It was cliche, but she started off as being normal. Boringly normal, in fact. The name on her wrist was fairly average, and the words on her shoulder may have been a bit odd, but really, who's weren't? Her friend Catherine had 'fuck' written across her collarbone, and that wasn't even the weirdest one she had heard about.
When she was younger she was even a little put out by how boringly normal her life was. Later on, she would think of the phrase 'careful what you wish for' often.
It happened when she was twelve. Being young, and never having met her soulmate, she had never before felt anything from her destined partner. That made it all the worse when the mark on her wrist started burning furiously, and strange, muted emotions started filtering through it. Later she would tell the doctor about the feeling of fear and pain she had received.
She didn't mention the third, strongest emotion. Bloodlust wasn't exactly normal, after all.
After that, the name on her wrist had shortened to what seemed to be a nickname of the original, the handwriting more jagged and angry than before.
That was the start.
It took a while for her to notice the...episodes, most likely because they usually only happened at night. Usually.
Once one occurred in the evening when she was reading in her room. Afterwards, she told everyone it was a cat that had gotten Jimmy, her hamster. It was disturbingly difficult to look sad that Jimmy was dead, with adrenaline rushing through her and a line of blood still under one of her fingernails.
She quickly learned to have a good supply of animals nearby, least she turn a knife on anything more human, including herself. She never found it in herself to mourn the animal's deaths.
Apart from this difficulty, life carried on fairly normally. If this caused her to enjoy the episodes a little too much...well, no one needed to know, did they?
She did start thinking about the words on her shoulder more as she grew older, as well as trying to avoid thinking about the correlation between her wrist mark changing and her episodes. She started having strange dreams about it, cluing her into the fact that she really shouldn't be obsessing over it so much.
That probably explained her behaviour later on, a few days after she turned nineteen.
Something was waking her up. She drifted into consciousness, noting that it was pitch black outside. It really was way too early for-
A pale face, scarred red with manic eyes, hovered over her.
She tensed, forgetting how to breath, as the monster held up a knife dripping red. She knew she should scream, but the fear was paralysing.
"Go...to...sleep!"
Huh.
She relaxed, forgetting her fear. The figure paused upon seeing this, knife hovering above her throat.
"Great," she said, exasperated. "Now I'm having nightmares about you."
She expected her nightmare-soulmate to turn into a llama, or start singing something about a pond. That's the sort of thing that had happened in most of her other, stress-induced dreams.
Instead, pure shock with a fair amount of horror replaced the glee on the monster boy's face. Slowly, her mind woke up properly. "Wait, this...isn't a dream?"
Even as her eyes widened, he backed away, and to her shock, jumped out the window. She winced as she felt phantom shards of glass pierce her skin.
"Wait!" She called, but he was already gone. Slowly, she turned to her mirror. Her pyjama top had slipped off her shoulder, the words 'go to sleep' dark against her skin.
And on that crazy night, all she could think of to say was;
"So that's Jeff."
Jeff ran as far as his legs would take him. He couldn't believe...fuck.
He knew it was possible for even monsters to get a happy ending with their soulmate. Hoodie and Masky were inseparable, and Clockwork and Toby were tooth-rottingly sweet together.
But this was an extremely normal human! He didn't even want a soulmate, and it's not even another monster, but the most ordinary, normal human he had ever seen. He scratched absentmindedly at the scarred place on his wrist, the word 'Anna' barely visible.
Furious, he jumped into the first household he comes across, and started killing indiscriminately, not even using his catchphrase.
...Those fucking words, in his fucking handwriting, scrawled across her fucking shoulder.
He shook the thought away, his turbulent emotions shifting into exhilarated bloodlust.
'Damn, got to get to the woods.'
He almost toppled over as he hears the words, definitely not his own. He snarled, slashing at the man in front of him. Blood ran over his knife, splattering his white hoodie with red.
He really did fall over as he felt more than heard the crack of a broken bone, then the phantom feeling of warm blood coating imaginary hands.
He realised what it meant, and couldn't stop a grin from spreading across his face, terrifying the last living person in the room.
"Maybe she's not so normal after all..."
Anna knelt down next to a stream, methodically scrubbing her hands clean of the rabbit's blood. She would sell the carcass to the butcher's later on. It was an odd way to get extra cash, but waste not want not.
The bond, which had been so strong just moments ago, had sunk back down. She could feel a slight echo of harsh curiosity, but little else. Just her luck to get a muted empathy bond with a-
No, she wasn't thinking about that. She was definitely not thinking about how great the adrenaline rush had been when the rabbit's neck- nope. Not thinking.
She felt the thrum of dark amusement, and reflexively sent back a jab of defensiveness. Sent it towards...
She turned slowly, staring at an inconspicuous tree to her left. A smirk crept over her features as she caught a strain of panic.
"Hey, Jeff." She called out nonchalantly.
Frustration replaced the panic as a man stalked out of the shadows. He moved like a predator, making the blood splattering his hoodie seem natural; the aftermath of a kill.
"Anna," he growled, spitting the name out like an insult. "What's a girl like you doing washing blood off her hands?"
She grinned. "You'd know better than me; its your fault, after all."
"My fault?" He asked. "You're the one who snapped the furry fucker's neck, ya know. Kinda mean to the bunny."
"You're one to talk," she muttered. Louder, she said "What's your full name, anyway? I've only got Jeff."
He was suddenly right in her face, but she didn't flinch. She could feel that he wasn't going to hurt her. For now, anyway.
"Jeff the Killer." He said, soft and dangerous.
Oh yeah, normality was well and truly out of the picture.
She loved it.
"Jeff the Killer." He stated. She hadn't flinched, even appearing amused by his actions. He realised he was having way too much fun messing with her.
"Well Jeff," she said. "Feel free to come back at any time."
Before he knew what she was doing, she pressed her lips to his cheek. It was brief, but caused him to freeze in shock. She turned and walked back to her house, amusement flowing through the bond, along with regret that she had to leave. Something about a room mate.
He realised he was smiling. He abruptly scowled. Terrifying murderers shouldn't feel so fucking gooey, after all. He clamped down on the newly strengthened bond ruthlessly.
He turned back to the woods, flinging open the doors once he reached Slender's mansion. Masky jumped out of the way, realising quickly that he did not want to be around Jeff in this mood.
Jeff stomped upstairs and punched his bedroom door. What the fuck was he doing? He should have stayed well away, not gone and introduced himself.
Eyeless Jack leant against the door frame of Jeff's room. "What's all the commotion?"
"None of your fucking business!" He growled, not turning to face him.
Jack shrugged. "Fine, but you're cleaning up the bloodstains. It's all over the carpet thanks to you."
He strolled out, leaving Jeff to stew on his bed.
'...Jeff?'
He stiffened. 'Get, the fuck, out of my head!' He snarled, suddenly furious. What the hell gave her the right to lay any sort of claim to him? To talk to him in his head?
'Hey, it's not rainbows and sunshine for me either! I get an empathy link with a psychopathic mass murderer! It's been bloody difficult stopping people from working out what I've been doing.'
'I don't think this soulmate shit is supposed to be this fucked up.' Jeff mused darkly.
He heard her chuckle. 'Good thing I've never been that bothered about soulmate shit.' She felt his faint curiosity at this and continued. 'I, well, until I was twelve, I was just as obsessed with the whole soulmates stuff as everyone else. Then your name changed, and I just...didn't care.' She gave the equivalent of a mental shrug.
An image of blood, pain and long-suppressed memories flickered through Jeff's mind. It was no more than a second at the most, but from her gasp, and the sharp flair of shock, he knew she had seen. Seen, and understood what it meant.
They were silent for a moment.
'I should hate you.' She sent thoughtfully. 'You're the reason my life, and my mental state, is so messed up.'
He knew hate; knew it well, with Jane and countless others. He also knew he could feel none coming from her. She was oddly remote, a faint note of exasperated businesslike determination always present. Even when she had killed the rabbit, he recalled, she had felt and enjoyed the exhilaration of the kill but retained the cold logic, like surfing a familiar wave with ruthless accuracy.
She sent a thrill of recognition at his assessment. 'I guess I'm the yin to your yang, then. Your all illogical heat and fire when you kill; we'd probably make a good murderous pair.' There was a definite note of amusement there.
Against his better judgement, Jeff snickered. 'Got anyone in mind for our first outing?' He asked, amusement and bloodlust coating his voice in equal measures.
He expected her to recoil, or brush it off as a joke. After all, the cold blooded murder of a human was different to snapping a rabbit's neck.
'Sure, if you're up for it.' She said teasingly, but he felt the apprehension that accompanied it. Well, she really wasn't what she looked like at first glance.
'Tell me when and where, then, sweetheart.' He said, adding the term of endearment on mockingly.
He felt her grin widen along with his own. This was going to be fun.
She had always tried to convince herself that she would feel terrible over the death of a human, that it would be completely different to the animals she killed. She was wrong. No guilt, or sorrow, or horror.
She waved the last of her normality goodbye.