One

Everyone had a soulmate. Some people met their soulmate around age five, while others met them as late as age thirteen. They always seemed to meet each other early on in life, and never once had their meetings occurred after puberty began. Savannah, however, was strangely an exception to this rule.

    She had met her soulmate at age eighteen, well after puberty had begun. If it were her choice, she would have decided to have it very early on, before first grade at least, but unfortunately she had no choice in the matter, like everyone else.

    Savannah had actually been out at brunch with her parents when it happened. Now, when you met your soulmate, it wasn’t an actual physical meeting. No, when you met your soulmate it was something Savannah’s parents liked to call “projections”, though there were many names for it, such as “snippets” or “visions”. These were when you were suddenly zapped into the mind of your soulmate. You saw what they saw, heard what they did--to put it simply, you were in their body. But you couldn’t control anything, you were simply a guest in their head,  carried along by what they were doing.

    Savannah’s mother, Marissa, was chatting away animatedly, talking about possible colleges her daughter could go to (“Well, OSU is a very good school, but Western would be cheaper. Ooh, maybe we could start you in community college for the first year!”), while her father, Mike, was nodding excitedly along. Savannah had been attempting to listen, and had been, peacefully eating her food when the projection took over.
    She was suddenly shoved into a body that was not her own. It was as if she was ripped from her own body and thrown into another, one that was alien to her. As quickly as she could Savannah took in her surroundings: whoever she was stood in a kitchen, one that was unfamiliar. Thin fingers pawed through a tiny refrigerator, taking out a can of cheap soda. Savannah did her best to gaze around the room, but couldn’t move the person’s head. She was a mere visitor along for the ride. The most that she could see was how dirty of a kitchen it was (there were so many food wrappers just casually lying around!), and that the old clock on the dusty table was frozen at 12:00 P.M. She hoped she would be able to see a mirror, to at least know what her soulmate would look like, but before the person turned around to set down the can of soda, there was someone else standing there holding a dagger. The look of utter rage on the man’s face was terrifying enough to make Savannah afraid. “I told you to stay in your room,” he snarled, and lunged forward just as she was sucked out of the projection--

    --and right into another one. But this one was far more recognizable than the last: it was the home of her best friend, Alex. And from the feel of the warm hoodie surrounding the body she was suddenly in, she was definitely in Alex’s body. She stood in the bedroom of her best friend’s, with her laptop sitting on her lap and a mug of tea in her hand. This made Savannah smile inwardly. Alex had been binging YouTube videos again, as she usually did. The mug was lifted to Alex’s lips and Savannah could feel the warm liquid as it travelled its way down her throat, with a few drops falling onto her chin. However, before anything else happened, Savannah was finally pulled from the projection and zapped back into her own body, back to brunch with her parents.

    “Savvy, dear?” Marissa’s eyebrows were furrowed in confusion and concern as she gazed at her daughter. Mike was also frowning as he took a sip of his coffee, simply staring at her in silence. Savannah glanced at herself: she had dropped her spoonful of eggs, and it had gotten on her shirt. With a grimace, she wiped it off, sneaking a glance at her watch. It was just barely two minutes since she’d been sucked in. Wow, not that long, surprisingly.

    “Savvy?” her mother asked again, and Savannah blinked, shooting a smile up at her mother.

    “Sorry, yeah, I’m fine,” she replied, shrugging. Somehow she was able to tell that her parents knew. It was something that was obvious to her, the way that you always knew when your parents knew you had done something bad. But, clearly, this wasn’t a bad thing.

    “You had your first projection,” her father gaped, his dark eyes wide as he stared at his daughter. But it was not a look of shock. No, it was one of happiness. Relief, maybe. And was that a hint of pride? Whatever, it wasn’t important in that very moment. “What did you see?”

    The question caused Savannah to freeze. What should she say? Oh, god, she couldn’t mention the guy with the knife. That would freak her mom out, and there was no way she could do that. The last time Marissa had been worried, Savannah hadn’t been allowed to leave the house except to go to school and come straight back. And that was because of some false news that had been passed around on Facebook. “Well . . . I saw Alex’s room,” she admitted, looking at them both.

    This made her wonder. Was it normal to see two projections? Especially if one was so horrifying? What if she was the only one in the world who experienced such a thing? Would she be turned in to the government? She shuddered at the thought, not wanting to think about it anymore.

    “Alex?” Savannah’s mother looked at her in shock, which quickly turned to happiness. “Your best friend? Oh, Savvy, that’s wonderful!” Her hands flew to her heart as she smiled brightly. “You and Alex--that’s adorable! She’s the sweetest!”

    Mike smiled in agreement. “Thank god it’s her. It’ll be way easier for you to adjust to having a soulmate, since you know her.”

    “Yeah, I guess.” She bit down on her bottom lip. Then, the vibrating of her phone caught her attention. She tugged it out of her pocket, waking up the screen. Alex was calling. With a light smile, Savannah answered the call, putting the phone to her ear. “Hey.”

    “Did you just get a projection?” Alex sounded breathless as she spoke. “Because I did, and it was into your head.”

    The words made her smile grow as she listened. “Yeah, I did. Be careful before you spill your tea all over your laptop.” Alex tended to be quite the klutz, spilling things all over herself all the time.

    Savannah suddenly remembered the other person. The second soulmate, the one who’d been threatened by the man. Where they all right? Or were they dead? A pang of worry sounded in her chest, and she spoke up again. “Uh, Alex? Can you come by my house? I need to talk to you.”

    “Yeah, but there are eggs in your lap--oh, uh, sure.” Alex sounded confused. “Text me when you get home, nerd.”

    “You got it, jerk.” Savannah smiled, before ending the call. “Mom, Dad, can we go home how?”