Chapter Text
Soulmates were overrated.
You kept your thoughts to yourself during your childhood. No stranger’s opinions and preferences steering you towards a joint destiny. A blessing many pitied you for.
Other children stopped, gasping, when they heard soulmates stumbling through their brains. Parents whispered over tea about how their children must be bonded to high-ranking Marines, wealthy merchants, or clever accountants. The earlier children knew, the sooner they could start preparing for their adult lives, trying to force and shape what everyone claimed was a perfect, fated match.
But you knew better. Brave Marines turned out to be aggressive drunks, lying pirates, or broke fishermen. And whatever they must be equally disappointed when they met their other halves. Soulmates could lie through the bond, especially if one side wanted to be deceived.
Not every bond was awful, but it had nothing to do with fate.
You were grateful for the years of silence around your thoughts. It gave you time to become yourself, free and clear of a stranger’s fingerprints smudging the intimate corners of your soul.
A few months before you turned eighteen, the first brush of foreign sensation caught your attention. You didn’t tell anyone about the smell of blood and gun smoke, or the sadistic pride glowing rosy and cold through the carnage.
You specialized in anticipating problems, so when the monster’s shadow appeared, you just took a deep breath and set about reinforcing walls and battlements you’d long since prepared. Even if your soulmate had been a perfectly nice baker with dimples and a sunny disposition, you wouldn’t want him in your space. Your walls could keep out pooling blood as easily as good intentions, though, so in the end, what did it matter?
The stranger at the far end of your bond noticed you roughly a year later.
You wore adulthood well. It fit just like your childhood. The same chores in the same little cottage. The same herbs grown for the same doctors, merchants, and taverns. The same brother coming and going like a bad rash.
One day, the rash stirred you into a frenzy, and frustration splashed over the curtain wall. You were tired, hungry, and you’d been so close to affording the framework for an apiary before your personal plague disappeared with your savings. Again. Instead of diversifying your cash flow, you had to worry about meals for the next two weeks.
The stranger on the other side snapped to attention, and rage clawed up the stream of emotion to find your front gates.
What? What is this?
Each word was an attack, a battering ram knocking with all the manners of a Sea King in heat. Apparently, all that hate and violence wasn’t reserved for the battlefield. Your stranger turned out to be aggressive. And immediately irritating.
It never rained but it stormed, right?
But a pity party started this mess, and you were determined to learn your lesson the first time. Rising from the table where you’d been stewing, you forced yourself to the window.
This was what you got for losing control.
Before you answered the howling beast at your door, you took a deep breath. You could smell the sea. A second breath. You could smell the soil. The third brought the high emotions down, and you answered the way you’d always planned.
“Looks like we’re stuck.”
I don’t have a soulmate. What the hell is this?
He sounded offended, like he’d stepped in shit and it had stained his shoe.
“Don’t worry. I’m not interested, either.”
You’d never heard thoughts sputter before.
Excuse me?
Abandoning the window, once again secure in your mental fortress, you set to work making tea. The ritual – boiling water, selecting leaves, steeping – hadn’t changed. Therefore, nothing important had shifted in your actual, tangible world. The plants grew, the sun rose, and the fire was hot. Thoughts were just thoughts, especially when held at a distance.
“Neither of us chose this.” You stayed calm and direct, like you were clarifying your rates to a traveling merchant. “I find it easier to imagine we’re unwilling neighbors.”
Do you?
The sneer was palpable, even from the far side of the world.
And what if I don’t? Do you have any idea who I am, little girl?
Threats on the first meeting? Well. It wasn’t like you’d never heard those before. The port town constantly changed hands between Marines and pirates, so you’d heard every naked and veiled promise of violence the cruelest minds of the Grand Line could imagine. Some could’ve made Whitebeard blush.
“I’m an adult. And I have no intention of getting to know you, so: no, I don’t know who you are.”
A blustering hurricane answered you. Confusion, anger, and defensive bloodlust screaming together.
You continued, comfortable on the figurative path you’d cleared, paved, and lit.
“Good fences make good neighbors. If we stay on our respective sides of this unfortunate link, it should wither and go quiet after a few years.”
Unfortunate link for you, maybe.
“You don’t sound thrilled. No need to pretend you’re enjoying this.”
Steam wafted from your cup as you poured, and you imagined the brew washing off every flicker of anxiety, disappointment, and exhaustion. When you took the first sip, you expected it to restore you completely.
Tell me where you are and I can take care of this problem in less than a few years.
“No.”
I’ll do it the hard way if I have to, and I’ll make it ugly.
“Charming. But no. And you won’t. Have a good day, neighbor.”
The walls rose, climbing up and folding in to make a dome around your mind. The stranger paced outside for a while, raging and scratching and sniffing for weaknesses, but that kind of focus was taxing, especially for those who hadn’t spent their lives practicing mental blocks. He was easy to ignore until he faded.
The world welcomed back your full attention, unchanged. The intruder vanished. Your home remained.
You sipped your tea, and it was everything you’d expected.
Your neighbor turned up again the next day. Irritation pooled around your defenses as you clipped back a thriving rosemary shrub.
It was, you assumed, an attempt at stealth, but however graceful he may be in the flesh, his mind had all the subtlety of a meteor in sequins.
He pawed at the base of the wall, tested the mortar with claws, and threw his will at the barrier like it would crumble at his demand. It felt like behaviors learned in battle, and you took careful notes. He might be a haki user. That could end badly. A little slip may reveal more to his observation than you intended. Fuck if you knew how the magical bending of willpower worked. All the more reason for caution.
I know you’re there.
The rosemary smelled divine, and it looked beautiful tied in bunches with yellow string. It was still early enough for a trip to town. You’d sell it and spend the beri on oil. This was only the start of the season, and herb-infused cooking oils sold well in the winter. Always best to plan ahead for the cold months, and you didn’t want to flood the market with the booming harvest. That was a great way to lower demand and cut profits.
Answer me.
You graced his tantrum with the faintest scent of the sap clinging to your hands. He’d slammed into your head with gore, and you hoped the fresh, vibrant shock of it would offend him into silence. Pushing buttons could have consequences, but creating a tranquil antithesis to his temper might erode his interest. If there was nothing to see, there was nothing to find. And eventually, he’d respect the fences without a reason to cross them.
I don’t have a soulmate.
You agreed and turned your attention to the thyme. And then he was gone again.
For months, the neighbor kept that rhythm – showing up like a thief in the night, snarling when he didn’t get his way, and declaring he didn’t have a soulmate before slamming his own psychic doors.
The bond hummed with his investigations. He just couldn’t leave it alone, even though it hurt to touch, like a broken tooth.
Your answers came in pointless sensory blessings, establishing yourself as an entire world full of growing things and nothing else of note.
When he ruminated on showing you your own intestines, you shared the tactile experience of rubbing a soft, furry sage leaf until the natural oils bloomed.
Saccharine promises to skin you alive met the warm sun on the back of your neck.
No words. Never words. You’d already said your piece.
He couldn’t threaten a light breeze or the satisfaction of moss springing between bare toes. Eventually, that was all you would be. Not a person. Not a target. More of a place he might’ve made up and half forgotten.
I don’t have a soulmate.
It was good to agree on something, at least.
Life continued much as it had before your neighbor moved in. As malicious as he seemed, though, he barely changed your day-to-day rhythm. You’d always known a soulmate might appear, the same way you expected mildew to blight the tomatoes every summer, and it altered nothing besides the gear in your garden shed. You still needed to do the work. You still needed to grow the food. You still needed to tend your mental fortress.
No use worrying. No use crying.
Too many tears would salt the earth, or so your mother used to say. She’d given you two gifts before she passed: a talent to grow things where others could not, and a deep distrust of men. She used her last breath to curse out the man who fathered you. He’d stayed just long enough to give her two children and a sense of security before returning to the sea with nothing to remember him by but his spawn and a thank you note. Five years was enough time for old wounds to heal, and he appreciated her generosity. No mention of promises made in the dark of night, the children they shared, or the future he’d upended. Not even the beri they’d saved together.
The man was a cautionary tale, not a person, and your mother taught you never to fork over any form of goods or services until you held the beri and all relevant legal documents in your hand. It made you a savvy businesswoman. And a bit of a hermit. Your brother told you so when he was drunk.
His entitlement to your earnings and the home he only remembered in dire straits had first exposed you to your neighbor. He got under your skin as only family could – it was something in the blood. What was yours was his by masculine logic, and if it wasn’t, you’d forgive him. You had so far, anyway, and you were a creature of habit.
He was responsible for your second slip, too.
“Why would you bet our home?” You watched him move through the house, looking for anything of value to shove in a sack and take on his next misadventure.
“My home,” he said. “I’m the legal heir.”
Only because he was born male. Your island’s inheritance laws hadn’t changed in centuries, and even if he’d been born second, he would take everything.
“I had every right,” he continued, puffing up to his bony shoulders and weak gaze.
“Do you have any idea what you’ve done?” How could he be so stupid? How could he fail to understand what he’d cost not only you but himself? “I can’t support you anymore. No more place to crash when you’re broke. No more income to steal when you’re lazy –”
His slap cracked across your cheek, forcing your gaze and words away.
“Shut-up! When did I ever have to depend on a woman?”
Your control snapped. Below the studied peace and layered defenses, you’d buried a thousand unspoken words and unshed tears. An explosion rang out, audible to no one but yourself and the distant mind beyond the fence. The force of the blast moved through you like something physical, filling your muscles with intent as you drew back for a punch.
“When haven’t you depended on me, you blood-sucking leech?!”
Your knuckles met his face, sending him stumbling. You panted, drowning in unleashed pain and a childhood of pointless sacrifice for someone who thought he deserved it due to possession of a penis.
When he was very, very small, he’d been sweet. Then he grew up. Became a teenager. Met people who told him he deserved more for less, that any of his shortcomings were a failure of the women in his life.
And you’d stomached it, because he was family. He’d tottered along, gripping the same countertops as he learned to walk. He'd found shelter and solace under the same roof. You’d thought all that meant something. The memory or the practical function of it all.
Now there was no family home to protect, and he’d taken away your garden. Your little stove where you boiled water for tea. Your bed, your storage shelves, your life.
“You’re a child,” you hissed.
Without stopping to recover his balance, he rushed you, hitting you hard in the chest. Your feet left the floor. The force carried you into the table, and you smacked your head on the sharp corner. As your ears rang and your vision swam, you heard him mutter, backing away from the scene and any responsibility: “I’m not the kind of man who hits women. I’m not – this is your fault. I don’t do this.”
By the time you’d blinked the blood from your eye and regained some sense of equilibrium, he was long gone. He’d taken an old clock, your copper tea kettle, and a couple cheap, shiny trinkets. You wondered if the pawnshop would even bother with them.
You found your feet and went looking for iodine and cotton.
The home’s new owners – pirates who’d made a base in town – would come at nightfall. Before that deadline, you’d need to pack what you could and get as far away as possible. But you’d have to go to town for shelter, and a visible wound was a sign of weakness you couldn’t afford.
As you cleaned up your mess (for whom?), a breath of a laugh squeezed through your thoughts. Smoke in the ruins. You grit your teeth and started reaching for a meditative state to repel the invasion, but it was too late, and you had too much on your mind to force him back.
Not so perfect, huh? Lot of fire under all those flowers.
“Get out,” you murmured, setting your largest satchel on the kitchen table. You didn’t notice the blood on the wood until the canvas started soaking it up, and when you pulled it away, the fabric left a lurid smear. “I don’t have time for this right now.”
It’s just getting interesting, though.
Fine. You could ignore him. As you gathered your most important gardening tools and essential clothes, you imagined a smaller dome immediately around yourself. Nothing grand. Barely more than an oven, really. But enough to keep him from peering through your eyes or digging into memories. You weren’t sure if either feat was truly possible, but they were popular tropes in old ballads and romance novels, and you weren’t about to take that risk. A mistake like that after such a disaster could destroy you.
In a second bag, you stowed seeds, cuttings, and all the pre-made market goods you’d planned to sell in coming months. Maybe you could hold out long enough for them to sell at full value. Or maybe they’d sell for just enough to keep you alive another week.
He poked at your minimal defenses, teasing you as you sat trapped in your own head. At the moment, you really had nothing.
And he was delighted.
Why don’t you yell at me for a while? Maybe you’ll feel better.
When you didn’t answer he hummed, swallowing another laugh.
Want to talk about it? I’m all ears, you know.
You kept your silence, but he could smell blood. It lured him in and kept him close, a hungry shark with a velvet voice.
Everything was different after that.
Two establishments rented rooms in town: the tavern and the teashop. With two pirate ships at anchor, the tavern would be booked. But you had a good working relationship with the teashop owner, and he happily leased the unused attic to you. It wasn’t good enough for regular guests, but it had a bit more room, and it wasn’t open to the elements.
Part of your rent would be worked off as a shop assistant. The rest you’d earn through odd jobs. Working at the tavern. Preparing decorative gardens for the winter or replanting in spring. Running errands and going on ingredient hunts for the local doctor.
Rebuilding your stock would take time, but the demand was still there, and no one could match your skill. They’d tried. In the meantime, you’d be patient, work hard, and keep your head down.
At the end of the first day away from your cottage, you fell onto a straw mattress, surrounded by belongings with no places to be put away, exhausted.
But not, unfortunately, alone.
As you drifted off, he whispered to you.
There’s no more hiding from me, not now that I’ve really felt you.
He snickered, and you groaned, pushing your face into the pillow.
Goodnight, neighbor.
It wasn’t affectionate, but it was overly familiar, and as much a promise as a farewell.
Your neighbor’s tactics shifted. Still entirely malicious, but wearing the smiling face of a fox, he held out the hand of friendship. You both knew he was hiding a knife behind his back, but he leaned into the hunt with distressing persistence. Without the homey distractions you’d relied on, you struggled to brush him off so easily. Feelings slipped through: exhaustion, frustration, and short bursts of painfully bright hope as you reassembled something resembling a life.
None of it escaped his notice. He collected notes, and while he didn’t wave them in your face, he didn’t make a secret of them, either. You felt him haunting the background noise of your day-to-day, shuffling facts like cards – your anonymity, security, life, and future reduced to so many colorful suits.
It was the last thing you needed.
What do you think we should do once I find you? I’ve never been able to feel what it’s like when I tear off a limb. Sounds interesting, doesn’t it? I can hurt you so much more than your idiot brother. So kind of him to open the door for me, though, don’t you think?
You answered with the smell of fresh hay as you replaced your mattress’s stuffing. Steam from freshly brewed tea, the cold kiss of morning fog on your cheeks, and the comfort of a warm blanket became weapons.
Anything pleasant became defiance. Every minor victory pushed back against the overwhelming hate your neighbor poured through the bond. You rebuilt your fortress, bit by bit, regaining a full sense of self as the vulpine presence around you glowered.
He’d been waiting for you to crack. To break. Like an empty promise or a porcelain doll. Although you couldn’t tell if you were his plaything or proof of his worldview, you didn’t acknowledge the board he’d set, and his focus sharpened in anger.
You were supposed to cave after your brother’s latest betrayal. That was the hook that snared his personal investment in this soul bond business. That much was obvious. But he was mining for gold in a tea garden, and he never turned up what he wanted to find.
Your existence bothered him.
Your persistence terrified him.
Or so you assumed.
Bullies attacked the things they feared, and your peace of mind had sparked a war.
You’re some kind of fool.
“Better find a new distraction before I infect you, then.”
You murmured it aloud, without any intent to share. When your neighbor recoiled, equal parts surprised and angry, you realized your mistake.
For a split second, the connection became more than a nuisance, blooming into the impossible link praised in ballads and epics. Your neighbor’s presence touched you, filled the space like a physical presence. It felt like you’d see him in the flesh if you looked over your shoulder.
You really didn’t need to.
Somehow, he was there, whether you turned to face the fact or not.
A massive frame. Fine cologne failing to hide the tang of blood and gun polish. A sharp breath that sucked far too much air from the room.
You squeezed your eyes shut. Hands trembling. Terrified by what he might feel, or see, or take. You were still a hermit at heart, and you’d never been less prepared for a guest.
He wasn’t really standing behind you. That wasn’t how these things worked. It was all in your head. So that’s where you went.
Rushing to your defenses, you found them strong as ever. But you were on the wrong side. The fortress stood behind you, and you had no idea what you were looking at.
Fuck.
You’d become so comfortable you’d crossed the fence. Into his territory.
He realized just as the same conclusion dawned on you, and you raced backward, gathering stray thoughts in a mad rush as long fingers pinched your shadow and tried to drag you back.
Teeth snapped at your heels as you vaulted back into your own mind, sheltering behind the fence your neighbor snarled.
What was that? Curious? Come back and face me properly this time.
Usually, your reserved nature revolved around practicality, but at the moment, you acknowledged your cowardice. Your fence no longer felt like enough. The fortress and dozen curtain walls wouldn’t make you feel safe again.
Your borders were artificial. The bond hadn’t faded. If anything, the link was gradually solidifying into a steady connection, one that begged for a lapse of judgement to pull you into danger.
He wasn’t a theoretical problem anymore. You’d touched, not skin to skin, but mind to mind, and he’d been warm, and real, and present. Someday, he could stand in your simple home again, but armed and ready to fulfil every oath of vengeance. And who could torture you better than a man with access to every passing ache and fear?
Don’t you want to feel what I could do to you? Want a practical demonstration? I bet I don’t need to be on the same island to make you scream.
No more answers. You pressed your hand over your mouth like it would betray you again. No more words. He’d never stand so close to you again, you swore it.
It was a hard year. A dry autumn and a long winter. Few pleasures remained in the lean months when the sun rose late and set early, and there were precious few comforts to answer the litany of sugar-coated threats growing over the neighbor’s fence like weeds.
The beast beyond was always hungry, and you’d been taught as a child not to feed wild animals. They wouldn’t thank you, but they’d lose their fear, and one day, when you had nothing to give, they’d tear you to pieces.
You survived, measuring every thought and checking its pockets for words before it approached the boundary.
You would not repeat the same mistakes.
A bright spring followed the thaw, the ice and snow soothing the scars of the last drought, and your work flourished. You paid ahead for your room, bought shelves to begin storing new products, and hoarded spare beri in an empty tea tin.
On a whim one summer day, you purchased a set of windchimes. They rang soothingly at the shop’s entrance, rolling over your mind like ripples on a pond, so you bought them. Because they were nice. And you could.
They felt like proof. You’d rebuilt your life. Made something that could be better one day. And you were secure enough to spend precious beri on something frivolous.
You were so thrilled you were a little embarrassed with yourself.
You hung them in your narrow attic window, and they immediately became your favorite sensory distraction when your neighbor’s attention turned oppressive. Even when the snows returned and the wind turned sharp, a harsh taunt sent the window creaking open. As the random notes threaded your defenses with iron, you’d pull every blanket you owned over your head to shiver in peace.
He changed you, and not in any way the demon would have chosen. Every good, pleasant thing in your life became important. Not just as a shield, but as a foundation. They rooted you to your reality, your own truths.
Life wasn’t usually easy. It was precarious, full of frustration and pain you couldn’t predict or control. But that made every bite of fresh bread better than the last. It validated the pleasure of listening to rain on the window. Your reasons to live may be small, but they surrounded you, and when you chose to look, you could always find one.
Your neighbor hated it all. Especially the windchimes, though he scoffed at everything you sent his way.
You’re a liar. I’ve seen your rage. Where’d that passion go? Need another slap to get you going?
He was cruel.
And unhappy.
And very far away.
Where he would remain, so long as you continued savoring life. Just because he was secretly miserable didn’t mean you had to be.
It really made you think sometimes.
Maybe there was something to all this soulmate nonsense, after all. The fated match could help you grow into a better version of yourself. You just didn’t have to meet them. And you never would. You’d come too close; you’d stood in your neighbor’s shadow.
You’d never slip so far again.
‘Happily ever after’ was still bullshit, and if you ever came face-to-face, the man would murder you. He’d promised many times, with increasingly inventive methods as months shifted to years.
How many sunrises do you think it takes to balance a missing limb? A few more bullet holes and you’d understand. You just haven’t been dropped from high enough to break yet. How would you like to fly with me?
Dark laughter swallowed the bright heart of your contentment, but you couldn’t answer with silence. You’d lived too long in your own head, and snuffing out any sensation, idea, or dream that might touch the bond would smother you. You couldn’t do it. So, you continued to compromise, pretending he’d neither felt nor found you when you answered in words.
It was a livable arrangement.
So long as you never met, you’d be safe, and that was more than most could boast.
And then your world went to hell.
Again.
One evening at the tail end of summer, a warm breeze off the sea toyed with the chimes, and you listened to the tune like a sacred hymn as your neighbor raged. You picked up that something hadn’t gone to plan, but you had no interest in asking after his affairs. Whoever or whatever had pissed him off was none of your business.
His irritation rubbed like sandpaper on a sunburn.
You transformed your own displeasure into dreamy recollections of reflective puddles dancing with raindrops. The satisfying sound of hard shoes on good cobblestones. The pleasure of early mornings and the cool light that suffused the streets before dawn.
The silence of lonely moments you treasured like gems.
It wasn’t a fair trade, but life wasn’t fair. You hadn’t needed a soulbond to know that.
Functional, though. Life could be functional. You’d settle for that.
As your thoughts turned soft and foggy at the seams, a blast rattled through the building. The wind chimes clattered, panicking on their strings, and you leapt from bed, throwing your clothes and boots on as you peeped through the window towards the noise.
The edge of town was burning.
You watched, stunned, with one boot dangling from your toes as a column of fire billowed into the night sky. Shades of red cast eerie shadows through the streets, and the first drifting sparks whispered by.
Screams carried over the inferno, growing in volume and number. A family rushed by below your window, shouting and running towards the docks. A few others – some half-burned or holding bleeding wounds – trickled along in their wake. But there were far more cries than passing bodies.
And not all of the noise, you realized, was distressed.
Men were laughing. Cheering. Shouting for blood.
Pirates.
The same crew who’d stolen your house and squatted in hills when they weren’t strutting along the piers, demanding nonsensical fees from random merchants, travelers, and fisherfolk.
Whispers had carried around town over the past few weeks about Marines reclaiming the area. A few nearby islands returned to their control after short battles with a competent fleet. It put your town’s de facto dictators on edge.
Plenty of overseers had come and gone during your lifetime, but you’d never seen a fleeing troop take such drastic action. Then again, they were pirates.
If they couldn’t have the port, no one could. They’d take it one way or another, people and all.
You shoved your foot the rest of the way into the boot and took off down the stairs. Already, you could smell the smoke, and this time of year, the wind would drive the flames through town to the waterfront. Guestroom doors opened in the hall as you shot past, visitors asking questions and calling for directions instead of running.
Too late.
You weren’t even sure there was enough time to save yourself.
Why so quiet?
The voice made you flinch as you hit the street, but you didn’t stop. You dodged through narrow alleys and tried to work across town at an angle, aiming for the point where the edge of the fire would meet the water. That would be your best shot. You had no doubt the boats in the harbor would be sabotaged or occupied, but you may be able to slip past if you went for a short swim, or if you moved faster than the flames.
I was enjoying your inane daydreams. Something’s happened, hasn’t it?
Bastard knew you too well. He even read your silences for what they were. You’d given him so little, but he had terrifying insight.
If only he didn’t sound so pleased that your life had landed on its head again.
He was enjoying himself? Well. Not for long.
“You may be about to get your wish.”
You hadn’t spoken to him in an age. Just like last time, it caught him off guard.
Maybe he forgot you were a real person from time to time, too. That had been the point of your sensory responses through the bond. Shame you had to remind him, but you knew your chances of seeing the dawn were slim. The fire roared louder than the screams now, and burning bits of detritus rained down in earnest, lighting vanguards for the main inferno to follow.
“What?”
His voice went flat. The hateful teasing dried up, and he almost sounded serious. Serious, displeased, and – as always – on the verge of rage.
The fire was gaining. No doubt your little home over the teashop was already ablaze. All your things. Your tidy savings. Your windchimes. Up in smoke. The loss pinged in the ribcage with your heartbeat, an intangible pain you tried to keep to yourself.
“Pirates burning the town. They’re driving survivors towards the water.” You paused and ripped off the edge of your jacket as a makeshift mask. The smoke was getting thicker, and soon it would be hard to breathe. It was already irritating, and you wrestled down the urge to cough. “Only seemed fair to let you know I might go quiet forever. Neighborly courtesy and all.”
You’re going to let some common scum kill you so easily? Ah, he was angry again. At least he was consistent in that way. It felt like routine, and it almost comforted you.
Your corner of the world may burn, but somewhere out there your neighbor would forever fail to enjoy the little things in life.
Tell me where you are.
You’d had enough of the conversation, and you gave all your stamina to the race.
Just in case you lived, just in case you had a third shot at building a life – you wouldn’t tell him. No places, no names, no latitude and longitude.
You’d already shared the best parts of your life, anyway. What more could he want?
Your neighbor’s presence swelled like a storm, pressing against the barrier with furious determination, and you nearly stopped to share a lungful of smoke with him.
The wall beside you exploded.
The blast hurled you through the street as the heat caught and kindled.
You must’ve landed hard, but you couldn’t remember, even as you jerked awake moments later, screaming.
You were burning.
Flames licked up your cheek and ate through your clothes to taste flesh down your side, over your back, along your shoulder. You tried to roll over, but your limbs twitched awkwardly as the world spun, leaving you to thrash as your skin bubbled into noxious, cloying smoke.
It was more than pain.
You’d burned your hand on the stove plenty of times. Once you even fell asleep by a lit candle and had to smack the embers out of your hair. None of it compared. Your soulbound demon’s proposed torments would be a mercy in comparison.
As your agony rang through your head, your neighbor’s crushing attention roared into your mind, tangling with your pain and demanding things with words that couldn’t reach you.
It had to stop, it had to stop, you’d give anything for it to stop, why wouldn’t it…?
New pain danced over your mauled flesh, and you offered it new shrieks and pleas until it thickened, and gathered, and you realized it was raining.
The flames on and around you hissed, sinking away to hell as the downpour intensified. A puddle gathered under your face, saltier than the rest. Your throat was raw, and only wheezing whimpers escaped as you twitched and flinched with every drop of rain.
How many times had you shared the rattle of rain on glass? On the beauty of puddles dancing in the onslaught? One of your favorite comforts had returned in your hour of need, even though it hurt, and you clawed through your screaming senses to hear the patter.
Gods.
You couldn’t move.
Barely breathe.
The neighbor continued his attack, and feebly, you offered him that, the one thing you had left.
Your breath.
You shared each puff and gasp, trembling between consciousness and the looming dark, and your neighbor chased after every twitch, greedy and overpowering.
He stayed, talons grasping at smoke-like impressions as you sputtered in the growing puddle. As the dark grew to heavy to lift. As men shouted, boots splashed, and someone rolled you onto your side.
The pain crushed you, and you escaped.
For weeks, you wandered between waking and sleeping, never entirely sure how much of your world was a dream and how much an ugly truth.
You gathered that the Marines had, in fact, come to reclaim the island.
They found precious few survivors, and the town – well, there simply wasn’t one anymore. The pirates razed it to the ground, charring half the island’s forest in the process. A few soldiers stayed to hunt down the culprits and begin rebuilding basic infrastructure for a new base.
There was more than enough room for one.
But you didn’t stay to watch the walls rise. The captain in charge of the mission decided to move the refugees to the nearest complete base and let them relocate themselves from there. By the time you could speak, you’d nearly arrived.
You had no plan. You had no beri. You didn’t even qualify as able-bodied anymore. Starting fresh sounded impossible, but you counted your blessings, trying to force your mind back under control.
The fire hadn’t taken everything. You still had all your senses, even though the shell of your left ear was tattered. You possessed two functional hands, and the Marine medics assured you that, if nothing got infected, you would theoretically have two working legs.
You counted your blessings.
So you didn’t scream.
Thirty percent of your skin had burned away. You faced a lifetime of continuous treatment, and the scarring on your face would limit your options as much as the damage down your body.
You tried ignoring that fact while you could. The curtains swayed around the infirmary in a pleasing sort of way. The ship rocked you to sleep even when the pain crept through your nerves like acid under your dressings.
Your sleeping mind was another matter.
Especially as vulnerable as you were without the freedom to seek out pleasant distractions. Your suffering called through the bond, a trail of blood in the water.
In your dreams, your neighbor perched on your chest, weighing down your struggling lungs as a frown cut through the gloom. He was nothing more than a shape, and you hoped you were nothing more to his eyes, but he took full advantage of your threadbare defenses, and he alone filled the shadow world strung between your minds.
He appeared nearly every night. A massive beast with twitching fingers and a tapping foot.
Irritated.
Attentive.
Obsessed.
He toyed with the unraveling edge of bandages he couldn’t touch. Picked at scabs far out of reach. And somehow, his frustration was your fault – for surviving or failing to become invincible, you never knew.
All your bluster and you can’t even take care of yourself.
He cut you with words, desperate to inflict more harm than his rivals.
Your soulmate only ever seemed to care for your pain. He was drawn to it, pressing into your mind like it was a drug, or a doorway, or some personal slight.
I take from the world; the world isn’t allowed to take from me. Not anymore. And you’re my neighbor, if nothing else. Tell me where you are and I’ll put you out of your misery.
In your delirious state, you couldn’t quite tell if he was offering you medicine or a bullet between the eyes. You wouldn’t accept either.
Though you couldn’t hold your tongue very well. The pain either pushed you to reach out for anyone and anything to stabilize yourself, or the medicine left you swimmy and conversational.
“I’m trapped in my own body,” you mumbled, “in constant pain, but I get the idea you’re having a worse day. Is that true? I can’t imagine you have many good days, as angry as you are.”
You’re one to talk. He clicked his tongue, like you were a dish he’d send back to the kitchen. A feast served cold. If you’d just be honest with me, you’d feel better.
“I’m always honest.”
Lies on lies, he purred. Lying to yourself doesn’t make it better, you know. Apologize, and maybe I’ll forgive you.
Exhausted, even in the dream, you gave up and sank into the bed, entirely pinned by his weight. Your silence irritated him more than any reflection on the joys of soup and ginger tea, and he leaned in, close enough you wondered if he’d tear out your throat with his teeth.
Where are you?
You only sighed. Closed your eyes. That was on old question, but it had become one of his favorites after the fire. And since the fire, you’d kept the answer to yourself.
Refusing to be snubbed, he craned so close you could feel the ghost of his breath.
What’s your name?
The questions chased you through your sleep, endlessly repeating as your neighbor pushed his advantage. Where are you? What’s your name? Where are you…?
But even unconscious and medicated to the gills, you weren’t quite that stupid.
Still, there was a bizarre comfort to the rhythm of it all, the assurance that so long as you breathed through the suffering, someone would be there to feel it.
He never asked who you were. Like he already knew.
You weren’t so surprised, because, in a way, you knew him, too.