Chapter 1
Eliot Vale had spent his thirty-second birthday exactly the way he’d spent his thirty-first: alone, hunched over his laptop at 2 a.m., frantically researching the decomposition rate of human cartilage for a novel he wasn’t sure anyone would read.
There were two wine glasses on the table, but only one was filled. He had placed the other there on instinct, the way some people set an extra plate for a dinner guest they knew wasn’t coming. The glass sat empty, catching the flickering blue light from his screen, reminding him he hadn’t been kissed in nearly six years.
For a man who wrote romance subplots with enviable tenderness, Eliot’s love life was a barren wasteland. His longest relationship had lasted four months, and it ended when his girlfriend stumbled across his search history. ”Best places to stab someone for quick death" had not gone down well at all. No matter how many times he tried to explain that he was a writer, the word only seemed to make things worse. People either thought it meant liar or unemployed.
Which was why he found himself at midnight, staring at the glowing sign-up page of a dating site called SoulPrint.
SoulPrint was the new thing, the viral thing, the thing that everyone from his college friends to the barista downstairs kept whispering about. Forget clumsy bios and staged selfies— SoulPrint didn’t ask you to describe yourself at all. It simply mined your digital footprint: every late-night search, every lingering scroll, every article you read and abandoned halfway through. The premise was simple: your data knows you better than you do.
Eliot was hooked.
What better way to find someone who would understand him? Surely the algorithm would sift through his obsessive midnight queries about burial depths, his tendency to linger on Greek myths, his bookmarks of obscure poetry blogs, and say: Here. This one. This is your match.
He clicked “Join.”
The site asked for permission to his search history, his browser bookmarks, his purchase records. With only the briefest hesitation, Eliot granted all. His chest thumped with nervous excitement as he imagined the future.
A fellow writer. A crime novelist, maybe. Someone who would laugh instead of blanch when he casually asked, “Do you think it’s harder to drag a body up or down the stairs?” Someone who would say, “Down, of course,” without missing a beat. Someone who would sit across from him in a café, laptops side by side, fingers flying, pausing only to argue about metaphors.
His pulse quickened. This was it. This was how his story began.
The screen blinked, spun, and then displayed:
Congratulations, Eliot! Your SoulPrint Match has been found.
Name: Adrianne Frost Her profile picture was artfully blurred, as though she were more concept than person.Her tagline read: “I like stories with sharp endings.”
Eliot exhaled a laugh that was half relief, half wonder. A crime writer. Obviously. What else could she be?
Adrianne Frost, meanwhile, was cleaning blood off her kitchen tiles when her phone buzzed with the SoulPrint notification.
She hadn’t meant to sign up. It was a joke, a dare from herself, a perverse curiosity. She wanted to see what kind of poor fool the algorithm would pair with a woman whose search history was an encyclopedia of homicide.
When she granted SoulPrint access, she expected the app to implode. Surely no sane system could process queries like how to cut vocal cords quietly or airplane bathrooms and body disposal.
But now, staring at her phone, Adrianne felt something strange.
Congratulations, Adrianne! Your SoulPrint Match has been found.
Name: Eliot Vale.
His tagline: “Stories are the only immortality we get.”
Her lips curved slowly. For years, every man she dated had recoiled eventually. Too dark, too intense, too strange. She’d been careful at first— soft answers, sanitised interests. But it always slipped out eventually. Her fascination with endings. Her uncompromising need for silence.
They all left.
But Eliot? His history read like a song in her own language. The algorithm hadn’t flinched. And maybe— just maybe— he wouldn’t either.
Eliot stared at her profile for nearly an hour before daring to type his first message.
Eliot: “Hi, Adrianne. Your tagline made me laugh. I’m also obsessed with endings. Do you like crime too?”
The reply came two minutes later.
Adrianne: “You could say that. I prefer to keep things realistic.”
Eliot grinned, thrilled. “Realistic!” That was exactly the word he used in workshops when critics complained his prose was too grisly.
Eliot: “Yes! Me too. Research is everything. I once spent three hours figuring out how long it would take for a person to bleed out from a femoral artery cut.”
Adrianne: “Eight to ten minutes, if the cut is clean. Faster if the person panics. Did you factor that in?”
Eliot: “You are incredible. Most people just tell me to ‘tone it down.’”
Adrianne:“Most people don’t understand dedication.”
Eliot sat back, dizzy. This was it. This was what connection felt like. He wanted to ask her everything: what she was working on, what inspired her, whether she also believed that villains were just misunderstood.
Instead he typed:
Eliot: “So... do you prefer knives or blunt objects?”
Adrianne: “Knives. Always knives. Cleaner. More personal.”
Eliot: “Exactly. God, it’s like you’re in my head.”
That night, Eliot lay awake, staring at the ceiling. He thought about her words, her precision, the way she hadn’t even hesitated with her answers. She wasn’t just another writer fumbling for ideas— sheknew. She had the same drive he did, the same need for accuracy.
He imagined meeting her in person. Sitting across from each other in a dim café, trading gruesome details over coffee. Maybe even collaborating on a book together. Their names, side by side on a cover. Eliot Vale & Adrianne Frost. Perfect.
Somewhere in her own apartment, Adrianne was staring at the same ceiling, knife resting beside her on the pillow like a bedtime talisman. For the first time in years, she felt... hopeful. Someone had asked her about her preferences without judgment. Someone had listened. Someone had said she was incredible.
Her chest ached in a way she didn’t recognise.
She decided she wouldn’t kill tonight. She wanted to see where this went.
Eliot woke the next morning giddy, his inbox blinking with a new message from Adrianne.
Adrianne: “Tell me about the first character you ever killed.”
He smiled, fingers already flying across the keys.
At last, he thought. Someone who understands.
