Find part one of Soulmate's Doodles here.

“D’ya think your soulmate ever gets annoyed that the only thing you write on yourself is homework reminders?” Adryan asks through a mouthful of his lunch.

I stop writing on my hand, the pen freezing in the middle of a reminder to do some Calc problems. “Um… I hope not.” I shrug. “She’s never said anything that suggests otherwise.”

“She’s never said anything, period, Stephen,” Adryan points out. He finishes his sandwich and reaches over to pick up mine. I slap it out of his hand, scowling.

“Quit it, you have your own lunch.”

I pick up my now slightly messy sandwich and munch on it, staring thoughtfully at my right hand. As far as Bonds go, I’m probably not the most interesting person. All my soulmate probably knows of my life is that I’m a very busy person, since I basically use my hand as a temporary to-do list until I can transfer tasks to my phone.

Adryan’s right, though. She has never said anything. At least, not words. Occasionally, I make a comment or a smiley face in response to her doodles, because they're really freaking cool, but she never written anything back. Maybe she doesn't speak English? Heh. That'll make meeting her more interesting.

The 4th period bell rings. Adryan and I get up to go to throw away our lunches and head to History. One of his other friends walks up and asks him about some research project. As they have their conversation, I mull over my soulmate.

I’m hardly an artistic person like she is; she doodles these super intricate flowery designs on both of her hands, and when they show up on my skin people ask me where I get my tattoos. Then I have to explain that I have a Bond, and then I always get a ton of questions. It gets pretty annoying pretty fast.

All I know about this girl is that she’s artsy, she’s ambidextrous, and possibly foreign. I’m totally cool with that, though. No one really knows what the Bond is for, or why such a small population of people have it, but we do know that relationships between two people who try to find their soulmates prematurely tend to fail. Badly. I’ll meet her when the time is right.

So, I’m totally fine with not knowing what she looks like, or where she’s from, or what she likes to do in her free time, or if she’s even a she… I’m fine with that.

I do think about it a lot, though.

I circle the final answer on my math homework and close the textbook with a satisfied smack! I stretch, relieved as random joints pop in protest. I've been hunched over Calculus for the past hour. It feels nice to finally be done.

I glance over at Adryan sitting on my bed next to me. His homework is off to the side, forgotten for who knows how long. Instead, he's got his earbuds plugged in and he's hyper-focused on whatever it is he's looking at on his phone.

I roll my eyes. There's only one thing he could be watching so intently. I kick at his calf.

"Dude. You gotta stop watching those conspiracy videos, they'll rot your brain."

He looks up at me. Something about his expression melts the smile off my face.

He takes his earbuds out of the phone and fiddles with for a moment, before chucking it at me. I raise an eyebrow.

“Are you–“

"Play it."

"Alright..."

Frozen on the screen is ‘BigSisterIsWatching’, a blogger that Adryan is obssessed with. She's convinced that anything and everything the government has ever done has some sort of conspiracy attached to it.

In her videos, she’s always standing in front black backdrop and wearing sunglasses and a gray bandana over her face, for the sake of “protecting her identity,” she’s never seen without the gray beanie, black sunglasses, and gray bandana covering her mouth.

"Soulmates Stolen at Birth? SSA Secret EXPOSED!" glares up at me from Adryan’s cracked phone screen. Underneath the headline, the site says it was posted a mere half hour ago. The video is paused, and it looks like the woman was in the middle of describing a picture edited into the video next to her head. The image depicts a bunch of kids my age wearing all white clothes. With one more glance up at a stoic Adryan, I play the video.

"–ccording to my source, the Soulmate Security Administration has been keeping young Soulmates in an unlisted 'research' facility for years. The director of the SSA is denying knowledge of the facility and of an escape made by some of the facility residents that supposedly occurred just mere hours ago...”

I scoff, ignoring the odd feeling in my chest. "What is–"

"Look at the pictures," he hisses.

I fall silent again. BigSister goes on about the kids being kept at the facility their entire lives, going through "examinations" and not being allowed to see the outside world. Her “source” revealed that the facility is located somewhere in North America.

The pictures show various aspects of the location; kids eating in a room resembling a cafeteria, a door with an image of what looks like a doctor above it, a hallway of rooms resembling a prison cell block, the backs of two guards walking through a room side by side.

The photographer was obviously trying to take the pictures in secret, because pictures were all taken from around corners or from the pocket of some article of clothing. I wonder how long it'll take before this “source” is–

Wait.

I pause the video, squinting and staring. There’s no way, no freaking way…

It’s her.

The focus of the picture is meant to be a woman that appears to be a teacher pointing at pictures on a board. It's obvious the room is supposed to be a classroom, but it's practically barren except for the desks, board, and people. No posters or windows or decorations of any sort.

My attention, though, is on this girl. She's sitting at a front desk, the closest kid to the photographer. Her curtain of stringy brown hair blocks her face from the camera, but there’s no mistaking the familiar flowery pattern on her arm, with my arrows and smiley faces all around it.

The feeling in my chest is sudden and intense, like a physical heave trying to pull out my ribs. It doesn’t hurt, exactly. Yet, it feels like I can’t breathe, and I can’t trust my voice to say anything

“You saw her, didn’t you?” Adryan asks. I tune him out, wordlessly unpausing the video after I can suck in air again. The next image isn’t a picture, but a short clip. It’s nighttime at some woodsy location, but the night vision camera shows five kids in white sneaking away under the cover of darkness.

“This is a clip of security footage from the facility,” BigSister says grimly. “As you can see, some of the kids did manage to escape. They’re gonna need help. The SSA will be after them. My source says these kids managed to remove their trackers a few days before the escape, and that he automated his system to send me this clip just in case he didn't make it.”

The box containing the clip fades, and BigSister gives her parting words.

“Unfortunately, I haven't heard from said source for about two days ago. So, now it's up to you. If you see one of these kids, if one of them is your soulmate, help them. Help them find you. I’m working with a group to spread the word and take this facility down, but until we succeed, these kids need to be safe.”

The video ends. I stare unseeingly at the screen. That was my soulmate. That was my soulmate. She’s got dull brown hair and an oddly pale face; she honestly didn’t seem that healthy. Neither did anyone else in the facility, with the exception of the teacher.

I close out of the video and pull up a map of the U.S., ignoring Adryan's protests. When I find a suitable one, I grab a pen and start drawing on my hand.

If this were anything else, any of BigSister’s other videos, I’d be laughing it off. All her crazy theories seemed too crazy before now. The odds of this girl actually being my soulmate are close to none. This “facility” might not even be real, the footage might have been doctored, the pictures could have been staged…

…and yet, I just know. This is her.

And I have to find her.

Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author's imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.