Soul Timer Zeke
When you are born imagine that there is a clock on your wrist that counts down to the point until you meet your other half, your soul mate. For many it would be a wondrous and magical thing and people would fondly look down at their wrists longing for the time when all the numbers reached zero and they met the person who would complete them.
For Zeke though it isn't like that. He's moved around so much that even when he meets his "one" he doesn't think he'll be able to stick around for them anyway and after all he's gone through he doesn't feel that he'll be lucky enough to have a long life. How does this work for him is the idea I wrote about. Just a small idea I had from reading some people write about the same thing. Enjoy.
It's something everyone seems to make a big fuss about and I never really bothered to see the attraction in it. So the numbers on your wrist count down to when you'll meet your "soul mate" or something. I honestly couldn't have cared about meeting my soul mate after all I had been through.
Sure when I was younger I'd look at the marks that slowly ticked away on my right wrist but after we started to move around so much I stopped. I started to wear things over my wrists to hide the numbers after our third move and our second in a year. I wasn't old enough to fully understand things but I figured we wouldn't be staying around one place for very long.
As time passed I learned more about the world and started to hate the marks on my wrist even more. I'd see the zeroed timers on my mother's left arm and think about why mine had to be on my right. Even my younger brother had the numbers on his left wrist and when I asked about it my parents just told me that it sometimes happened and to not pay any attention to it. Just to be happy when it finally reached zero and you met your soul mate.
I wasn't convinced on that and when I was 10 I learned more about the numbers. A person born with a zeroed timer meant they typically had no soul mate out there for them. It was said they'd die long before they could meet them. Sometimes a person would be born with a normal clock but for some reason it would suddenly zero. I heard tales of such a thing happening and how sad it was to have your soul mate die before you could even meet them.
None of that mattered to me though. I had long since stopped looking at my numbers. I knew having them on the right wrist was considered a bad omen and I already had enough of those with being born a wiger, a wolf tiger hybrid.
Numbers on the right wrist, a tiger blood without the king's mark, and moving to a new town and a new school almost every 7-13 months, my life was pretty much nothing but bad omens. I was often the target of bullies and punks but I could hold my own in a fight. I had taken martial arts classes since I was really little and I was pretty good. That didn't help me much though when I was 11 and me and my little brother were attacked and nearly killed in a speciest hate crime.
That really had been the final straw for me. From that point on I bought lots of wrist bands of all styles and colors and kept them on covering both wrists at all times. My parents were concerned about me being almost obsessively keeping my wrists covered but I didn't care. I already hid that I was a hybrid, what was hiding some stupid numbers compared to that?
That incident had nearly cost my little brother his life and had left a physical scar on my left shoulder and more mental and emotional ones that I would care to admit to. I knew from that point on that I was not the type to have a long life and even if I were to meet my so called "soul mate" I didn't want them to have to deal with losing me when it ineveitably happened before I was likely twenty.
So life went on for me. A few good things happened though over the years, like meeting Skye, a tiger wolf like my brother, who became like another member of our small family. He helped me a lot and never pestered me about the numbers I kept hidden on my wrists. I saw his a few times and frowned when I saw his numbers still meant he had quite a few years until he met his, but I never mentioned it and he never said anything.
We moved again and again. Over the years things just blurred away from me and it actually felt like sometimes I was just floating along in life. After awhile I even forgot about the stupid numbers and trying to figure out when they would reach zero. With any luck the two of us would just meet in some random crowded place and I could just get away without being noticed by them and hopefully never see them again.
Was it cruel and selfish of me to deny them their "other half"? Maybe but even though I was 16 I still felt like it was crueler to give them something only for it to be snatched away from them soon after.
The day I walked into my latest school though wasn't as normal for me as most days had been. For starters my wrist had been bugging me ever since I woke up. I hadn't really bothered to look at my numbers in ages if not over a year so I had no idea what they might have read but I didn't bother to look at them. I just walked on to the school, went to the office, got my schedule, and found my way to my first period.
On my way I kept on rubbing at the leather bands that covered my wrists. They were simple black leather with metal stud snap-together buttons so I could adjust how tight they were. Normally they weren't my thing and I only wore them on rare occasions but they fit well with my grey fur and the dark blue windbreaker that I wore. Plus they gave me a vibe of a punk or someone you didn't want to approach which was something I always wanted.
When I got to the classroom I knocked on the door and the teacher let me in. She was polite and seemed sincere in welcoming to the class but I just couldn't match her enthusiasm as I looked out among the class. Various species, pretty diverse social standings judging from the style and brands of clothes they wore, and it looked like there were some tough guys likely from the sports teams (likely football if what I saw in a trophy display case was any indication) that I'd likely do well to watch out for.
The teacher wanted me to introduce myself and I had to fight back the urge to roll my eyes. I just told everyone my name was 'William Ezekial Thomson' but that everyone called me 'Zeke' as gruffly as I could. Put on an image of control and establish yourself as someone not to mess with right off the bat and I found that people would tend to leave you alone.
The teacher seemed a bit put off at my gruff attitude but just gently told me to take a seat. I certainly didn't mind and as I walked to the back corner I kept clenching my fists from the strange sensation on my wrist. I had no idea what was going on but I thought that maybe I'd call my dad at lunch and ask him about it. As I sat down next to this otter I took out some paper to write down what was going on in the class.
After a few minutes though I looked to the side and noticed that this guy was looking at me. He was handsome, clean cut, looked to be well off, and pretty attractive but I had no idea why he would be staring at me. I bunched my shoulders to bring my jacket up and brushed back my long hair to make sure my neck, and by proxy my stripes, were hidden and went back to trying to pay attention to the teacher.
Once she was done lecturing about Elizabethan poetry or something I put my stuff away and decided to just stare out the window. I knew this guy was still watching me and it was starting to get on my last nerve. Finally I turned to growl at him and noticed that he was rubbing his left wrist where his numbers likely were. I didn't understand what was with the shy but happy look but I didn't have time to dwell on it before he held out his hand.
"Hi, I'm Matthew Jordan and I think that you're my soul mate." I stared down at the numbers on his wrist and saw that they were at zero. Slowly I looked down at my wrist bands and pulled the right one aside. I could only stare at the zeros that were now upon my wrist for a moment before I looked back up at this guy sitting across from me.
He seemed friendly, certainly smelled nice, was handsome, and just gave off this vibe of being a genuily nice guy. This Matthew guy was clean cut and from good stock and deserved better than a mutt like me. I couldn't believe whatever fate was in charge of these things would do something like this to a guy like this but I couldn't let him think we were soul mates when I'd just end up hurting him later on.
"Yeah?" I shrugged and looked away from him, "Well like I said: people call me 'Zeke', and I think that you're mistaken."
It was better this way. Better a small cut now than a gaping wound later.