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There was something amiss when Erik climbed from his coffin. It was true he didn't enter his sleeping chamber as often as an average man; but he was familiar enough with its layout to know something didn't belong. At the foot of the coffin's perch, a hulking black outline sat in ambush.
Reacting on instinct, Erik pounced on the intruder. His spindly hands reached for a throat he expected to be there, but met only a solid mass with a crack of pain and a loud curse. Tending to his bruised fingers, Erik went about lighting the room – and found his "ambush" had been nothing more than a wooden trunk. After taking a moment to nurse his wounded pride, Erik realized he had never seen this item before. He hadn't been the one to place it there.
The skin between his shoulders prickled as it dawned on him: someone had been in his room as he slept.
He turned to check the lock on his front door, but paused. Laying on the bedroom floor – as if slid beneath the door – was an envelope. Hesitantly, Erik retrieved it and took it with him to inspect the rest of the house.
"Dearest Erik,
I've seen your wounds. The world has been unfair to you, Monsieur – you know this. May these gifts offer you peace.
- A Friend"
Erik read the note over again. Then again. Then again. It wasn't in any handwriting he identified. Nor did he understand its message. As opposed to proper cursive, the script was written in clean black letters – the strokes eerie in their symmetry.
After searching every possible nook in the house, nothing else was amiss besides the note and the mysterious chest it seemed to be alluding to. Rising from his seat in the drawing room, Erik crept back to his bedroom. He watched every shadow from the corners of his eyes, keen to notice anything else that might suddenly change as he turned his back.
The chest opened easily and without so much as a squeak from its hinges. It appeared to have just been crafted – he even detected the invisible grain of sand dust on his fingertips. Bracing himself, he peered within.
A small gasp left his lips when he saw the object sitting atop all the others. Without a thought, his hand reached and withdrew it: an eggshell-colored handkerchief. Perplexed, Erik ran his thumbs over the lace borders – roughened with age. The scent of his mother's perfume of choice met his sinus, even from a foot away. He couldn't decide if he should burn the damned piece of fabric, or hide it away where he might stumble upon it again.
His gaze wandered to another item in the chest, this time a faded blue hair ribbon. It was still tied in a neat bow, and a dried lilac was held tight in its loop. Erik remembered that flower...he had been the one to tie it there so, so many years ago. His first love. He had only been a boy – a runaway street urchin – but he had fallen so blindly in love with that girl. What had been her name, again? He was unsure if he'd ever heard it. She sneaked him food every day, while he hid behind her family's bakery in the early mornings. To show his thanks, he had found her – stolen her – that ribbon. He had wandered the parks and sidewalks for hours to find that lilac growing where no other flower could reach. He had tied it into her hair, thinking she was the most beautiful thing made by God's hands.
Yet, slowly, she had stopped meeting him behind the bakery. He saw her often, though. She would be walking after school with a group of other girls, giggling and whispering among themselves. Erik once caught sight of her in the window of the bakery, wearing that same lilac and ribbon. They had made eye contact, but it had been the girl to turn her face away. That was the last time he saw her.
He had waited every morning, still. Until hunger drove him to look elsewhere. As a young man, he sometimes wondered what had become of that girl.
Shaking himself from his memories, Erik frantically began digging through the contents of the chest. His chest tightened when he realized how many objects were crammed inside. Confusion arose when he came across mundane items that sparked nothing in his memory: a singular men's boot, a pocket watch, etc. However, the deeper he dug, the more familiar items came to light: the silver badge of a palace guard, a garment or two in the style of Persia's elite. Finally, his trembling hands withdrew a red veil adorned with golden tassels – the favorite of the Sultana.
At last, Erik understood the connection all the items had. His mind reeled, questioning how any of this was possible and who had brought them to his bedchamber. Even as his mind searched for answers that weren't there, his hands roamed the interior of the chest at their own command.
He was bending at the waist to reach the next item, and the contents he had removed already lay scattered around him. He was coming to the bottom, and he concluded there were only a few items left. He retrieved the next item without truly seeing it – his mind elsewhere – but it was the contrast of sickly brown against white that drew his eye to it.
It was another handkerchief, this time silken and creased – as if hardly used. Erik squinted at the blotches of ruddy brown that stained the item, and turned it over in his hands. The coppery tang of old blood met his senses, just as he saw the embroidering on the corner of the cloth. A simple "R", completely smothered in the stain.
Erik felt like he was teetering above a great drop. The corners of his vision started to swim. The blood...was still somewhat wet.
This time, Erik looked into the chest before letting his hands wander into it. There were two items left inside. The first, he didn't need to pick up to identify. A red fez cap sat in the corner of the chest's bottom, flattened from the weight of all the other trophies it had been buried under. The second, was a fist-sized paper box. It, too, was flattened – a feat much easier to achieve from being soaked in the half-dry fluid.
It took all his courage, but Erik peeled the soggy lid from the box and tossed it aside. His hands flew to his chapped lips, just in time to stifle his retching. The burn of acid in his throat brought tears to his eyes; but just before he had to turn away to empty his intestines, he caught sight of the message on the inside of the box's lid. It was washed out with blood, but the lettering was just barely clear enough to read:
"You're welcome. – A Friend"
Sitting flattened at the bottom of the chest, squeezed of all its fluids, was a fresh human heart.