Soulmates

Winn was standing at the stop light waiting for the pedestrian light to change so he can join a waving bubbly Earth on the other side of the avenue. Winn tried and failed to contain his smile as usual at Earth's antics, he was stage whispering Winnie with a Cheshire cat smile. Earth knew Winn hated being called Winnie if any of his friends had dared call him Winnie he would have for sure snapped their heads clean off their collective dumb shoulders. but he couldn't help but smile when Earth called him that. He and Earth were friends since their birth, both their mothers shared the same hospital room at their births and bonded in their suffering. Earth's mom, mama Era, had been giving birth on her own because her husband had been stuck out of the country since she went into labor prematurely. He had left her at his mother's for two weeks but in true evil mother-in-law fashion, his mother made mama Era life so miserable she went to labor a full month before the due date. Winn's mom who'd been in a similar situation with her own in-laws, but was saved by a stroke of good luck that affected her husband to the branch in Bangkok, thank god for his work because Winn's mom vowed that had she stayed in Chang-mai any longer she would have massacred his entire family! that was his mother for you a f*****g ray of deranged sunshine. but back to Earth, he used to call him Winnie when they were younger, and Winn being the oldest by a whopping three hours, an eternity really, indulged his younger friend's whimsy. they've always had an almost co-dependent relationship even before they started dating. They've always been together and sort of revolved around each other. Despite being the same age give or take a few hours, Winn had always been bigger and taller than Earth. Earth's was the picture-perfect rendition of the word Twink. he'd always looked like a strong gust of wind would have blown him away thus triggering all of Winn's protective instincts. it was one of the reasons why he was standing on this side of the street right now. they had been studying for their practical exam for the bar, when he felt Earth shiver and cough in his arms. they got caught in a downpour yesterday and he worried Earth might have caught a cold this close to exam day so he rushed to a nearby pharmacy to get some supplies. Earth who'd received stern directions about staying inside the library had waited a bit until he thought Winn was almost back to run outside so he could make kissy faces at him, as he was currently doing. they were so focused on each other that none of them notice the semi-truck at the intersection losing control and heading straight for Earth. for Earth thankfully everything went dark, and the last thing he saw was Winn's beautiful smile turn into a horrified grimace before darkness engulfed him. A few seconds later he awoke to stand next to his mangled body, and Winn screaming his name weaving through moving cars to get to him. He's never heard Winn sound so tortured before and he hated the fact that he was the cause of Winn sounding that distraught. Winn was his rock, he couldn't remember the last time he saw Winn with tears running down his face like now. he was unconsciously running toward Winn when some guy dressed in all black, with mostly human features but his skin, was like that of an eagle with a bumpy grey skin around his eyes, nose, and mouth, no beak thankfully, there was no need to freak him out more in death. the rest of his face was covered in black feathers. - you can't run to him he won't know you're there dude, you're time has come, please follow me. he said pulling Earth toward a glowing tear hovering a few feet away from his remains - let go of me. he said fighting against birdman's grip, and f**k was he freakishly strong, the man was practically throwing himself away from birdman's grip and nothing. that was until Winn reached his body, skidding to his knees in Earth's blood with a bloodcurdling scream that Earth in response kicked birdman in his crotch, thankfully it worked in making birdman let go of him and Earth ran to hug Winn. He passed right through Winn to land on his face, hard! - I told you that wasn't going to work! birdman said sadly. I was trying to spare you the... Birdman stopped talking c*****g his head toward Winn curious. Winn had stopped screeching his heart out and was palming his chest where Earth'd just passed through with that concentrated cool-eyed look he had when an answer is just a little bit outside his reach. birdman gasped slapping his hand around Earth's wrist to pull him back when Winn's body started shimmering and the earth started shaking under him. -what's happening to him birdman? -I don't know I've been doing this for three millenia and this has never happened before, and my name's Garuk, not birdman. he held out his other hand and everything stopped moving. - what are you doing to him - nothing to him apparently but I froze time for everybody else! - shouldn't you freeze him too, please do it for Winn too he looks like he's coming undone. - I just did, it's not working. I called in for help this is way above my pay grade. moments later four more birdmen and an avatar-ice-man lookalike showed up through glowing tears in space. all the bird people did the same as Garuk, trying to freeze Winn in time, he opened his eyes angry at the resistance he felt. he couldn't exactly see what it was but there were six luminous humanoid shapes in a half-circle around him. He looked at each of those shapes with furious blazing red eyes and pushed through what felt like a million hands trying to push him down. Nothing was going to keep him away from his Earth, he'd felt a whisper of his lover pass through his chest when he was kneeling by what was left of his beautiful kind boyfriend, and he would burn those glowy motherfuckers to the ground if they tried to keep him away from his love. Winn pushed back against the hands and tried to focus on the love he had for Earth. He concentrated on that love until he started to feel it, it was like a string tied around his left pinky, he started twisting that imaginary string around his finger until it covered his whole hand and half of his forearm. While he'd been struggling to push back against his restraints so far, he noticed that the more he wrapped that string around him the easier it was to push. he broke through his restraints, exploding out of his body in a million sparks. Winn looked down at his body and he was on fire, he seemed to be made of blue fire and shimmering purple firelight, and his left hand was encased in a Celtic-like red tattoo that cover the space where he'd been wrapping his love around. Winn turned to the six shapes he'd been fighting against and sure enough, there were five bird-looking black men and a greyish-blue avatar-looking dude. none were of any concern to him except for the one who was hanging on to his Earth's hand stopping him from running to him like he wanted. -Earth! Winn sighed walking to him, but bird asshole flicked his hand behind them opening a tear which he jumped through, taking Earth with him. the f**k are they going he asked turning to the rest of them -he brought Earth to the afterlife, so he can be safe. Avatar answered I'm Lirav, Garuk's supervisor if you will, you need to calm down. -do not ask me to calm down when your asshole of a bird just kidnapped Earth! -He did not look down. whatever you're doing is turning everything around you to dust if he had let you touch Earth you might have done the same to him. Garuk's job is to protect Earth until he is reborn. - fine! Winn said looking around, whatever had happened had burned the left side of Earth's body and in his rush to get to Earth's spirit he had disintegrated the front of the truck that caused all this destruction. Winn centered himself and did the yoga breathing exercises his mother usually did. he had to calm himself if there was any chance that he might hurt Earth he would be the calmest man on this side of the Atlantic. there was absolutely no way he was going to put his boyfriend in harm's way. Thinking about Earth worked, the flames went out and bit by bit his skin turn back to its normal light Amber color, huh! and here he thought he'd exploded out of his body. he touched the street sign closest to him and thankfully it didn't turn to dust. There! he crowed with pleasure turning to Lirav. you can take me to Earth now! -I'm afraid that's still not possible, only the dead can enter the afterlife. -you don't seem dead to me, so clearly that death is not an absolute rule! -It is a prerequisite though, before we got recruited to work in the afterlife, each of us, in our own worlds, died first. you did not die, if fact you are something altogether different. in my nine Millenia doing this job I have never seen anybody wrap the mate bond around themselves the way you just did. these things take time, as in a couple of dozen Millenia and you did it in minutes. -mate bond? -the tattoo-looking crisscross on your arm, those are bonds that bind two soul mates together. -soul mates? Winn asked again. you're confusing me can you start from the beginning? -okay, listen, this universe with its multiple galaxies is one of the multiple parallel universes. this one we're standing on is Earth two. following me so far? -Earth two out of how many? he asked befuddled. - one thousand. Lirav answered -well damn! do we have bird-people and anemic avatars in this universe too? - they are Shahid and I'm Kulishwa. and yes my people exist in this universe, I will overlook your rude asshole ways and continue. so, every soul has its mate, when you're born and luckily your soul mate is also born in the same quadrant as you, you get a red band around your pinky, and when one of you dies the other also follows, so they get reunited in the afterlife from then on those two souls get reborn together until their bond becomes strong enough that they no longer need to die because death strengthens the bond. I only know of five mated pairs in this quadrant who've stopped going through the rebirth process and their mark only goes to their wrist. -wow! so at the other end of this tattoo is Earth? -at the other end of that tattoo is your soulmate, but I don't.... what are you doing? - I was thinking if Earth and I are connected by this mark, and I was to concentrate on our connection, maybe I could find him. by now the mark had started glowing red, and Winn concentrated on following that tread that bound their souls together, blocking out Lirav who kept telling him to please not do anything rash, but he couldn't listen. Whatever he had done had bound him so strongly to Earth that he could feel like he was missing a limb or something and every minute he spent talking with Lirav was becoming more and more of a burden on his soul. he simply had to get to Earth and now because he was experiencing random shooting pains all over his body, and something told him that if he dawdled here entertaining caution like Lirav wanted he was going to be in debilitating pain soon. Winn followed the bond until he could see in his mind's eye a blurred glowing red shape. he let out a relieved sigh, he instinctively knew that was Earth his soulmate. using his tatted hand he slashed a rip through the universe. he heard Lirav shout at him not to move, but again he ignored him, but right before he could step in the rip he saw Lirav jump at his back, Winn rearranged his stance so instead of Lirav knocking him away from the tear they both ended up tumbling in it in a tangle of limbs, and everything went dark.