Heart's Desire

It'd taken years to find the drink, and now it sat before him like a long, long lost friend, deep inside a lost cave. It set back on a rock shelf covered in snow and ice looking like something forbidden. The blackness of the bottle sparkled in the low dim light like a diamond in the night sky. Temping anyone looking at it to take a drink.

The cave hadn't been easy to find. However, nothing worth its salt was easy. He sat on a snow covered stone and looked at the drink longer. The legend said once it was open you had to drink the entire bottle or die. What if it tasted bad? What if he drank it and then throw it up? The possibilities were endless. Could It make him float? Could it make his feet feel like weights? Could It turn him into a statue? Who knew what it could do. The legend said it'd give you your heart's desire.

He glanced at the bottle again. It was a big bottle. It had to contain lots of liquid. What if it tasted good? So good, in fact, that he'd be sorry when the bottle was empty. He smacked his lips thinking about that. The bottle continued to sparkle on the shelf before him. Like the eye in a troubled storm.

maybe it was a curse. What if he drank it and turned into a mushroom? It did say your heart's desire. He'd never wanted to be a mushroom. So... what was his heart's desire?

He could sit here for days thinking about all sorts of things. The best thing to do, he finally decided, was to just open it up and drink it, or just pick it up and take it. The Legend didn't say he had to drink it in the cave. The legend didn't say he had a certain amount of time to drink it. It just said to drink it would bring your heart's desire.

With shaking hands he reached up to the shelf and wrapped his fingers around the throat of the bottle. It felt cold to the touch and his penis grew a bit hard just by the touch. He carefully lifted the bottle up from the shelf. He felt scared it might be frozen to the surface; but, it wasn't.

It didn't weight much either. The lid was closed with a cork. All he had to do was pull it out and drink up. He felt sudden fear when he realized that the liquid inside could be frozen. How was he gonna drink that? His fingers began to shake. He shook the bottle up and down and was relived to find it unfrozen.

He placed the bottle on the stones in front of him and pulled at the plug. It came out easily. He sniffed at the lid of the bottle. It didn't smell. He tried to look inside the bottle. But it was so black he couldn't see anything. What if there were dead spiders in the liquid and he had to eat those too?

He tried to shine his flashlight into the mouth of the bottle. It was so black inside he saw nothing. He had to drink every drop after the bottle was opened or legend said he'd die an unholy death. Already the big toe on his left foot felt like it was swelling.

He took a deep breath and upturned the bottle so the liquid fell directly into his mouth and flowed down the back of his throat so he couldn't taste it, much.

First he choked, then he coughed. The liquid tasted like the sweetest honey he'd ever tasted. It wasn't thin like water; yet, it wasn't heavy like honey either. He stopped drinking and licked his lips making sure he got it all. He turned it back up again and kept drinking. Now it tasted like beer, thin and runny. Already he was feeling a bit tipsy. He stopped drinking. He sure didn't need to become drunk. He glanced around. The entire cave felt different. It felt rather inviting, something like home. He turned up the bottle and took another long drink. He tasted cherries. Little bits of cherries fell into his mouth as he drank. He stopped drinking when the bottle became empty and chewed up the cherries and swallow them.

There was nothing in this life like a good cherry. He glanced around again. What was that over on the shelf on the back wall? He got up and staggered in that direction. Indeed, it was another bottle. Just like the one he'd just finished drinking.

He sat the old one down and moved to the second one. He pulled out the plug and swallowed. He frowned it was sour! He sat it back down and turned away. However, after a few minutes he felt the big toe on his left foot start to swell. He lit it up with his flashlight only to see that his toe was looking like a mushroom. He turned back to the second bottle, only then just realizing he had to drink it too.

He'd been given his heart's desire and that was to find and drink the contents of the bottle no matter what was inside...