Becoming more than whole

Chapter 1:
We have always been told that our soul mate was out there. At birth we are assigned a symbol and as our life progresses were always on the lookout for someone who has that same sign- our soul mate. It's always been expressed that you don't need a partner to make you whole, each person is whole already. Life however can puncture holes and a soul mate can help fill in the gaps and make you more.

When a new baby is born their finger is pricked and a few drops of blood fall onto a slate tile, the blood dries and forms a symbol. This can be any shape imaginable. Silver is added to the now dried blood to form your Pendant. For a baby's first birthday a necklace is gifted to them to hang their Pendant on. Mine was black leather.

Some people never find their soul mate. It could be that they are lost; they were born in the wrong time period. Often social prejudices get in the way and become an issue. Sometimes you find a person, but they're outside what is expected of you. They are of the same gender, they're not conventional or they are just not who those around you saw you ending up with. People just get too scared to break the boundaries of what is considered "normal" which to be fair is stupid because you were assigned to that person and it shouldn't matter who you are or who they are. But often it does.

See the problem is: when I was fifteen my Pendant was lost in a fire, it was crescent shaped with a strange wiggled edge. Whenever I close my eyes I see it, it's permanently burned into the back of my eyelids. Being made up of a person's blood, these pendants are a part of you. I could see it, vividly but I couldn't explain it to anyone else, only I could see it. I mourned over the loss of this precious item, without it I felt so much less of a person. I had lost a part of me. That's not all I lost.

I was orphaned.

My Mam and Dad had matching blob shapes that looked like the typical painters mixing board. My Mam was a teacher, she was beautiful and loved my Dad unconditionally. She had long, jet black hair and used to wear outdated dresses. She drank coffee and baked cakes. My Dad worked for a publisher. He was a big man and loved a drink. My big brother had a star, I always preferred his. So did everyone, stars weren't rare, but all the other stars I had seen looked odd and misshaped, not Luke's. His star was perfect. He had found his soul mate, a blonde girl from the ladies college down the way, they saw each other every weekend. I had always liked her, she used to tell Luke it was girl's night and take me to see a film and we would go for a pizza afterwards. Luke was my best friend, he protected me and loved me.

Ironically, being an orphan was the origin of both my parents and so I had no family to speak of. I ended up in care. I have always felt different. Every kid in the home at least had their Pendant. They at least had a way of tracking down their soul mate. Even if they didn't have a family now they at least had the chance to make one. I had nothing. In the early days I tried stealing other people's pendants, they never felt right around my neck, they felt like they were choking me. I tried to steal other crescents, but none had my jagged edge and all I wanted was mine back. I once tried to fashion a pendant in a metal work class at school but without my blood running through its core it was only a lump of stupid metal.

Once I snuck into my next door neighbour's room in the children's home. I waited until they went downstairs to get showered. I knew they kept it on their desk when they were not wearing it. I had noticed that she had the same pendant as a boy at school, which was something that she hadn't noted yet. The next day at school I positioned the pendant in an obvious place hanging against my uniform and I went up to the boy and flashed him the pendant. He ripped it off me and gave it back to its original owner. Turns out he knew fine well who had the same pendant as him, he was just waiting for the right moment.

People started to hide their pendants from me. Even the little kids became weary, I grew to despise them, it wasn't fair that people younger than me had a better life ahead of them. I had become completely consumed by the idea. How could I be happy when I was doomed to be on my own?