Chapter 19 — Heart in a Bottle
1185 Words
The moment Elias stepped into the cavern, the temperature dropped—not in the way of winter’s bite but like stepping into the memory of someone who had died grieving. His breath came out in pale wisps, curling upward toward stalactites that looked like hanging teeth. The air hummed softly, as though the stone itself was trying to speak to him.
He should have turned back.
But there, at the center of the cavern on a small stone altar, lay the reason he couldn’t.
A glass bottle, no larger than his palm, glowed with a faint rose-colored light. And inside it…
…a heart, still beating.
Thump… thump… thump…
Elias’s pulse stumbled. He took a step forward, drawn not by curiosity alone but by something deeper—something like recognition. As though the heart in that bottle beat in rhythm with his own.
He didn’t understand why.
But he needed to.
The Bottle Beckons
The cavern seemed to breathe with him as he approached the altar. Shadows tightened, dragging inward as though leaning closer to witness what he would do. Water trickled somewhere far behind him, each drop echoing like a ticking clock.
Elias lifted the bottle gently.
The heart’s glow intensified.
A whisper slid across the back of his mind—not a voice, not yet, but a feeling. A pull.
Sorrow. Deep sorrow. Sorrow shaped like a woman with dark eyes and a fate entwined with his.
“Mira…” The name escaped him before he realized it.
The heart gave a sharp, painful throb.
Elias nearly dropped the bottle.
A Relic of Sorrow
He steadied himself, forcing slow breaths.
This relic—this beating heart—was no ordinary curse artifact. He had seen relics that trapped voices, screams, memories… but a living piece of someone?
Impossible.
Yet here it was, pulsing in his hand.
He examined the bottle. Runes curled around the glass—old, older than the monastery ruins he had explored. Not a binding spell. Not a preservation spell. Something stranger, more intimate.
A fragment of a soul.
A vow broken.
A love severed.
The heart beat harder, the rhythm climbing. Elias felt it in his chest, syncing with him until his ribs vibrated.
“Stop,” he whispered, clutching it. “Calm down—”
The bottle responded with another sharp pulse.
A vision slammed into him.
The Vision — Mira on the Night She Was Taken
Darkness.
A circle of torches.
Mira on her knees.
Her long black hair tangled by wind and tears.
A raven perched on her shoulder, its feathers wet with blood.
Someone’s hands—men’s hands—tore something glowing from her chest.
Her scream wasn’t loud.
It was soft, heartbreakingly soft, like someone who had already cried too much to fight anymore.
The heart in their grasp glowed the exact same rose color as the one inside the bottle.
Elias’s stomach twisted.
This wasn’t just any heart.
This was hers.
Or part of it.
Then Mira’s gaze—broken, trembling—turned toward where Elias stood inside the vision.
Not seeing him.
Yet somehow seeing him.
“Bring it back,” she whispered into the darkness.
The vision shattered.
Mira’s Lost Fragment
Elias staggered against the cavern wall, gasping. The bottle nearly slipped from his hand again.
He stared at the heart.
It pulsed weakly now, as though exhausted from reliving its memory.
“Mira,” he murmured, throat dry. “What did they do to you?”
He finally understood the purpose of this chapter in his journey—this relic wasn’t a threat. It was a cry for help. A beacon so Mira’s scattered soul could be found… or perhaps freed.
He had been hunting a cursed healer.
But what if she wasn’t cursed at all?
What if she was broken—quite literally?
He touched the bottle with his fingertips, the glass warm as skin.
“I’ll return this to you,” he vowed quietly. “I don’t know what it means yet, but I will.”
The cavern rumbled faintly.
Almost in approval.
The Heart Is Not Alone
Elias turned to leave—then froze.
Another altar sat farther back, half-hidden in shadow.
And on it…
Seven shallow hollows carved into the stone.
Six were empty.
One was not.
A second bottle lay there, this one cracked, its glow extinguished. The heart inside it was shriveled, blackened like dried moss.
Elias’s blood chilled.
Someone had been collecting Mira’s heart fragments.
And someone had tried—and failed—to use one.
He moved closer, examining the dead relic. The runes on this bottle were different—tampered with, overwritten.
Rushed.
Someone had tried to steal her power.
Or to destroy her fully.
And judging by the broken bottle… they hadn’t survived the attempt.
“This isn’t just about a curse,” Elias whispered. “Someone is hunting her too.”
And he was behind them—late.
Far too late.
The Hunter Arrives
As Elias turned back toward the exit, something clicked in the darkness behind him.
Metal meeting stone.
A boot.
Not his.
He wasn’t alone.
His hand flew to his blade, but the cavern lights died instantly—snuffed out like candles in a storm.
Only the bottle in his hand glowed, faint but determined.
Somewhere in the dark, a voice rasped:
“You shouldn’t have touched that.”
Elias’s muscles locked.
“What are you?” he demanded.
A shape moved—fast, heavy, wrong.
“I was the one sent before you,” the voice croaked. “The first hunter. The one who failed.”
Elias’s heart hammered.
The dead hunter from the abandoned camp?
“Why are you here?” Elias called.
The figure lurched closer, breath rattling like broken glass.
“To warn you,” it hissed. “What you carry… it calls to her. And to those who want her ruined.”
The cavern trembled. Dust rained from the ceiling.
Elias stepped back instinctively.
“Then tell me how to help her,” he said.
The figure stopped.
Something like a laugh gurgled through its chest.
“You can’t help her,” it said. “Not without losing yourself.”
Cliffhanger — The Creature Attacks
The glow of the bottle illuminated the creature’s face for just a heartbeat—
—and Elias recoiled.
Its eyes were hollow pits.
Its skin was stretched tight over bone.
And in its chest gaped an empty hole—
the same shape and size as the bottle in Elias’s hand.
The hunter.
The one who failed.
The one who tried to use a fragment of Mira’s heart—
—and was devoured for it.
It lunged.
Elias barely raised his arm when—
CRACK!
The cavern wall behind him split open.
A gust of cold wind blasted through.
And from the fissure came a whisper, soft as a dying prayer:
“Elias… run.”
His blood froze.
It was her voice.
The creature shrieked and leapt.
Elias ran toward the fissure—
—and the light swallowed him whole.
To be continued…
- Writer
