Tres Morass's Arc

Chapter 1 of 4

Every night, Tres Morass counted the drips. Blue light leaked from the crack in his bottle, one bead at a time, and each bead was a piece of his dead wife's soul. He had trapped her spirit in the glass the night she died. He swore he would put her back into a living body. But the crack was spreading. Soon the bottle would be empty, and there would be nothing left to save. He knelt on the packed-mud floor of his buried hut. The bottle sat before him, glowing weak and pale. A blue drop swelled at the crack and fell. It struck the dirt and vanished. Tres pressed his thumb over the split. The glass was cold and slick, and the soul slipped past his skin like smoke. He needed a vessel that could not crack. He had heard the old swamp tales. A container that sealed cracks forever, painted gold with red-and-black circles, sat somewhere deep in the moss. Fools who sought it never came back. Tres had waited too long already. He wrapped the bottle in rags and crawled out into the dark. The swamp breathed around him. He passed a small tree crowned with golden mushroom caps and pushed through hanging moss. At the water's edge stood the thing that guarded the tales. Its body was long and pink and scaled like a dragon's. Great butterfly wings spread from its back, veined with gold. The guardian lowered its horned head and watched him. "Please," Tres whispered. He held out the leaking bottle. "She is almost gone." The guardian did not strike. It stepped aside. Behind it, half buried in mud, sat the golden vessel. Painted eyes stared up from its round face. A cord was tied at its lip. Tres understood then. The guardian did not stop the desperate. It only stopped the greedy, and it could see which he was. He crawled to the vessel and lifted the lid. His hands shook. The bottle's crack had opened wider on the walk, and the blue light guttered like a dying flame. He had one chance. If he spilled her, she was lost. Tres tipped the bottle over the golden mouth. The soul poured out in a thin blue thread. It swirled down into the vessel and settled, glowing brighter now, safe behind walls that would never split. He sealed the lid. The painted eyes seemed to warm. He held the vessel to his chest and wept. She was whole again, every drop of her. But as the guardian folded its wings and turned away, Tres felt the new weight of his promise. A soul, saved. And still no living body to pour her into. He had won her back from the crack only to face the harder truth: he did not know how to make her breathe again.