This has a different tone to it then my more recent stories and I'm kinda sorta (okay very much) nervous about it. It's part of a writing exercise that I'm doing. "Write the emotions you fear the most." So I did it. This is also completely unbetaed so all mistakes are mine.

This is a soulmate AU. This is kind where your soulmate can bring you back from the brink of death, cure any illness, whether it'd be mental or physical, heal any wound or injury, etc, so long as your touch them or are near them for a specific amount of time.

He never thought immortality would be this hard. From what he's imagined, it's always seemed easy. You live forever, end of story, so to speak.

To become immortal, he had to die several times. And he has. Metaphorically.

He's lost the words, the words that kept the monsters from overcoming his mind, from taking over. It scares him, knowing that at any moment, he could lose control.

Immortality sucks.

It's immortality, right? What else could it be?

He hasn't slept in a week. Or maybe it's been a year. He doesn't really know anymore.

All he knows is that the words stopped coming a long time ago. When the words go, so does his sanity. He hasn't slept, eaten, or been able to socialize. When the words are blocked, everything is, nothing gets through. Neurons stop firing, chemicals mix, creating destruction, setting fires in his head.

Is the room spinning or is he spinning?

The air is too thick, too hot, he can't breathe. His chest starts to close up, or wait, no. It's gaping open, allows the elements to do their damage inside him.

Air. He needs air.

The walls are closing in.

No. no. This is panic. He's having another panic attack.

Opening his eyes, it's dark. Feeling around, he remembers he's in bed. The sheets are sweat soaked, hot, searing his skin.

Checking the time: the clock has a death stare.

1:27am.

He'd gone to bed only thirty minutes ago.

Whenever he takes sleeping pills, he has nightmares. Night terrors. Whatever. They screw with his mind.

It's like death is chasing him every time he closes his eyes. A knife in it's hand, running faster than light, and all he can do is stand and watch, his feet melded to the ground.

When he crawls from his bed, he's still frightened. The dark hasn't been his best of friends lately.

It's been so long since he's been able to sleep, really sleep. He knows he doesn't make any sense, thoughts all jumbled up, making him believe in monsters and immortality. He knows he doesn't make any sense.

But the monsters feel so real. Death is a woman. He knows.

From the way she curves her edges to trick you, seducing you into her trap with her allure.

Death is a siren.

What is he saying? These are not the words.

Don't feed the monsters.

He needs to get out, clear his head of the dirty thoughts, he needs to breathe.

One step at a time clears the monsters away. He'll go for a walk, take only a small jacket to let the cold seep into his bones. Every night it feels like he's dying. He's delirious, hallucinating, spouting nonsense onto the pages.

If he could just get some sleep…

Run.

Running clears her mind, calms her anger.

It's not fair. It's not right.

Where is the justice?

It's not fair her mother is dead. It's not fair her father is an alcoholic. It's not fair she had to transfer from her dream school to come back home.

It's not fair, it's not fair, it's not fair.

Running is the only way she stops from breaking down. She doesn't know how to cope. Her mother would know exactly what to do, would help her through this level of grief and anger, but she's gone.

Her mother is dead and she's never felt so much more alone. Her father was not a drinker and yet, just a week after her mother died, he began buying more and more bottles of the stuff. Stock piling it in the guest room of their apartment.

He still hasn't step foot into their bedroom. She has. She'd gone through her mother's clothes and make up, wanted to feel her again.

Tonight's one of those nights where she couldn't sleep, anger filled her lungs, pumped through her veins. The bed sheets were too confining, the air stifling. The sound of the liquid moving around in bottles was too vivid for her to stay in the apartment. Running helps clear her mind. The essence of her mother so comforting she'd almost convinced herself she was still alive.

She won't go crazy over this. She'll run, run to escape the pain, to clear the clouds of grief that's over taken her mind.

Music in, she tunes out the world. With every slam of her foot against the pavement, an inch of her mind clears. She doesn't want to think. She wants oblivion. Even if it's just for a moment, because a moment in a world where nothing horrible happened to her mother is better than eternity with the agonizing truth that she's dead.

So she runs. And runs. And runs.

Through the streets, through the dark alleys, through the woods.

It's 2am and she's running. Music blasting.

The cold air bites her too exposed skin, but it's invigorating. The cold calms her mind as it rips her skin apart, her fingers freeze over, but she keeps going.

She runs past a man. He's got his head down and is walking underneath a street light with both hands shoved in his coat pockets.

When she runs past him, feet popping off the ground one at a time, she looks back at him briefly to find him staring directly at her. Paying him no mind, she continues running up a hill where there are no lights.

Something makes her turn around again to see the man, but his face is one of horror. He's waving his hands frantically as if he's trying to get her attention, but before she has time to process it, she's falling.

Time seems to slow or maybe she's flying. Flying through the frigid air, fleeing her problems, the world. But then she feels a razor sharp pain in her neck before everything goes black.

It was an angel. A goddess. Her face was pure beauty, her skin so milky white, he was hypnotized.

He's never seen anyone run so fast in his life, but he'd caught a glimpse of her face when she turned back to him with loose tendrils of hair flying against the wind.

She was heading the direction he'd came from, straight up the hill where a large mixture of water and mud had yet to freeze over from the bitter December air.

If he doesn't stop her, she could get hurt. He doesn't even know her and yet the thought of her getting hurt has worry flooding his being. Pain encompassing her will also hurt him.

How is it he feels this way?

Racing up the hill, he finds her face first on the ground, clothes covered in mud.

Kneeling beside her frail body he takes two fingers and lays them against her neck.

Nothing.

No pulse.

Storm clouds form in his eyes, but he ignores them and takes a deep breath, calms the panic flooding his chest. He has to save her, he needs to save her. It's unexplainable how desperate he is for her to live. He's never seen her before in his life and yet she feels so familiar.

He checks again for a pulse.

It's there.

It's faint, but it's there.

The skin of her face is pale when he turns her over, eyes closed, and breathing so shallow he has to hold his phone up to her nose for it to fog over.

"Hey, wake up," he shakes her shoulders gently, brow furrowed as he gazes down at her. "Just let me see those gorgeous eyes." A moan rises from her throat and she scrunches her face slightly. Despite the circumstances he finds it adorable and gives her the smallest of smiles. It's been too long since his lips curled this way, it's almost foreign to him now. "Do you want to go to the hospital? I'm gonna call an ambulance." He frantically grabs for his phone, trying to hurry, but she hums, her arms weakly flailing in the air which oddly reminds him of his mother.

"Mmm," more moaning, louder this time.

"Okay, okay. Hold on."

Placing one hand under her neck and the other under her legs, he lifts her from the ground.

"At least let me get you out of the cold."

Thoughts?