This can’t be happening. It’s never happened to anyone before. Why me? This is the first mistake our world has ever seen. Just my luck that the mistake belongs to me. Still one question lingers in my mind: how?
Before I act dramatic, let me just recap for you Earthlings. My name is Harper Finch, and I’m a sixteen-year-old mess-up writing to you from a different planet. Two hundred years ago, y’all destroyed the planet with your pollution (good job, you). We had to take the remaining warriors and fly them to Planet X14. Almost no one has an accent that isn’t American. Here’s another important fact: we don’t have kangaroos. We left them on Earth. You’ll hear about that later.
We also perfected time-travel, which is how you’re reading this right now. Before I continue, you should just know the differences between our planet and yours. When our planet’s people are born, we see the entire world in shades of one color. That color is the color of our soulmate’s eyes, and when we meet him/her, we see the world in full color. Also, when we’re born, our dates of death are tattooed to our wrists. Now I’m going to be a bit dramatic, so bear with me. My death date was yesterday.
See, some of us live to be two-hundred years old. I was supposed to die at sixteen. I’d been dreading my death ever since I could read my wrist, because early deaths rarely occur in our world. That’s another thing about X14. We are showed how we die once a month in dreams. Mine was supposed to be extremely dramatic: I would be walking down the street, the world tinted a beautiful green-hazel color. The dream revealed that I’d immediately see the world in its full color, with him being the most beautiful thing in my vision. Tan skin, light brown hair, and his familiar green-brown eyes that had tinted my world so far. It would all occur at the monorail station. Supposedly, we would both walk towards each other, but before I could reach him, we would be hit by an oncoming unnoticed monorail. However, in reality, the dream only began like that.
I was walking at the old rugged station. There he was. I immediately recognized him, and I started to make my way over, smiling at the ground. He walked to me faster than he did in the dream, but I didn’t really notice. I was within reaching distance of him, when he was hit by the train, but I wasn’t. I’m sure I’ll never forget the horror I felt as he flew ten feet away. I ran to the bleeding body, tears springing to my eyes. His eyes trained on me as I knelt over him. “Before I’m gone...” he began in no more than a hoarse whisper, “Darling, can I get your name?” My soulmate had an Australian accent. I suppose that I should mention the fact that I’m a sucker for accents, so losing him made it even worse.  He reached up and touched my face, cupping my jawline with his palm.
“Harper,” I whispered.
“Mmm. That’s beautiful.” He paused for a moment. “My name’s Landon. You have the most beautiful eyes I’ve ever seen. I’m glad I spent most of my life looking through their lenses.” He began pale, and drew a final breath. With his final exhale, he breathed, “I love you, Harper.” Immediately after that, he died. However, once he was gone, the world became an icy blue.
First, I was devastated. I had lost my soulmate. I’d lost the eye color I’d seen the world through for sixteen years. But after I’d seen the world in its brilliant color for a split-second, I’d had a blue color filter the world again. My first thought was that the blue was beautiful, as blue as the ice that I had seen on the ground when Landon was still alive. Right after this entered my mind, though, I came to the realization that Landon had been replaced, and I now had a new soulmate. I made my way back home, my hands buried in the pockets of my sweater, and let my brown boots trudge through the snow. Processing what had just happened, I suddenly was hit with the miraculous and terrifying thought that I was a survivor.
Our universe had never made a mistake before. My wrist was wrong. My dreams were wrong. The tint on everything was wrong. It was supposed to be hazel, not blue.

“Hey. Hey, Harper, what’s wrong?” Colton, my little brother of fourteen years, got up from the island in the kitchen and walked towards me. Suddenly seeming to remember my death date, he grew pale. “Wait… but you’re supposed to be…”
“Dead!” Skye, my ten-year-old sister, ran down the stairs, keeping her distance from me. “You’re supposed to be dead! Why are you still alive?” She made a little gasp. “Are you… are you a ghost?”
“No, I’m not a ghost. The death date was wrong. I met my soulmate. His name was Landon, and he had an Australian accent, and he…”
“What’s your point?” Colton asked, raising an eyebrow.
“Well, I saw the natural world, and it was beautiful, and yes, he got hit by a monorail like in the dream. Here’s the part I can’t figure out, though: I didn’t. I’m supposed to be dead. I’m not. Plus, when he died, a blue filter replaced the hazel one. Apparently, I have a new soulmate.”
Skye frowned at me. “The government never makes mistakes. Never has, never will. I still think you’re a ghost.” She crossed her arms. “And a lying ghost, at that.” She began to run back up the stairs, but suddenly stopped midway when Colton called her back down. “Yeah?” she asked, making her way back down slowly.
“If she’s really a ghost, wouldn’t she glow if we turned off the light?”
“Oh, yeah!” With a grin, Skye ran back down and hit the light switch, flooding the room with darkness. I raised my non-glowing hands to further her proof that I hadn’t become a ghost.
“Okay, you’re not a ghost. Why aren’t you dead? I kinda wanted your room.”
“Wow. Thanks, Skye. Love you too.” I rolled my eyes and smiled at her.
Colton appeared to be thinking for a second, then finally said, “Tell me exactly what happened.” Skye went back upstairs as Colton and I sat next to each other at the island in the kitchen.
“Well,” I began, “I was walking by the old monorail station, and everything was in shades of brown, green, and hazel, like it usually is. I looked up and saw him, and immediately the word changed into full color. I’d never seen colors like it before; it saw shades that my grade school teachers described as blue and red and yellow and white. It was magnificent. But he was even more so.
“We both started walking towards each other, like in the dream, but he got hit by a monorail before I could reach him. I was so close to him, too! Like, within arms distance of him. I was supposed to die with him, but I didn’t. He went flying, I found out his name was Tanner, and- oh my gosh, Colton, you’re not gonna believe this- he had an Aussie accent. I heard that there are only about a hundred authentic Aussies left in the world, and he was one!”
“How come there aren’t any Aussies anymore?” Skye appeared next to me, looking up at me with wide innocent eyes.
“Your teachers haven’t taught you yet?” She shook her head. “Oh. Well, when the Earthlings moved to X14, there was a country called Australia, and in Australia, there were funny animals called kangaroos. The kangaroos were dangerous, and the Aussies were afraid that they would get to the rest of the Earthlings. The Aussies were so busy fighting them off that they couldn’t get into the ship themselves before it left for X14. They sacrificed themselves for the other Earthlings. Only about fifty Australians made to X14.  The kangaroos ate the rest of them.”
“Do you know about the Brits?”
“Only ten of them escaped from their country, which they called the United Kingdom. There are only five people left in the entire world who have British accents.”
“Oh. Well, that’s sad.”
“Yeah, it is. Anyway, back to my story. Tanner was an Aussie. Here’s the tricky part: not only did I survive, but once he died, the world shifted back into a colored filter, except for now I see the world in shades of bright icy blue. So if Tanner hadn’t died, my current soulmate wouldn’t have been my current soulmate, and he wouldn’t have one. If I had died, my current soulmate wouldn’t have one at all. So, the government made a mistake, but if they hadn’t, none of us three would have a soulmate, because two of us would be dead. Plus, not only did I get a new soulmate because I’m not dead, but I’m not dead, and I wasn’t supposed to live. Does any of this make any sense?”
“No. I think you actually confused me more. But if I understand you right, you need to go to the government building and tell them that there’s a glitch. You should also ask for a new tattoo.” Standing up, he asked, “We should go right now. Can I drive? I just got my early license, and I really want to drive you around! Please?”
“Fine, fine. But drive slowly. You’re still kind of terrifying behind the wheel.” I smirked and tossed him the keys. He dropped them.

Once we arrived, my stomach suddenly turned into liquid. What was I going to tell them, that they were wrong? That they had made a mistake? Surely they would believe a small teenage girl trying to point out their errors. My hands suddenly began to shake, and I found myself unable to open the automobile door. Colton saw this and ran to the other side of the automobile, opening the door for me. I stepped out, but my mind was elsewhere, and I lost my footing. Nearly falling on my face, my brother caught me. “Careful where you step. You might kill yourself.” He smirked at me.
“Ha, ha.” My reply was monotonous and straight-faced as I walked closer with each step to the government building, tripping and falling again. This time, he just laughed when I fell, but offered a hand to help me up. I glared at him as I took it.

We walked through the gold-rimmed enormous double doors and looked up. I’m sure the entire place would be white, silver, and gold, if my eyes weren’t coated with a brilliant blue. We walked to the counter where a small sign was placed on the smooth marble. It read, An employee will be available for assistance in ten minutes or less. Colton and I took two silver-threaded seats across the room (I can only assume they were silver; I had adjusted to the hazel, and blue was a new tint for me that I would have to adjust to). We waited for about three minutes before a young employee about my age appeared behind the counter. As soon he turned around, the world returned to its natural color, and I saw it in its full beauty for a second time. Once he saw me as well, he grinned, but all I could focus on were his striking blue eyes. Smiling, I looked down at my feet, and as I did, I caught a glimpse of my wrist. My tattoo had changed, and I wasn’t supposed to die for another one hundred and eight years.
“Hello, love,” he grinned in a British accent. “I suppose we’re soulmates. Pleasure to meet you.”
I melted. I built my own grave to jump and die. Instead, I became the first survivor of many. I started a revolution, and, most amazingly, I got a new tattoo as well as a new soulmate with striking blue eyes and a British accent.