Heart and Soul

The endless pits bore into my flesh. He stood in front of me now. Twelve minutes for a procedure that normally took seconds was not acceptable. My stomach boiled over while I leaned over the waste basket. “Give me my belongings!” His snarl seemed to worsen with each passing second. I looked into the glass again.

“I..I’m trying!” I heaved breaths. Pushing this soul out seemed more and more like a stalemate.

“Try harder!”

Tyson was ordered away from the door two minutes prior to this attempt. His weakness swelled in the room as he watched me waste energy. I wondered when his heart would be removed.

“Just… Give me…”

“No. You have no more time. Either expel it, now, or take your chances.” He took my chin between his thumb and fore fingers, forcing my eyes onto his. I could feel the soul within me shudder and pull back into the depths of my own darkness.

“Can I have a minute,” I sighed. “Alone?” His eyes widened, and for a moment I thought I was going to be sucked into their abyss. Maybe floating away in their eternal, dark blankness wouldn’t be so bad?

“No!” He shook my chin. “Show me the speck, Nicholai!”

“It’s fighting me,” I growled. “Give me a minute to calm it down!”

He shoved my chin so hard that the chair I perched in nearly toppled over. I caught the edge of his desk with the toe of my boot just in time. “Five minutes, Nick. I know you know exactly how long that is. Five minutes, and I’m bursting through this door to get what’s mine.” His eyes narrowed again. “And I will use force if necessary.”

The door slammed shut behind me. Something shattered on the floor. Hopefully the shattered object was that ugly beige vase he kept on top of a set of file cabinets by the door. That thing seemed to haunt the rest of our vast gray world.

“Alright,” I sighed into the empty room. My shoulders straightened while I stared into the clearest part of the glass—the off white dress swirling around a woman. The center of it portrayed a woman dancing in a gentle breeze. Its reds, greens, and blues were far from their home in this drab world. But this was its home now.

I took a deep breath and imagined myself with the woman. Her long honey curls bouncing around her shoulders while she spun and giggled against the breeze. The sun warmed her olive skin, and caught each fleck of gold in her cinnamon eyes like they were fireflies. My muscles relaxed while the contents of my stomach calmed. I closed my eyes, and, for just a moment, I was there with her.

Something was wrong with the woman that appeared not to have a care in the world. It wasn’t her curls. There wasn’t a problem with the way her off-white sundress clung to her curvy body as the wind attempted to sweep it away. Her smile—beautiful square teeth with a slight gap between the front two playing shyly between full, glossy lips that curved into perfect soft indentions—was more than attractive. I searched endlessly, but I couldn’t find a thing wrong with her slightly knotted nose with the button tip. The problem was her cinnamon eyes with the golden flecks. The sun reflected off them, but there was no shimmering light behind them.

She had no soul.

The woman didn’t care to speak when she noticed me. She spun once more before running to my side. I watched her laughing brightly. She tilted my face toward the sun, and I could feel it. Warmth washed over my face; I hadn’t felt such warmth in decades. She turned my head back toward her eyes. I found myself smiling softly at her. The smile on her lips didn’t falter as her eyes roamed my face; dead eyes, pointed nose, and teeth like a shark. Mine was a face that screamed danger, a face doomed to wreak havoc.

Her hands found their way into mine. I looked deep within those cinnamon eyes. Every ounce of me wanted to find a soul within her. Please let this creature of beauty be real. Her smile widened to reveal more perfectly human pearls. The tug drawing me toward her started before I let myself fall back into reality.

The off white dress wasn’t white when I stared into it again. My aching muscles didn’t ache anymore. That wasn’t the peculiar thing. My stomach rumbled with hunger pains. It wasn’t strange for me to be hungry after wasting so much energy. The oddity in the room, the once off white dress was now a silvery green color which seemed to dance in the opposite direction of the non-existent wind on the stained glass.

I wiped my clammy forehead on my sleeve before I stood. Nothing made me dizzy. My limbs felt like my own for the first time in what seemed like an eternity. It was actually three hours, seven minutes, and nine seconds. The glass fit in its medium sized dark wooden case. I watched as the shimmering soul seemed to wave to me while I closed the box.

The door flew open. “Give me…” the man with dark ashen hair that faded into his flushed skin growled, but stopped short.

“It’s done.”

He offered me his usual deadly grin before nodding in content. “I need to feed,” I stated. Exhaustion kept the false emotion that rang in my voice dulled. His eyes narrowed on me. My face mirrored his.

“I want to see it first.” He snarled.

“Look in the box.” I pointed.

His fingers glided over the smooth wood before pulling the latch open. Green danced in his soulless pits as his razors found the light of day. The box gently closed as he focused on me. “I don’t like the way this was done, Nicholai.” He shook his head. “But I can see that you do need to feed.” His fingers formed around my chin. “Don’t go back to her.”

I shook my head, trying to figure out who exactly he meant. The woman in the white that should be real—should be mine—or the woman whose soul consumed me.

“She is mine, Nicholai. Do not go near my witch again.”

I nodded in agreement. He squeezed my jaw until my lips parted. “Never,” I whispered. He released me, and I walked the hundred and three steps to the portal.

‘Don’t go near her!’ Echoed through my ears.

“Never,” I whispered again as my body left the Underlands.