Chapter 17 – Hollow Eyes
1025 Words
The fog pressed low that night, crawling between the trees like something half-alive and listening. Elias moved through the forest with growing unease, every step heavy, as though the earth itself wanted to hold him back. He had followed a whisper — a tremor in the air that had sounded too much like Mira’s voice to ignore.
It led him to a grove of dead birches.
He stepped inside, and the temperature dropped instantly, biting through his cloak. The moonlight dimmed, and the world grew strangely muffled, as though wrapped in cotton.
Then he saw her.
Not Mira.
Not living.
Something else.
A figure rose between the trees, pale and thin as mist, her long hair floating though there was no wind. Her eyes were hollow — not empty, but carved by grief so deep it seemed older than time. She looked at him with recognition, though Elias knew he had never met her in life.
Still, he felt her sorrow like a spear driven into his ribs.
He reached for his dagger, but his hand trembled. “What… are you?”
The spirit lifted her chin slowly. Her voice was fragile, cracked, yet hauntingly soft.
“Once… I was Mira’s heart.”
Elias froze. “Her heart?”
The spirit drifted closer, her feet never touching the ground. He wanted to back away, but his body refused to move. A coldness wrapped around him — not evil, but pleading, desperate.
“She tore me out,” the spirit whispered. “Piece by piece. To survive.”
Her words shivered through the air.
“When her beloved died, Mira could not bear the pain,” the spirit murmured. “So the curse came. A magic promised to numb her grief. To take what hurt… and shape it into something separate.”
Elias swallowed, the forest spinning around him. “You’re saying she ripped out the part of herself that loved him?”
“And what was left behind became the witch the world fears,” the spirit said. “But I remain tied to her. Wandering. Watching. Suffering.”
In her hollow eyes, Elias saw Mira’s story — not in images, but in feelings: a young healer laughing beneath summer sunlight, a man pressing a kiss to her forehead, a sudden, violent moment of loss so sharp it shattered breath itself.
And then: Mira kneeling alone in the snow, one hand over her chest, screaming as something inside her cracked open.
Elias’s heart felt flayed.
The spirit circled him slowly, her fingers brushing the air around him. “You are dangerous to her, hunter.”
“How?” His voice scraped out, barely sound.
“Because you remind her of what she destroyed. What she buried.”
Her hollow gaze pierced him. “You make her feel again.”
Elias’s skin prickled. “If she can feel again… doesn’t that mean she can be saved?”
A long silence.
Then the spirit’s expression collapsed into anguish. “No. It means she can break again.”
The air thickened, pressing on Elias’s chest until he struggled to breathe. He stepped back, but the spirit followed, drifting like moonlight drawn toward him.
“She cares for you,” the spirit whispered. “More than she should. More than she can survive.”
Elias’s breath hitched. “How do you know?”
“Because I feel it.”
Her voice fractured like cracking ice.
“Every time you look at her — every time she looks back — I feel the ache she buried. I feel all of it.”
A gust of wind tore through the grove, carrying the scent of lilies — Mira’s scent. Elias closed his eyes, and the spirit stopped inches from him, her face inches from his.
Her presence was cold, yet intimate, terrifying in its closeness.
“You must turn back.”
“I can’t,” he whispered. “It’s too late.”
Her fingers hovered over his cheek, though she didn’t touch him. “She will love you. And that love will destroy you both.”
The words struck deeper than any blade.
“But if you run…” Her voice softened, crumbling. “If you leave now, she might remain only cursed. If you stay, she will become something far worse.”
Elias felt a tightness in his throat he couldn’t name. “What could be worse than her curse?”
The spirit’s hollow eyes reflected the moon, and for the first time her expression shifted — to fear.
“She could become whole.”
He didn’t understand. But the spirit drew back suddenly, floating higher, her long hair whipping around her like storm winds.
A violent tremor shook the ground.
The dead birch trees groaned and leaned away as though fleeing something unseen.
“She comes,” the spirit cried.
Moonlight flickered, and shadow bled between the birches — thick, black, alive. The mist churned violently, and a familiar whisper sliced through the cold air:
“Elias…”
It was Mira’s voice — but not gentle, not haunted.
This voice was furious.
This voice was afraid.
This voice was powerful enough to split the earth.
The spirit shrieked as the shadows reached her. Elias lunged forward instinctively, but his body hit an invisible barrier. The spirit looked at him — one last, agonized glance.
“Save her…” she whispered. “Or destroy her. But do not love her.”
She vanished — dragged into the dark as though swallowed whole.
The grove fell silent.
The shadows tightened around him. A figure stepped out — slow, graceful, tense. Mira stood before him, her hair wild from magic, her eyes glowing with stormlight.
Her gaze locked onto his.
“You weren’t supposed to see that,” she said — voice trembling with fury and hurt.
“Mira…” His voice broke.
She stepped closer, magic swirling around her like black fire, her emotions raw and unmasked. “Tell me exactly what she showed you.”
Elias’s heartbeat hammered painfully.
Because she wasn’t asking.
She was demanding.
She was terrified.
And the shadows around her thickened, hungry, waiting for his answer.
- Writer
