*This short story uses already created characters from the anime Ghost Hunt by Fuyumi Ono. I do not own them or anything from that franchise, This is fan-fiction! I also do not own the quote Soulmates that belongs to Lang Leav.
"Soul Mates - I don't know how you are so familiar to me—or why it feels less like I am getting to know you and more as though I am remembering who you are. How every smile, every whisper brings me closer to the impossible conclusion that I have known you before, I have loved you before—in another time, a different place, some other existence." - "Soulmates" by Lang Leav
The world used to be kind and fair, the world used to be beautiful and innocent. Now Mai saw only the horrors of war; famine, torture, slavery, and perhaps a respite, death. After all, if there was anything worse than death, it was living as she was now.
There was very little to live for, and one of the only things she held dear was dying before her very eyes. In her peripheral vision, her beloved collapsed.
"Oliver?" Horror and worry gnawed at Mai's heart,"Oliver please get up, just a little bit more and we can rest for today."
Mai watched as coughs racked Oliver's body, hopeless and unable to help.
Harsh repetitive German words ordered Mai's weary and brittle body to stand from where she had subconsciously sunk to the ground. Mai kept her head low and submissive, if they sensed any defiance, they would surely have fun beating it out of her.
The German guards kicked Oliver several times, ordering him to stand.
"Please, let me help him. Please!" Mai begged to at least help Oliver stand, knowing that after his coughing fit he would hardly be able to move.
The guards being unusually kind nodded, and allowed Mai to sling Oliver's sickly body on her back and scamper away to the relative safety of the sleeping quarters.
She remembered the old days, of peace and rest. Now the weariness and lethargy clung to her every step, lured her to go to sleep and never wake, but Mai would never listen as long as Oliver lived. As long as Oliver breathed, because she had taken her marriage vow and tied it to the very depths of her soul, because she knew she could not live without him, for he was her only other half.
Mai placed Oliver in the bed, if it could even be called a bed, closest to her and collapsed, instantly feeling the distress of carrying Oliver on her body.
As she drifted close to sleep she had a feeling, animal instinct, Oliver called it. Something good yet horrible would happen, yet it did not stop the worry from worming its way in. When did anything good ever happen now ? she thought. Tiredly she banished the feeling and the worrisome thoughts accompanying it away, and drifted to a sleep that would only tire her will more as she woke the next day.
White. Soft white frills filled Mai's vision, and she remembered. Cautiously she grabbed at the cloth and stroked it, "My wedding dress?" Then everything changed and suddenly she was at the church, the church where she and Oliver were married.
Her body moved against her will, and her face would not stop smiling. Not that Mai wanted it to stop, no not when she saw Oliver looking healthy and happy. Now when he was looking like he had discovered the secrets to the universe with that twinkle in his eyes and the small upturned corner of his mouth.
"I, Oliver Davis, take you, Mai Turner, as my lawful wife, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and health, until the day my soul dies."
Mai drew in a shaky breath, "I, Mai Turner, take you, Oliver Davis, as my husband. I promise to be true to you in good times and in bad, in sickness and in health. I will love and honor you until the end of time itself."
The priest a young man by the name of John smiled at them, "Then I now pronounce you Husband and Wife, you may now kiss your bride."
The memory faded away, leaving warm feelings which Mai had forgotten existed being trapped in a camp of war.
For a moment weights lifted down Mai's eyelids and cotton muffled the harsh yelling; no orders being shouted inside the sleeping quarters.
A nameless person roughly shook her awake, "Please wake up Miss, they're giving us showers."
Mai shot awake as dread pooled in her stomach and threatened to make her dry heave yet happiness danced wearily in her chest.
Her eyes shot around looking for Oliver and found him curled up in a ball by the foot of her bed, a blank look in his eyes.
"Hey, don't you look mighty fine today, my beloved husband." Despite the growing dread Mai smiled for Oliver, after all there was every chance it was just a feeling.
His eyes slowly drifted to her and his gaunt face gave a minuscule smile.
"I could say the same thing, my beautiful wife."
Mai helped Oliver walk, as the people in the quarters gathered and walked toward the looming metal chambers, and Mai could not help but shiver in fear.
Slowly, and filled with trepidation she and Oliver walked into the chamber and began to undress, murmurs of happiness began to fill the chamber, and she heard excited voices, "We're going to finally shower!"
Mai wrapped in the arms of her husband began to cry, "Oliver, I love you."
Oliver looked at her confused but gently caressed her face, "I love you as well Mai."
"Promise me, that if we are born again, you'll find me."
Oliver held her closer with his chin upon her head, "You know I don't believe in that, but I suppose if it makes you feel better, Mai Davis, in this life and all others that follow, I will find you, and I will love you. No matter how far, in the past, or in the future, I promise you that."
Mai gave Oliver a teary smile,"Thank you. Thank you so much. I love you."
They kissed one last time, as the doors to the chamber closed, and the gas flooded the room.
On April 30th, days before the Axis powers would give in, wrapped in the arms of the other, Oliver and Mai Davis, two victims of millions, were killed, and the heavens cried at the injustice of love and life cut short.
In another life, in a different place, with a second chance, away from the horrors of the Holocaust, as history called it, Mai Taniyama, and Kazuya Shibuya met for the first time and somehow they both knew, through all the denial, that somehow they were already in love, and just needed to remember it.