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The Original

8th of April, 2025

This story was originally written for a challenge in August, 2023. I've slightly edited it, correcting some mistakes and fixing some weird-sounding sentences. The original style it was written in was preserved for the most part.

TW: Death, fighting, beheading

Ellen Weavers was sitting at her table in the usual restaurant on the outskirts of her small town. It wasn’t exactly a restaurant, but it certainly was a food joint that served hot noodles, eggs, eyeballs, and her favourite – fortune cookies. She cracked one open, which wasn’t her first that night. There were seventeen other predictions of her life lying on the table. Ellen put the crisp cookie in her mouth and the dough melted from her saliva. She unrolled the crumpled piece of paper. It read:

“Your soulmate is in this room with you. Find them. There can only be one. You have ten minutes.”

Ellen jumped up from her seat. She knew that this time would eventually come, but she never suspected that it would be this soon. Ever since Ellen was a child, her mother – May Maybelline – had taught Ellen of the prophecy that ran for many generations in her family. It was one that was predicted by Ellen’s great-grandmother and it foretold the fateful night when Ellen would meet her soulmate. A person with an identical soul that contradicted the Universe itself. Two people couldn’t have one soul, that was the rule, but any rule had its exceptions. And Ellen was about to fix it.

The diner was small. There were only seven guests inside and two employees. Ellen discretely pulled out a pocket knife out of her jeans. She started looking around. At the table nearest to her sat an old woman with a pile of French fries scattered across the dirty plastic surface. She was wrinkled and wore big glasses that reflected her withered hands. She was smiling as she built a tower of French fries which then fell. A loud laughter came from her and the old woman continued laughing even as she started choking. She slapped the table, then banged it with her foot and started shaking violently. When the rapturous emotions went back into her, she started building the tower again. The tower resembled the one in Paris, but it quickly tumbled over which inspired the woman to laugh again. This time she started rocking back and forth for the next eight and a half minutes.

“Not her,” thought Ellen and her gaze drifted to another customer.

The table over housed a company of three. One was a man, another was a woman, and the third one was not a person. The man shuffled a deck of cards and after finishing, passed it to the woman. The woman took the first card out of the deck and started shuffling too. The three continued doing so until they all had seven cards each. The non-human spoke first in a human-fitting voice.

“I’ve got a two,” they said and put a card down on the table. The other two glanced at each other before reaching for the card. The woman was quicker to pick it up and smiled at the man. The man hissed at the woman and his pupils turned yellow for a second. It was his turn.

“I’ve got a seven,” he stated and put down a card of his own on the table. The non-human shook their non-human head. The woman laughed at the man.

“Liar,” she said and turned over the card. The number on the card read, “8”. The man cursed under his breath. It was the woman’s turn.

“I’ve got a King,” she proudly shouted and took a head from underneath the table. The head of the beheaded monarch was still fresh and blood dripped from underneath. The woman held the head by its hair before putting it on the table with a bang. The man and the non-human whispered something to each other. Then the man nodded at the head.

“That’s not a King.”

“Yes, it is,” the woman defended herself. “I can keep him to myself if you don’t want him.” She protectively hugged the head and was about to take it under the table again.

“No, wait, I’ll take it,” the non-human burst and grabbed the head by its ear. The ear popped off and hot wax started pouring out.

“Told you!” the man laughed. “One card on the table, sucker!”

The non-human angrily disposed of their card and put it to the side of the plastic table. The game continued again with the non-human. The same rules applied, they put a card from their deck on the table. This time the man and the woman both tried to reach for the card. The woman was quicker yet again, but the man grabbed her hand and they started fighting. The man hissed at the woman with his yellow pupils and the woman bleated at him with her rectangular eyes. An argument soon started at the table but it was a usual occasion at the diner.

“Definitely not them,” Ellen thought. She wasn’t a gambler and was never interested in playing “The King and The Liar”. Her gaze drifted to the table over.

There sat a couple who were enjoying a nice meal. The woman was gurgling down a bowl of steaming soup, the bits of rat meat and potatoes drifting down her throat. After she gulped the last drop, she sighed in content and put the bowl back on the table. The other woman, on the other hand, was trying to get little pieces of meat that ran around her plate on little legs. She had chopsticks in her hands and managed to pierce through one of the little meatlings. It screamed in agony with its little mouth and its friends gathered around its corpse. They cried and mourned, but didn’t have much time as the woman picked it up and put it in her mouth. The little meatlings continued running around the plate, dodging the horrible chopsticks. The soup woman smiled at her girlfriend. Her partner struggled with getting her food dead and agreed when the soup woman offered her help. The soup woman killed off all the little meatlings with a swift motion and started feeding her partner with her hands.

“Not her or her,” Ellen whispered. She was gripping the wooden handle of the blade behind her back. There were three people left, two of whom were employees of the establishment. Ellen looked over at the cash register where they were hanging around.

The employees were tall as were all the service workers in the little town. They had brown hair and brown eyes, their teeth always shined and the smiles never left their faces. Employee #1 who had a name tag that nobody ever bothered to read was identical to Employee #2. They were not twins, but the company policy obligated them to be exactly the same. This way the management could have two workers for the wage of one. All the customers thought that only one worker truly ever worked in the diner, but the casuals knew it to be otherwise. Whenever the inspection came around, the management would hide either Employee #1 or Employee #2 under the desk until the officers left. Neither Employee #1 nor Employee #2 ever complained as it was prohibited by their contract.

Right now the two workers were standing idly at the cash register. They grinned widely into the void, unmoving, unseeing. After one of them noticed Ellen’s gaze, they slowly turned their head to her and started to quickly approach the needy customer. When they loomed over Ellen, they greeted her in a sweet voice.

“Hello! How may I help you?” they said through their teeth. Their voice was slightly muffled because of their unmoving mouth, but Ellen understood them perfectly.

“Nothing, I was just looking around,” Ellen dismissively answered. The Employee #1, or maybe #2, nodded and left to their usual post where they continued to stare into nothingness. There was now only one person left in the diner.

On the other side of the diner, when Ellen was just opening up her fateful fortune cookie, sat another woman. She had dark hair and dark eyes. Her face matched Ellen’s exactly, as well as her genetic code. The Other Ellen called herself Elisa and she was a clone of Ellen. She came to life seven years ago in a basement she didn’t recognise. Her creator – an elderly woman with glasses, who had a liking for Paris and French fries – had always told her that one day, Elisa would meet her original copy. That day would decide who will stay. Elisa opened up her fortune cookie. The fortune read:

“Your soulmate is in this room with you. Prepare yourself. There can only be one. You have five minutes before they find you.”

Elisa’s heart dropped. She was afraid to turn her head around, but when she did, she saw the original Ellen standing on the opposite side. She was looking around smiling sweetly. Behind her back Ellen was holding a knife that glistened in the lights. Elisa put her hood over her head to try and disguise herself. She took a fork that was lying on the table together with her uneaten fortune cookie. She had to act fast.

Ellen calmly approached the woman whose head was turned to the window. Outside was dark and in the distance the small town was bursting with light. Ellen tapped the woman on the shoulder and she turned around.

“Excuse me, you look familiar,” Ellen muttered through her smile. Her hand was tightening around the knife. “Want to take it outside?”

Elisa silently nodded and Ellen led her to the door. The stuffy atmosphere of the diner was changed to the breeze of the interstate. It was silent here and the nearest building (apart from the diner) was a few kilometres away. Ellen and Elisa stood near the corner of the concrete-glassy box. Its neon sign that was composed of Chinese syllables that spelled gibberish illuminated their faces red. On the door hang the usual “Open” sign that changed its colours from time to time. Ellen took a deep breath and looked up at the starry sky. Elisa put her hands into her hoodie pockets.

“Let’s do it.” Ellen turned her head to her soulmate. Elisa nodded and took out the fork out of her pocket. The two women prepared their bodies. Ellen rolled around her neck and wrists. Elisa stood there nervously.

“Go,” Ellen said in a cold voice and immediately lunged at her clone. Elisa dodged the attack and started running away in the direction of the town. She couldn’t outrun the original Ellen. Her lungs were giving away quickly after sprinting for a few minutes.

Ellen caught up with her soulmate and brushed the blade against her cheek. Blood started dripping out of the fresh wound. Elisa looked with anger at her counterpart. She tried to stab Ellen’s eyes, yet years of rigorous training under the supervision of her mother had prepared Ellen for this fight. She stopped her clone from blinding her but wasn’t quick enough when Elisa kicked her between the legs. Ellen lost her balance and the two women fell to the ground. Elisa was on top and she raised her fork up in the air. Ellen rolled out of her clone’s murder attempt onto the road.

Ten minutes have passed since Ellen had first opened the fortune cookie. She stood up on her feet faster than Elisa could. A honk came from Ellen’s right and the only thing that she could see were the blinding lights of a truck driving at full speed. Ellen didn’t have the chance to even scream when the large and heavy vehicle knocked her off and dragged her lifeless body for a few seconds. The corpse fell limply to the side of the road.

Elisa looked over at the car which didn’t even slow down. Then she looked at the original Ellen. She carefully approached her with a fork and squatted down. She put the fork against Ellen’s cheek and pressed hard but the woman didn’t respond even when the metal cut through her skin. Elisa dropped the fork to the ground and started rummaging through Ellen’s pockets. She found the ID which the woman always carried around with her.

Elisa stood up and wiped away the sweat from her forehead. Out of breath, she turned around and started making her way back to town. Ellen grinned and put the ID into her back pocket. The soulmate was finally no more.

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