Elaine’s eyelids opened slowly. It was a quiet and deliberate movement, as if the frozen second hand of a clock had just started to move again. She felt dizzy and her vision was blurry, as if waking up from a long sleep. She blinked her unfocused eyes slowly.
She saw the sky. The stars were densely packed in the early morning sky and emitted a faint light. The dawn air filling her lungs was fresh and crisp.
She felt alive.
“Gasp…!”
Suddenly, startled, Elaine jumped up, letting out a gasp. Then, in her vision was a desolate wilderness filled with the remains of broken buildings. She looked around, bewildered at the scene around her.
‘Where am I?’
As she looked around, everything looked both familiar and unfamiliar to her. At the same time, it was a place where there was no life to be found.
‘Am I dead? Is this the afterlife?’
If that was the case, it would make sense why there was no sign of life. However, this was her first experience with death, and her first time in the afterlife, her surroundings felt too familiar to be the afterlife.
And the soothing cool air? Could the dead feel this comfort?
‘Am I actually dead?’
‘Wasn’t my breathing completely cut off after my heart was pierced?’
The answer came immediately.
No, that never happened in the first place.
‘My breath… I’m still breathing.’
In an instant, all the scenes of the previous events came together and filled her mind. Memories surfaced and Elaine’s head felt like it was going to explode. The events that occurred just before she had lost consciousness came to mind as vividly as if it happened moments ago.
The memories came back, as well as the emotions of that day.
“hah…”
A short sigh escaped from her mouth.
‘How could I forget, even for a moment.’
The events were all so vivid. When she came back to her senses and took another look around again, the scene was so unreal that it gave her goosebumps. Not even a corpse remained in the land where the witch’s flame had consumed everything. It was as if life never existed in this place to begin with.
The capital of Seveka, once called the blessing of the kingdom, no longer existed.
“Haha…”
A faint laugh escaped her lips. It wasn’t a dream. The pounding in her chest proved it. The nightmare of that night was real. Bella’s death and her giving her heart to me.
At the last moment, when she felt death swiftly approaching, Elaine clearly remembered Bella’s heart in her hands, and the white shimmering appearance of Bella as she disappeared into the air.
‘Oh, I see. I’m alive. You didn’t let me die.’
Because Bella gave up her life.
Her heart.
‘You gave me your heart?’
Elaine hastily felt her chest. She could feel her soft skin through her ripped clothes. New skin had grown where the blade had previously penetrated. It was smooth, without any scars.
The witches heart had the ability to heal the injuries of the owner. The fact that she is alive and there isn’t a single wound on her body is probably due to the power of eternal life possessed by the witch’s heart.
The heart was pounding. She could clearly feel her heart beating.
‘I’ll give you my heart.’
She knew very well who this heart belonged to. The person who taught her what it was like to be loved, for the first time in her life. The person who had become the roof and the pillars to which Elaine lived for. The person who put her first, even giving up her own life.
The life of a person precious to Elaine was now lost, scattered like the wind.
Elaine was panting as she clutched her chest. Her heart started to beat anxiously. The guilt over her own survival weighed on her entire being. Being alive felt like a sin. She felt sick and disgusted at how her body was devouring the oxygen in the air greedily every time she took a breath.
Tearfully Elaine cried.
“Why did you save me…”
She hadn’t begged Bella to save her life. She was prepared to die as she didn’t have the confidence to live in this world alone, without her.
‘I’m sure Bella knew.’
Even knowing that Elaine refused to live on without Bella, she still entrusted her heat to Elaine.
Still Elaine couldn’t blame Bella. She couldn’t hate Bella for leaving her alone. Elaine had seen her crumbling face at the last moment, unable to even think of living on with the self-blame and regret of what she had done.
Who was it who had saved Elaine in the first place from almost being torn to pieces by a wild monster? It was Bella who gave her a second chance. Even if it was Bella who killed her this time, she wouldn’t have been able to hold a grudge. Even though she knew Bella felt guilty about the massacre, Elaine still didn’t want her to die.
However, rather than choosing to let Elaine die, Bella gave up her life and chose to save Elaine.
The thought of Bella’s heart inside her body filled Elaine with pain, she knew very well how Bella felt about saving her life. That alone was the reason she couldn’t die. Even if she now has no reason to live, she must not die. The weight of the life forced onto her was far too heavy.
Elaine moaned and covered her face with both hands. Then, the faces of the people precious to her came to mind, one by one.
Espel, Lloyd and… Ash, son of Bella and Lloyd.
‘What happened to everyone else?’
She never saw any of them that day.
When Elaine arrived, Seveka was already in ruins. Ash was just a child, and if Lloyd or Espel had seen what Bella was like, there’s no way they would have left her alone. They would definitely have tried to stop Bella.
However, from what Elaine saw, Bella had not been hindered in any way. If was because they failed to stop Bella….
‘That means…’
In the chaos, they too may have been killed by Bella’s hands. Elaine tried to stop herself from falling into despair, but ultimately failed in the end and the feeling engulfed her.
‘Sorry… It’s all my fault…’
The words came to mind again, along with the face of the person who had destroyed everything that Elaine had loved in this world. Then the face of that person, filled with self-blame and regret as they collapsed onto the ground. Now there was only a feeling of emptiness, as if everything had been lost.
“This is too… cruel.”
To everyone, including Bella.
Elaine’s eyes became hot and teary. The tears began to overflow and run down her cheeks, leaving behind a trail.
Elaine was still, as if nailed to the spot, as she wept in silence. She didn’t even notice when the day became night then turned back to day.
Elain’s body, containing the heart of Bella, a witch, did not grow tired. Even though she sat there, shedding tears for hours upon end, her body recovered instantly, as if it had never happened. Her tears continued to fall, refusing to dry up, just like her bleeding heart.
***
Elaine slowly wiped the moisture from her still wet eyes.
How many days had she been here? She had been doused in tears day and night and it was only around dawn when she came back to her senses. Now it felt like her mind was empty. Then practical thoughts began to come back to her slowly, one by one.
The first thing that came to mind was the reason why Bella had gone insane. It was not Bella’s will to become like that. There was the bead hanging around her neck. When she broke the orb, Bella had regained her senses and regained consciousness.
There must have been some connection between that and the reason she went crazy.
‘Maybe Bella was… under a spell.’
A black magic circle had covered the ground of the royal palace. An unusual energy was flowing from there. And then there were the wizards lying on the ground. There was no doubt that something had happened in that room.
Someone had drawn a magic circle to trap Bella.
Elaine gritted her teeth.
‘Someone…’
There were many people who sought the witch’s heart for eternal life. If you searched the entire continent to find such people, the numbers would be endless.
But, there was something she couldn’t understand. If eternal life was the goal, a spell to neutralize Bella should have been used to steal her heart. No matter how you looked at Bella at the time, she was in an uncontrollable state. Unless it was their wish to die, there would be no reason to make a witch go on a rampage.
Maybe something went wrong with the magic? Could it be Bella went crazy due to unforeseen circumstances? In the end, it was all just theories. There was no evidence to support any of her hypotheses, even if they were reasonable guesses.
In the end, Seveka was completely burned down. Anything that could have served as evidence would have been lost at that time. There were no clues left to find the culprit.
Elaine didn’t stop thinking though. She will surely find some clue, something that she missed. She thought through what she knew, over and over again. Then her own palm caught her eye.
“Magic Circle…”
The clue was closer than she thought. The magic circle on the necklace that Bella was wearing, the one that she had broken with her very own hands. Elaine remembered the pattern. She drew a line on the dirt covering the floor, following the pattern of the magic circle from memory.
The border was a perfect circle. There was a vertical slit, like any eye in the center and countless lines intertwined around it. She paused for a moment before continuing to draw the messy lines. She could distinctly remember the eye shape in the middle but, the rest was vague.
Partly because the pattern was so complicated, and because the situation was urgent then, there was no time to take a proper look. Unless someone was a genius and could remember with only a short glance, it was almost impossible to memorize the magic circle in such a short period of time. She chewed of her lip while she contemplated. After a moment of silence, she suddenly ripped off the collar of her shirt and spread it on the ground.
Then with her teeth, she ripped open a slice on her finger and drew the same picture on the fabric that she had drawn on the ground. Even though her memory was not perfect, she had to have something to leave behind so she would not completely forget.
Elaine’s eyes turned cold as she stared at the pattern drawn in blood.
Her only clue was this clumsy picture. But, even if that is so, she will still find the culprit who caused this tragedy. She would find them and make them pay for bringing tears to the eyes of so many innocent people.
No matter how long it takes, she would never give up. Even if it takes the rest of her life.
Well, her time will be hatefully long and infinite now anyways.
