it’s just me”.

That’s what Finn wanted to say, but he couldn’t.

He wasn’t lying though, because if he tried enough, the connection would snap and there would be no soulmate at the other end of the line at all and it had to be possible.

And he wasn’t there yet.

Finn Pattinson didn’t have a soulmate because if he did, then so would his mother but his mother didn’t have one either because he was dead and soulmate shouldn’t exist if they all just go off and die like that one day and leave you alone.

All alone,

All alone,

And then suddenly, Finn was alone and the cafe was gone and all around him was just dark and he was alone.

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So it was a bit ironic that Adonis Atlas and Jax Monroe had practically leaped over the table when Finn’s eyes had widened moments before he passed out, crumpled against the wall inside of the booth.

Though he didn’t seem to know it but Finn was anything but alone.

“Jax, what the hell did you do__”.

“Shut up, I’m trying to find his pulse to make sure he’s not dead, you idiot”. Jax snarled as he reached for the side of Finn’s neck, panic thick in his voice, as he felt for a heartbeat-and found one soon after.

“Found it”. He exhaled.

The few other people in the cafe were staring but Jax didn’t care, because he had only known this kid for a couple of weeks and boy was he a tough one but he would still be devastated if something happened to him, that was for sure.

Though he seemed to be unconscious, Finn’s chest was heaving and his face was contorting into what looked like an expression of pain, his fists clenched in his lap.

He almost looked like he was having a seizure, or something but Jax was sure that wasn’t the case.

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In his little box of darkness, inside his own mind, Finn was still stuck and he was suffocating. Scraping, clawing at the walls of his own skull.

He was screaming as loud as he could, to himself or somebody else, he didn’t care.

He was alone, he didn’t want to be alone.

His throat was closing up and his waters were rising and his entire body was screaming back straight at him, every single nerve to contact his soulmate.

The one who might help him out of this.

But Finn didn’t want to need him, or his help, he couldn’t even feel him right now, maybe because blood was roaring in his ears and he was starting to drown and if he didn’t do anything about it, he may die.

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>>Nearly sleeping through his second class of the day, Kai Webster didn’t feel anything.

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Finn was banging on the walls of his mind and then he stopped because then the darkness was coming out in tendrils and wrapping around his neck and squeezing and he couldn’t breathe anymore, couldn’t speak, couldn’t scream.

And surrounded by darkness, with nothing but his own tiny, quivering form, Finn was all alone.

And it was choking the life out of him.

And it was going to kill him.

So he mustered up the courage, because he was afraid of it, even as he realized exactly what was strangling him, even though he hated it, and he knew that he did and he summoned the will to reach out for it.

Reached out for him.

In this lifeless space, in this dark cage, inside of himself everything was upside down, everything was wrong.

Because here, as Finn’s strength dwindled, he realized what it was that was hurting him, realized to whom the blackness and its lethal tentacles belonged.

His soul was battling against his mind, his body, his being.

Slowly, slowly, he was choking himself to death.

And then it burst forth from his mind before he could think to stop it and it was almost familiar, what he shouted, and dimly realized that he had done this once before only weeks ago.

“Help me”:

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Kai dropped his books this time, stumbling over his own feet as his limbs locked up and he fell to the ground and he knocked his head on the pavement.

His vision flickered to black.

But oddly, Kai was still unconscious though he saw nothing but darkness surrounding him on all sides-he even seemed to be walking in thin air.

There was nothing.

He couldn’t even feel his soulmate anymore-he felt a sudden emptiness.

And then he heard it.

That outcry.

It was no longer in his head, but all around him, echoing, the cry so desperate as he almost crumpled over just at the sound of it.

“Please “. The voice cracked and it was followed by what sounded like a sob.

It was his soulmate, it was him and he was here somewhere in this dark void.

Kai began to run looking for him, all animosity forgotten.

“Hello ? W-Where are you ?”. He called around, desperately searching.

Nothing, nothing but darkness, still.

“I don’t know, I don’t know where I am, just help me”. His voice sounded thin, strangled like he was struggling for air.

Kai Webster was still running and he could hear his own footsteps pattering on the nothingness below him.

“I’ll find you, I will “. Kai panted. “Just wait for me”.

“I will “.

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Finn didn’t even know what he was saying anymore, but the grip of the darkness on him had loosened just a bit, and he was so, so desperate to be able to breathe right again.

The second his soulmate’s voice reached his ears, Finn lost it.

Lost his ability to resist entirely, lost everything except for the urge to be free and the sound of his voice.

The sound of it was kind a drug for him; it immediately opened up his airways, immediately brought him peace.

It was his own personal analgesic, his kind of painkiller, driving out all of the demons and giving him space to breathe.

It brought him some kind of twisted euphoria, the way it dripped like honey down the walls of this prison, even though the words themselves expressed nothing but worry and fear.

And for the sake of himself, for the sake of breathing, for the sake of living, he let himself get high off of it, just this once.

And Finn let it happen because it seemed like at this point, the whole world was burning down anyways and he didn’t know which way was up or which was down, couldn’t tell wrong from right, and he though he might be crying right now but he was too busy focusing on the voice to care.

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Kai could hear the choked out words and the sobs clearly now and he could see something and he was sure it was him, his soulmate, and he needed Finn’s help and he needed it now.

He broke out into a sprint determined to reach him, wanting to save him.

He was standing still, looking oddly, terrifyingly tranquil as Kai reached him, skidding to halt in front of the unmoving boy.

His large eyes stared into the darkness, unfocused, his lips parted.

Hauntingly beautiful.

He was breathing, he was alive but he wasn’t here.

He looked oddly familiar, with the way his dark hair draped over one eye sparking something in the back of Kai’s memory.

Or maybe it was the shape of his nose, or his lips-Kai couldn’t name who he resembled, not now.

His thin body was shaking, Kai realized, his hands clenched into fists by his sides, and his breaths were ragged.

His voice was gone, and all that could be heard in the blank void was the choppy constricted inhale and exhale.

“What happened to you?”. Kai whispered addressing the boy in front of him, as if he could hear him; in truth, Kai wasn’t even sure.

Raising his own shaking hands, he reached out to touch the other boy’s cheeks.

The air between his fingers and the other’s face barely a centimeter was thick with some kind of electric energy.

This was him, this was Kai Webster’s soulmate, in front of him, so close.

Kai closed the distance, plunging through the nearly palpable tension between them, that had been keeping their skin from touching.

As soon as his fingertips made contact with the pale skin he was seeing, the boy disappeared.

Kai’s vision flashed bright white and everything was...

Gone.

He was back in the real world, back in his college and gone from the dark void of the mind he just walked into moments ago.

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TBC

Written by Authoress Kamara