The red string that had been tied to Kimi’s ring finger and stretched out and finally slackened as he met Ollie for the first time in late 2023. Ollie, or Oliver Bearman, had the other end of the red string tied to his ring finger. They were soulmates.

Kimi’s biggest fear had always been seeing the red string turn black and crumble. That would mean his soulmate had died somehow.

However, it never turned black and it didn’t take long for him and Ollie to make things official after meeting. They knew they would get on well and as they were destined to be together anyway, why wait?

One early morning, Kimi awoke to… nothing? Ollie wasn’t next to him. Had he gone out? But why so early?

Kimi rubbed his eyes, sitting up blearily. He remembered vaguely hearing the sound of the car engine firing up, but it was probably a part of a dream.

The horrible dream where those blades, the blades Ollie had once used on himself, the knife, the car crash, the everything had come back to haunt him.

Both Kimi and Ollie had gone through a real shitty time in their lives, a time that they thought they wouldn’t survive. But they did, and they were supposedly getting better.

Kimi clocked this and suddenly sat upright. Ollie had been so much sadder the past few days and he remembered hearing the night before something along the lines of “thank you for everything”.

Just as he realised this, an envelope fluttered into their bedroom and he picked it up. It had his name on the front and was written in Ollie’s handwriting. With a racing heart, he opened it.

It had five words on it.

“I love you. I’m sorry.”

As soon as Kimi read this, his worst fear came true. The red string around his finger turned black and slowly crumbled into nothing.