Chapter 33: One Last Empathetic Spell

YEAR 1020

It is still the 11th century and the sun is still shining joyously. Oh, how simpler times have been, back then.

It has been 5 years since Malinda and Maverick have met. The five years they share, they have been by each other's side, helping each other with different things and trying to get by the hard world.

Maverick and Malinda are outside the cave feeling pleasant as always. Malinda is practicing her newly found powers on a bird with a broken leg. She learned this because Maverick has been teaching her. He, on the other hand, is sculpting the image of Malinda on a big boulder outside the cave using magic. Maverick was unconsciously smiling as he does.

It was no secret that Maverick is in love with Malinda and has asked her several times for courting. In the five years, he had taught her how to live, helped her with what she will do in life and gave her the ability to use magic.

Maverick takes a peek at her and smiles, gesturing the sculpture "How do you like it?"

Malinda, being very focused on her job, was not looking and still tries to cure the bird, "It's good." Her face suddenly lit up when the bird's leg finally de-fractured. "I did it!" She sings a sweet melody afterwards.

Maverick offers a proud smile and finishes his work to go sit beside her. He gently caresses the bird and compliments, "I'm happy you can do it very finely, now." Malinda smiles back and was about to grab another ill bird. Maverick grabs her wrist to stop her, "I want to talk to you."

She hesitated before answering. "Okay, what is it?"

He holds her hand with both of his hands firmly as he relaxed on his seat. He gives a warm smile and starts, "Malinda, my dear, you are the love of my life and the light that shines in my eyes. For years and years now, we have been living together. I've been asking you every now and then to be mine and mine only and you said you were thinking of an answer. And years passed by, I still await of your answer. Do you already have it?"

Malinda avoids his eyes and nods slowly.

Maverick asks, "Then once again, may I have this honor to marry you, Malinda?"

"Uh, no."

His mood suddenly changed and became defensive, "What, why not?"

"You aren't my personal preference and…" she pauses, "I want to live alone starting today."

Maverick let go of her hand and did not know what to say.

Malinda continued, "I didn't know when the best time to tell you this was. But I have decided."

Maverick grew angry and stood up aggressively, "But I have done so much for you!"

"Yes, I know. But since I have these powers now. I can take care of myself anymore. Without you. I acknowledge your deeds, but for now… we can live off our own paths."

He becomes furious and pacing back and forth. Malinda was blabbering nonsense, trying to get a hold of him and still going by her word.

Suddenly, he then faces her in pure hatred and levitates high in the air.

Malinda stood up and took a step aback, fearing her life. Maverick's eyes were white while screaming with immense power. All of a sudden, the wind also has gone mad and the clouds bundled together, turning grayish and unhinged. Because of the thunderstorms and lightnings, it looked like it's going to rain. He stops screaming and stretched his hand towards Malinda.

"This is the 10th time I have asked you yet, you refuse my admiration! I have done so much for you. I have given you gifts, the ability of sorcery, I took care of you for years, sculpted you, took care of you and loved you. But you only care for yourself!

"For this, I will make you learn that you need to appreciate other people's works for you.

"A curse: Your soul will be entrapped inside this cave with the pond of dirt. Your physical body will be inside the sculpture I created, slowly rotting with every year that goes by! The only way you will retrieve this curse is if you truly learn how to love and receive love with your egotistical self! The pond will be as clear as a diamond only if the person and you have a special connection with can save your life.

"If you have not found this love by the next 10th century of time, you will cease to exist, and no one will ever remember your name and this cave exist as everything you are associated with will repeat!

"You will learn how you will never find love, and no one will love you evermore!" Maverick ends.

Malinda screams in horror and lugubrious pain as her body is separated from her soul that transported inside the cave, leaving Maverick outside. The pond is full of dirt as said and her face is full of terror and panic trying to process what happened.

She quickly tried her best to escape outside the cave, but she fell down once she reached the very entrance that connects it from outside. She stood up again after a daze, trying to get out, but she can't. There seemed to have a field of force separating the inside and the outside of the cave.

Maverick slowly landed on the floor, processing what he just did, pondering if he regrets his action or not. He takes deep breathes and looks up as a raindrop landed on his head. More and more raindrops fall, and a storm was beginning.

Maverick was weak enough to try to go inside and do something—anything else about Malinda. He stood there just staring at the cave, getting wetter by the second, speculating how the person inside is currently doing. He could not hear anything at all at that moment.

And Maverick couldn't lie to himself that he did therein fact yearned for the harmonious melody that he would usually hear from Malinda.

Therefore, as one last empathetic spell for her, he pointed his fingertips towards the cave which made a little spark fly through the it. It was a spell that allowed Malinda's voice to capture the attention of seekers whenever she would sing.

He sighed. He looked down to the ground as the look of his eyes would turn more woeful by the second. He didn't want to stay here anymore. It's not because of the rain; the reason was more personal and darker.

Maverick takes one last look at the sculpture she made for Malinda and leaves the place whilst dragging his feet and having an undecipherable expression.

No one knows what became of the man.

On the other side, there was Malinda, screaming and crying, panicking, and resisting. It's as if everything had completely stopped for her, which really had. And she was now completely alone. She tried everything she could to escape the cave, but nothing worked at all. She only learned an insufficient piece of sorcery and using it would even drain her body at times.

Days and days, and night after night, she would go toward the edge of the cave and stare directly at the mortifying darkness, not knowing what out there could be. And every day, she would keep trying to do anything so that she could find out. But the more times that she failed, the more times her hope and motivation digressed from her body.

Until she had fully succumbed to the emptiness of the cave.

For decades up until centuries, she thought and kept thinking. After the countless of men who went inside and tried to save her, nothing worked.

Most of the time, she has been alone with her thoughts, usually crying and mourning thinking how she can return to her past self and live her once normal and happy life, if it really was.

Sometime during this, she has come to the conclusion that she probably will never experience true love, ever.

And she would always blame herself.