Chapter Text
When I was younger, my parents told me that if you’re lucky, you get a soulmark.
A soulmark is an image that appears on your body the night before your 17th birthday. It tells you if you have a soulmate and can help you find him or her, because that person has the exact same image on the exact same spot.
So having a soulmark means that you have the chance of a life filled with the most sought after type of love on earth. True love.
No one really knows why or how people get the mark, but as a young girl I asked my parents many times and they always told me the same story. A story the Greeks and Romans came up with as an explanation.
‘Legends say that the Gods created the world and filled it with life. They filled our world with the most wonderful flowers and majestic animals and after some time they decided to create us. Humans. But the first humans didn’t look like how we look now. They had 4 arms, 4 legs and 4 eyes’ my father used to tell me when he tucked me in, ‘After a while the almighty Gods, that ruled the world from above, regretted their decision. The humans they had created were too strong so they tore them in half. That’s when soulmates arose. See, the first humans only had one soul, so when the Gods tore them in half, humans were doomed to live with half a soul and were condemned to spend their lives looking for the other half. So they could be complete again.
The Gods watched as the humans searched and searched and started to pity the ones who were unlucky and remained incomplete. They saw how unhappy and miserable those humans were and in an act of kindness they gave humans a soulmark. They gave the humans who are destined for true love a fair chance of finding it’
It was a story I loved hearing as a child, but that was all it was of course – a story, not something that was actually true or commonly believed to be correct.
What is of common believe is that a soulmark is a blessing.
But whoever says that is wrong. A soulmark isn’t a blessing – it’s a curse. The people who don’t get one are the lucky ones.
My parents were soulmates and shared the same soulmark. I don’t think I ever saw one that was prettier than the one my parents had on their shoulder blades. It was an image of 8 tiny maple leafs that seemed to dance across their shoulders. Driven by the wind to go look for the other soul that would make them complete, bring them true love.
Every one of the leaves had a different colour. The leaf on the right was a bright orange and the stream ended with a leaf on their left that was a warm red. Their soulmark was even detailed with think black lines and just like every other soulmark it shimmered like a diamond in the sunlight.
As a child I always wished that when I woke up on my seventeenth birthday I would find a soulmark on my body as pretty as theirs. I wanted the type of love that my parents had for each other. The unconditional and selfless true love you share with your soulmate.
But all of that changed on a Wednesday night when I was 15 years old. It started out as a night no different than any other one. I was making my homework at the dinner table, accompanied by the soft sounds of a TV show my mother and sister were seeing. My dad worked as a firefighter and my mother was a doctor, so it wasn’t odd that one of them worked at night.
I was in deep concentration, trying to block out the noise of the TV when I got startled by a loud and sudden sound. Not just a sound, but a yelp. My mother’s yelp.
Both Prim and I immediately turned our attention to my mother who jumped up in a panic.
‘My back! My back!’ she yelled. ‘Katniss check my back!’
I hurried over to my mother and lifted up her shirt so I could witness the cause of her distress. Right there, in front of my own eyes, I saw her soulmark, eight, tiny, colourful maple leaves, disappearing.
‘No!’ I cried out. ‘It’s gone. Your soulmark is gone!’
When someone’s soulmark starts to hurt and then fades away, it can only mean one thing. It means your soulmate is dead.
It meant my dad died just a moment ago.
My mom collapsed on the floor in a sobbing mess and in a way, she never really stood up again.
Seeing how my mother turned into a shell of her former self and how the life in her bright blue eyes just fizzled out when her soulmark had disappeared, made me realise how dangerous these marks really are. Soulmates love each other way too much and are way too dependable on one another. If your true love dies, there aren’t a lot of reasons to live anymore.
It’s not strange that the percentage of divorces is almost null, but the rates of suicide are very high.
My dad died and in a way my mom did too. The only difference was that her heart was still beating, but she was just as incapable of taking care of Prim and me as my dead father.
I tried my best to take care of my mother. I fed her, I clothed her, I showered her while I begged her to wake up from the depression she had, but there’s only so much a 15 year old can do while also taking care of her sister and working two jobs.
I would never admit this, but when a family friend and Prim and my godfather Haymitch Abernathy started taking care of us and admitted my mother to a mental institution, it was a relief.
So that’s what true love brought me. A dead father and a broken mother.
From that day forward I started wishing I would be like Haymitch. A person without a soulmark and without a soulmate. Or a Blank Soul, as they called themselves. I didn’t want a soulmate if it meant that death was more merciful than losing true love was. Besides, I didn’t need one. I had Prim. She was my sister, my best friend and my person and the love I felt for her was more than enough. I didn’t need more than the love she gave me and the friendship I shared with Gale.
Gale.
My other best friend who was two years older than I am and who got a soulmark six months after my dad passed away. A bright blue feather that swirled around his ankle. I didn’t know if I had to condole or congratulate him when he showed me, but he seemed really happy so I went with the latter.
‘He hopes it’s you’ Prim informed me a couple of weeks later.
We were sitting on the couch together waiting for Haymitch to wrap up dinner. Prim was watching some show on MTV and I was reading a detective.
‘Who hopes what?’ I asked absently while I turned a page.
‘Gale. He hopes you are his soulmate’ Prim answered and I could feel her gaze on me.
‘Really? Because just yesterday he told me he hoped it was Taylor Swift’ I said unimpressed.
‘Katniss!’ Prim exclaimed annoyed. She tried to get my attention by kicking my leg. When I looked up, she said ‘He’s in love with you’
I rolled my eyes. ‘Right. Do you have this on good authority?’
‘Yes. Gale told Rory and Rory told me’
I gave my sister a noncommittal ‘Hmmm..’ and returned to my book.
‘Well?’ she asked impatient.
‘Well what?’
‘How does that make you feel? That Gale hopes you get a blue feather on your ankle when you turn seventeen?’
I sighed heavily and dropped my book in my lap. ‘I don’t know Prim, okay? I don’t like Gale like that and I still hope that I’m a Blank Soul like Haymitch’
‘You don’t mean that’ Prim whispered and she looked a little hurt.
‘I do’ I said stubbornly.
‘I’ll bet you ten bucks that you’re a Marked Soul. You have too much love in your heart to not get a soulmate’ my sweet sister said.
She meant it well, but her comment infuriated me and I turned my gaze back at her. ‘What are you implying Prim? That Blank Souls don’t have love in their hearts? Because I’m pretty sure Haymitch, a Blank Soul, loves us more than our own mother, a Marked Soul, does’ I spit in a loud angry tone.
I could see Prim well up and I immediately regretted my outburst. ‘That’s not true! Mom loves us!’ she jumped off the couch and ran to her room.
I followed her, but Haymitch stopped me to tell me dinner was ready and called Prim down.
Dinner was a quiet affair that night.
Later that evening I went to my sister to apologise. I told her that I knew mom loved us and that I loved our mom. That I just missed her and was angry with her, but that I didn’t blame her for her depression. I told Prim my biggest secret. That I was scared of losing my soulmate just like mom had lost dad and that was why I would rather not have one.
Prim understood, but didn’t agree with me. She’s a romantic, I’m a realist. ‘Losing dad may have broken mom, but before that, they were really happy. More happy then anyone ever was. Don’t you want that?’
‘Not if the price of losing is that high’ I said while I stared at my folded hands.
We were silent for a moment before Prim wrapped her arms around me.
‘I love you’ she whispered.
‘I love you too’ I told her back.
After Prim told me about Gale’s supposed feelings, I started to notice things. The way he looked at me, the lingering touches, the way he smiled and winked at me. What I also noticed – and what hit me like a ton of bricks – was that I didn’t mind.
Gale was marked, which meant he was destined to have a soulmate and he was in love with me. That could mean I was his soulmate. Gale was my best friend and I cared deeply for him and I wouldn’t be surprised if that would one day grow into more.
The words my sister spoke to me came rushing back to me. ‘They were really happy. More happy then anyone ever was. Don’t you want that?’ The way my parents looked and acted around each other came back vividly to me.
But then I looked around my bedroom. The tiny room I got when we moved into Haymitch’ house because we needed to sell my childhood home to cover the bills for the mental institution. My eyes landed on a picture of me and my family we took the summer before my dad passed away and we lost our mom to her own grief.
The sound of my sister’s cries penetrated my room.
No, I didn’t want what my parents once had anymore.
I got out of my desk chair and went to comfort my sister.
In May I celebrated my 16th birthday. It was the first birthday without my parents, so I didn’t want to throw a party. I actually didn’t want to celebrate at all, but Prim insisted and she was my only weakness, so..
Haymitch gave me a new phone and when I told him that it was way too much and I couldn’t accept it, he told me not to be a brat and that the cell was also my birthday gift for next year.
Prim gave me a book I really wanted, but it was Gale’s gift that got me to reconsider my no-dating policy. What he had given me was so beautiful, so me, that it really showed me how much he cared for me and how well he knew me.
Gale had woven me a bracelet of dark brown leather and on the clasp was a round green stone. It was gorgeous.
Two weeks later I kissed him and he kissed me back.
In the summer I got a new co-worker at the ice shop I worked at. Her name was Annie Cresta and she was a nice and shy girl. The better I got to know her, the more I liked her and because she didn’t really know anyone in town since she just moved here, she kind of gravitated to me.
When Rue, Prim and I were going to the lake on a warm summer day, I asked Annie along and that day we bonded over our crappy co-workers, our love for old horror movies and an absent parent.
That day a lifelong friendship was born.
It started out well, Gale and my relationship. We had been friends our entire life, so now we just added romance and kisses to the mix.
But we just didn’t work. We fought more as a couple then we ever had as just friends and to be honest I didn’t quite feel what people said you are supposed to feel when you’re in love. We both had a strong fire in us and instead of warming each other, we torched all the good we shared and went up in flames.
It was eight months after we started dating, in January, that we ended things.
‘I don’t think it’s supposed to feel like this’ Gale had said.
‘I know it’s not supposed to feel like this’ I said and a tear escaped me.
‘I don’t think you’ll be waking up in May with a blue feather on your ankle’ he said with a sad smile.
I chuckled and wiped the tear away. I didn’t know why my eyes were wet, it wasn’t because of a broken heart or because I was sad Gale wasn’t my soulmate. It had probably more to do with the feeling of failure – I hated it when I failed – and with the guilt I felt for letting Gale think (and for a while, myself as well) that I could be his soulmate. I knew how he couldn’t wait to have that love. ‘No, but we’ll still be friends, right?’ I asked in a hopeful tone.
Gale gave me a smile that didn’t reach his eyes. ‘We’ll always be friends Catnip’ he promised me, but he didn’t sound convinced.
We parted on good terms, but the months after that we didn’t see each other much. In fact, it was on my 17th birthday when we found out for certain I wasn’t his soulmate that our friendship went back to the way it once was.
When I texted Annie that Gale and I had broken up, she showed up on my doorstep with my favourite ice cream and we watched a scary movie together. It was a good night and the next day the only thing I was sad about was the fact that we didn’t have ice cream anymore.
All around Annie and me people turned 17 and got a soulmark.
Leevy Henderson from our history class woke up with a big purple mandala on her left hand.
Cato Fields, the big bad ass quarterback who was kind of a bully was the talk of the school when he was marked with three pink roses on his leg. He didn’t really look happy with his soulmark and the petulant face he made, made Annie and I snicker.
Thresh Reed, my partner in chemistry, got a scorpion on his stomach. It was yellow with green contours and he seemed happy and quite proud. I was glad for him, he was a nice guy.
And then there were the people who woke up empty, who weren’t marked by a soulmark and were now Blank Souls like Clove Summers. The poor girl looked heart broken and when she started crying in the library, she was comforted by a friends who had blue water drops on her finger nails. ‘Your mark can still come’ the friend whispered soothingly.
She was right, but it was a chance of less than 5 percent. Sometimes someone got a soulmark later in life when their new soulmate had just lost their first one, but it was extremely rare.
Clove nodded and wiped away her tears.
‘She’s lucky’ I whispered. At least Clove was spared the feeling of losing true love and she could live her life for herself, instead of spending a lifetime looking for your true love like some people were doomed to do. She had an independent soul without a big and obvious weakness.
‘She’s not’ Annie disagreed.
Annie was the daughter of two Blank Souls who decided to give it a go and got divorced after a disastrous marriage, so Annie wished nothing more than to have a soulmate and to get the love her parents were both denied.
Her case was the exact opposite of mine.
Annie sighed and she had a sombre look in her eyes. ‘She really isn’t’ she muttered.
At that moment I send a silent prayer to whoever was in charge of those damn soulmarks. Even though I don’t see the appeal, please, please, give Annie one. If there’s one person who deserves a soulmark, it’s sweet, loyal Annie.
Annie was nervous as hell the night before her 17th birthday. She asked me to stay over and we got tipsy on wine coolers. I had stocked Annie’s fridge with her favourite ice cream in case the upcoming morning didn’t fulfil Annie’s greatest wish so we could gave an ice cream breakfast. I knew the strawberry cheesecake ice wouldn’t quell her pain at all, but at least it was something.
‘What if I don’t get one?’ Annie whispered when we were all tucked in and I was ready to fall asleep. ‘Just like my parents..’
‘It doesn’t mean you’re not loved Annie or that you’ll never be loved again’ I reminded her.
‘I know..’
‘Let’s just wait till my birthday’ I began. ‘If we’re both Blank Souls, we’ll just spend the rest of our lives together. We’ll go backpacking through Europe, skydiving in South-America and concert hopping through the States and if we’re both single when we’re 30 we’ll marry each other and adopt a kid’
I could see Annie smile. ‘What about sex?’
‘I’m open minded’ I said smiling.
Annie chuckled. ‘Won’t you miss a dick?’
‘Nah, Gale was better with his hands than he was with his dick’
Annie laughed and I joined her.
‘Thank you Katniss’ she whispered when I drifted to sleep.
♥♥♥♥♥♥
The next morning I was awoken by Annie her screams. First I was in a panic. She didn’t get one. But then I saw the biggest grin in my life while she stared at her wrist.
‘I got one’ she said and her eyes welled up with happy tears. ‘I got one!’ she yelled excitedly.
My eyes found Annie’s soulmark on her wrist. It was a turtle in different shades of green and when it got hit by the morning light, it sparkled. ‘O my God..’ I whispered. ‘You got a soulmark!’ I yelled excitedly. I wrapped my friend in a hug and congratulated her. ‘I’m so happy for you..’
We did have our ice cream breakfast that morning, but now because we had two things to celebrate. Annie’s birthday and her soulmark.
‘I’m kind of sad we don’t get to live that awesome Blank Soul life you described last night’ Annie said, but her eyes still harboured her excited and relieved glint.
I waved her concerns away. ‘We can still do that’
Annie wiggled her eyebrows. ‘Really? Even the sex and adopting a kid?’ she joked before she burst out in a fit of laughter.
‘I was talking about the backpacking and skydiving part, I’m not that open minded’ I answered grinning.
It’s funny that when you look forward to something time always seems to pass at an excruciating low pace. Like when you’re in your last class, only an hour before you can finally go home, the clock just seems to mock you. Or when you’re just a week away from a break, the days seem extra-long.
However, time does seem to move rapidly when you’re dreading something. The end of summer. The week before important tests. The last song at a concert you’ve spend months looking forward to.
My last couple of months before I turned 17 and fate had decided for me if I was blessed or cursed.
It seemed that in a blink of an eye it was May 16th. My last day on this earth where I would only be Katniss Everdeen. Not Katniss Everdeen, Marked or Katniss Everdeen, Blank Soul. The last day I wouldn’t live in a blissful oblivion, instead of being damned by fate.
Annie was supposed to aid my misery with wine and ice cream, but she got the flu a couple of days earlier, so my sweet 15 year old sister had to take over the task (minus the wine of course). We had ourselves a little Harry Potter marathon until we couldn’t keep our eyes open any longer.
Prim had made me promise her to wake her when I had found out if I was Marked or not and after a goodnight hug we went to bed.
♥♥♥♥♥♥
For a second there I forgot what day it was when I woke up the next morning, but the soothing oblivion was quickly replaced by a wild beating heart.
The first thing I checked were my bare legs (I only ever slept in a baggy shirt). There was no blue feather on my ankle, but that wasn’t a big surprise and to be honest it was a relief as well.
The next thing I did was holding my hands in front of me. There was nothing on my hands, wrists nor on my arms.
A thought crossed my mind that made my hands rush to my face. What if it’s on my face?! That’d be a disaster! I once saw a girl with a strawberry on her face, so it wasn’t impossible.
I sprinted to the bathroom and locked myself in. To my utter relief there wasn’t a banana on my face or anything else when I saw my reflection in the mirror. I was still blank.
There were only a couple of places on my body I could have a soulmark. On my torso or on my ass. I decided to check my torso first.
I lifted my shirt and when I had lifted it over my head I saw it. A soulmark. My soulmark.
I was so shocked that I forgot to move for a couple of minutes while I just stared at my mark, so my arms were still hanging in the air with my shirt wrapped around them. I must’ve looked like an idiot, but I was the only one there and I had other things to worry about then to not look like an ass in front of myself.
It was just below my left collarbone.
A flying bird, a linnet to be precise, and it was as large as my palm.
While my eyes took in the – my – soulmark, I noticed the lack of colour. Ninety-one percent of the soulmarks had colour, only nine percent were in black and/or grey. My bird didn’t have a splash of colour.
It looked like someone had sketched it on my skin with a very dark pencil and had filled it with a softer grey.
On closer look I saw how realistic it looked and how detailed it was. It had an eye, a mouth, feathers with all different shades of grey. This really was a soulmark out of a billion and it was stuck on me.
I burst out in tears and I couldn’t stop and didn’t know what to do, so I just went to bed and covered myself in my sheets.
I think I was in my bed for about ten seconds before Prim barged into my room. ‘Katniss, I heard you shut your door. Wait- Katniss, are you crying?’ she asked and I could hear a light panic reflected in her voice. ‘Didn’t you get marked?’ she whispered while she sat down on my bed and soothingly stroked my hair.
‘No’ I managed to say between sobs.
Prim misunderstood me. ‘Katniss, I’m so sorry. But always remember that you’re loved nonetheless’
‘No Prim, I did get marked’ and my whole started to shake due to my cries.
‘What? O my God Katniss, that’s amazing! Congratulations!’ she said excitedly and she tore my blankets off me. ‘Where is it?’
I wanted to tell my sister to go away and let me be, but she looked so happy that I didn’t have the heart to do so. I pulled down the neck of my shirt so she could see my black and grey linnet.
Her jaw practically dropped on the floor and her eyes grew as wide as saucers. ‘It’s black’
‘Yeah, I know’ I whined.
Prim came closer to study my mark and even traced it with her fingers. ‘Wow..’ she was in awe. ‘It’s gorgeous..’ she looked back up to me and smiled brightly at me. ‘I don’t think I ever saw a black one in real life’
‘Me neither’ I sniffed and I wiped the tears from my cheeks.
‘I wonder what it means. That you don’t have a soulmark with colour’ Prim said and I could see her mind spinning in her eyes.
‘Probably that the Gods ran out of colour’ I replied sarcastically.
Prim ignored my comment and started typing something on her cell. ‘Listen to this’ Prim said and she read out loud what she had found.
‘It is to be believed that the more complex (multiple colours, with details or multiple symbols) a soulmark is, the truer the love is. However there are Marked people who have a colourless mark. Having a soulmark with no colour is very rare. Only nine percent of the world population has a soulmark that is black or black with grey.’ Prim looked up to me to remind me that was how my bird looked like, before she continued. ‘These colourless marks don’t indicate a colourless love. No, legends say that when you’re marked with black, you’re destined for a love as great as Romeo and Juliet or Elizabeth Bennet and Fitzwilliam Darcy’
Prim squealed excitedly. ‘Katniss, did you hear that?! You’re destined for a love as famous as Romeo and Juliet or Elizabeth Bennet and Fitzwilliam Darcy!’
I stubbornly crossed my arms. ‘That’s horrible! Did you even read both of does stories?’ I scoffed. ‘In Romeo and Juliet they both die and take multiple people with them 3 days after they meet and Elizabeth and Darcy hated each other at the beginning! It took Elizabeth 300 pages to actually like the guy’
Prim waved off my concerns. ‘You’re not going to live does stories, you’re going to get a love as passionate as theirs was!’ she said, her excitement never wavering.
‘Said who?’ I demanded.
Prim checked her source. ‘Wikipedia’
I rolled my eyes. ‘Prim, Wikipedia is not a reliable source’
‘I know, but the story was nice’ she said smiling.
‘The story was stupid’ I muttered stubbornly.
‘You’re stupid!’ Prim counted and she burst out in laughter.
I hadn’t heard my sister laugh like that in way too long, so my lips turned into a smile.
Haymitch interrupted us when he walked into my room. ‘Good, you’re both awake. Happy birthday, sweetheart. Did you get marked?’ he didn’t beat around the bush and sat down in my desk chair.
‘I did’
‘Congratulations sweetheart, that’s great’
‘It’s not-‘
‘Yes it is!’ Haymitch angrily interrupted me and he pointed a finger at me. ‘You think love is weakness after you saw your mother fall apart, but love is strength and this big old world is a cold, lonely and hard place without it. Take it from someone who’s cursed in being a Blank Soul! I’m not saying I was never loved in my life or that I don’t love the two of you, but I would’ve gladly given my arm if it meant I would get the type of love in my life you are blessed with of getting someday’
We were all silent for a moment after Haymitch’ speech before he opened his mouth again. ‘So, how does it look like?'
When I showed Haymitch my soulmark, he almost fell off my chair because he was laughing so hard. ‘I can’t believe it! The only person in this world who wants to be a Blank Soul gets a black soulmark! HAHAHAHAAA!’ the man had to catch his breath and had to wipe the tears off his cheeks.
I jumped out of bed to get myself my ice cream breakfast and replied to Annie and Gale’s texts saying that as of today I had a bird under my collarbone.
I didn’t tell them what colour – they wouldn’t have believed me anyway.