My future soulmate is trying to kill me.

Halfway through class with Mrs Scholes, a man with a gun walked in.

I didn’t notice at first, doodling smiley faces on my desk. Ever since I was a kid, I’d been the kind of special my parents took pride in. I understood things too quickly. I never had to think. I could walk before I was one, speak in full sentences months later, and solve high school math by the age of five.

My phone buzzed in my skirt.

Dad: Marina, your mother doesn't have long left.

I didn't respond. What else could I say?

Mom was dying, and everyone was sad.

I was the only one who wasn't sad, the one who tried to yank out her life support.

Cancer was boring.

“Marina.” Mrs Scholes, the teacher, coughed politely. “No phones, please.”

“My Mom is dying,” I said, holding up my phone.

I sent a “👍🏻” and turned it off.

Then the door flew open, and my world became less boring.

My teacher was standing one moment, writing something on the whiteboard, and then her brains splattered across her explanation of Linear Algebra:

Eigenvalues & Eigenvectors, a subject I learned when I was six while flipping through a textbook.

I blinked. Mrs. Scholes’s brains were different than I imagined them.

More greyish pink with slivers of black.

A figure stood in front of us. Man. Twenties. Masked. Wild eyes.

Most importantly: assault rifle.

“All right, get on the FUCKING floor!”

After hesitating for a moment, I did, dropping to my knees with the others. “I want everyone out of here in the next ten seconds,” he exhaled, before walking over to Jude Sampson. “Not you,” the gunman snarled, yanking Jude to his feet. The class erupted into screams. He turned to Alexis De’ Fleur, who was trying to scurry beneath her desk. He dragged her out, squealing, by a fistful of her willowy curls.

“Or you,” his voice was venomous, spiteful, and for the first time I wondered — actually wondered— how a grown man could act so viscerally to two fifteen year olds. He tied them back to back before straightening and turning in my direction.

He crossed the room in three strides, kneeling in front of me.

“You,” he spoke softly. His eyes were somehow gentle, lips curled in disgust.

This strange man knew me. His expression, hollow eyes aged way past his late twenties, had met me before. Initially, he didn't touch me. He didn't want to.

He tried to, and violently retracted, like I was contagious, poisonous, his lips wobbling.

“Marina Van Carlisle.”

He snatched me up by my ponytail, dragging me across the room. The pain was sudden. Something I wasn't expecting, and I expected everything.

I was tied up quickly, my arms forced behind my back, my ankles bound.

Once he was finished, the gunman stood.

I noticed he was shaking, his knees close to giving way. A thin layer of sweat glistened across his forehead, his breaths shuddering, voice strained.

“The REST of you,” he choked, “Get the fuck out of here,” and when they didn't, frozen, sobbing, the man fired, a warning shot, the class scrambled out of the door.

The door slammed behind us.

I actually jumped.

I hadn't been shocked, or scared, or flinched since catching my father being unfaithful when I was seven. “Stay.” The man whispered, visibly panicking.

Tears ran freely down his cheeks, fast and frightened, like he was just like us: a scared child.

Huh.

I turned, catching Alexis’s questioning eyes.

This man, this stranger, was breaking apart right in front of us.

And I wasn't sure… why.

“I'm sorry.” The man said, and then he said it again, repeating it in a mantra.

“I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry—”

He shoved the barrel of his gun into my forehead.

It was cold. Cruel.

“You're just a fucking kid,” he whispered, breaking down. “I didn't know, Marina,” he swiped at his nose. “That you would sit here. Silently. Staring at me.” He sniffled.

“Innocent. Just a… kid.”

His finger trembled on the trigger. “But I know what you do.”

“Jude Sampson.” The gunman spat. “Inventor of M-link, mind control software. Sells out to a billionaire and uses his invention to enslave an entire country of children.” He stepped closer, trailing the barrel of his rifle down Jude’s cheek. “You order two million teenagers to take their own lives, and they do. Wearing wide smiles because you TOLD them to."

Jude’s lip curled. “You’re fucking insane,” he whispered.

The man turned to Alexis.

“Alexis De’ Fleur,” he said, crawling over to her.

Alexis burst into tears.

“The first female president of the United States of America.” He laughed. “You promise change, to bury all past corruption and start anew.” The man’s lip twitched. “Then you close all borders and lock us all in, using our CHILDREN as collateral damage when we try to resist. You, Mrs. President, order the execution of two million innocent kids from your diamond-encrusted Oval Office.” He ran his fingers through her hair. “You murder my twins. I hold them in my arms, try and stop the bleeding, and I can't.”

“This is BULLSHIT,” Jude exploded, suddenly, half sobbing, half laughing. “You’re a stalker writing creepy fanfiction about three minors you don't know!.”

He blanked Jude, and dropped down in front of me.

“And you,” he whispered. “Marina.”

The man cupped my face.

“The first woman who steals my breath away. My soulmate who marries me in a parking lot beneath a polluted sky, wearing her dead mother’s wedding dress.”

His grip tightened, and part of me wondered what horrifying atrocity I had committed.

The man’s lips split into a manic grin, prodding the gun between my eyes. “And then you cheat on me."

His eyes grew delirious, widening, and he laughed. "You fucking CHEAT on ME."