#it counts.

THE SHAPE

The very concept of soulmates is something Michael couldn't care less about. He's never been interested in such things, even when he was just a kid and he heard his sister rambling to her friends about soulmates.

It's not until he's taken by the fog that he actually meets the soulmate he apparently had this entire time. The moment his hand wrapped around your throat, preparing to stab his knife into you, the touch burned.

Pain wasn't a stranger to him, but this was different. He could feel this all over his body, like something inside of him ignited the moment he touched you. It was jarring enough that he dropped you to stare at his hand, wondering if maybe this was some strange new perk amongst survivors.

But there was a faint golden sheen on the palm of his hand, one that only lasted for a short moment, and that's when it clicked. This is what his sister was always gushing about. He had a soulmate. He had a soulmate, and it happened to be you.

You were gone by the time he snapped out of his daze, the sound of a generator popping causing his attention to snap back into place. Even though there was a strange conflict of emotions in his mind, things he couldn't remember ever feeling before, he didn't let that affect the trial.

Until you were the last survivor left, that is. There were still two gens that had to be repaired in order to even try opening the gate, and hatch was being particularly elusive this trial, so you were panicking a bit, trying to sneak around to avoid Michael.

But he was a man on a mission, so of course he caught you. There was no way you'd get out of this alive, not when you felt his hand gripping your arm. You screamed, your eyes squeezing shut, but he didn't react. When did he ever react?

You had expected an immediate death, but the feeling of a knife in your stomach never came. He just... gripped your arm. Mustering up what little courage you had, you opened your eyes to see him staring down at you. Or rather, the faint gold sheen forming on your skin from his touch.

The sight left you confused for a few moments before it actually hit you. Soulmates. You'd heard far too many stories about the myth from your fellow survivors. In the world you had come from, such a thing didn't exist. And yet, it seems as if you had one.

Your soulmate was a man who wanted to kill you. A man who had killed the people you reluctantly called your friends. A man who, from what you've heard, can't feel anything. It was like some sick joke. Your life here was already hell, so why not make it worse?

And maybe it was out of boredom, or some form of pity, but the entity intervenes before anything can happen. In the blink of an eye, fog overtakes the two of you. When it clears, you're back at the campfire, and Michael is nowhere to be seen. You end up breaking down, much to the confusion of the other survivors. You're not sure if you even wanted them to know, but they did their best to comfort you.

And Michael was... angry? Anger is an emotion he's vaguely familiar with. He can't feel, not really. But you were taken from him sooner than he wanted, and it left him feeling frustrated. He won't let you get away next time, no matter what the entity tries to do.

ORELA ROSE

Your name has been inked into her wrist for as long as she could remember. She remembers the day it showed up and how excited she was to show it off to Emily.

While she's not exactly obsessed with the concept of soulmates, she did have her moments when she'd imagine what you were like. Especially after her transition, mostly due to the silly fear that you might not support who she is.

A lot of her past relationships ended because of that, so it's something she always thinks about whenever the topic of soulmates is brought up around her.

She never went out to actively search for her soulmate either, having faith that the universe would bring her to you when the time was right.

She just assumed that she would've bumped into you at the hospital or something like that, not here. Not sitting at a campfire, surrounded by trees and fog, waiting to be hunted down for sport.

Orela doesn't even know when you showed up, or if you had been here before her. She just remembers the fog lulling her into a daze, only to find herself in front of a familiar campfire again, with three other people by her side.

You were a new face, someone she'd yet to see, so as she waited for the trial to start, she sat next to you by the fire and struck up a conversation. You didn't seem nervous, so she doubts this was your first time here. Scared, a little exhausted, and breathtakingly gorgeous.

It was a bit silly, finding herself attracted to someone in circumstances like this. You'd think shit like that would be the last thing on her mind, but there was just something about you that caught her attention.

Only when you tell her your name does it actually click in her mind. Her hand instinctively goes to the name on her wrist. It's something she always did when she felt overwhelmed. Her soulmate's name had been there, always, to ground her.

And now here you are, right in front of her. Stuck in this purgatory, doomed to die or survive, over and over again. There's this part of her that felt relieved, in an odd way. She wasn't in this alone. She found you. But that relief was short-lived, soon replaced by a sense of horror and dread. Because she... she found you. Here, in this cursed place.

That familiar look of realization dawns on your face as well, when she manages to force her name out.

But neither of you can say anything more, because that familiar sound rings in the air. Eyes were watching you, and there was nothing that could be done as the fog bled out of the surroundings and coils around the four survivors.