The transition was quiet.
No crashing, no fading, no dramatic pull, just a sudden awareness that he was somewhere else.
Anselm stood beneath a pale golden dome, impossibly high above. The air shimmered, not with heat, but with the weight of knowledge. Around him spiraled endless shelves, countless books stacked from floor to ceiling in an impossible labyrinthine library, alive with motion.
The books whispered.
They murmured as if breathing. Pages rustled despite the stillness. Titles blinked like nervous eyes, and some shifted places as he walked, rearranging themselves when they thought he wasn't looking.
At first, Anselm wandered.
Each step echoed softly beneath him, yet the sound never traveled far. He was barefoot, his usual coat now replaced with a thin, pale robe, the fabric delicate like parchment.
The first book that called to him didn't need to speak, it simply opened.
Inside, he saw himself.
Older. Smiling. Laughing with strangers in a sun-warmed room where no one spoke of theories or systems. Where joy wasn't dissected but lived. Where love wasn't conditional upon understanding. Anselm touched the page, and it breathed, the figures animated for a second, then dissolved.
Another book. It trembled on a nearby pedestal.
He opened it.
A version of himself who had never learned to read stared back at him. Hands stained with dirt, not ink. But the boy in the page had something in his eyes that felt... unburdened.
Free.
Anselm flinched, closed the book—but the pages tore and stuck to his fingers, bleeding words into his skin. Footnotes etched into his veins, citations branching like capillaries, knowledge creeping and pulsing.
"You did this to yourself," the books whispered, as another tore itself open.
"You devoured meaning until it devoured you."
He stumbled backward, heart racing, but the shelves bent and shifted, forming a new corridor.
There they sat.
Five chairs, elevated like, carved from ancient volumes.
Nietzsche, shirt open at the chest, his grin torn wide with disdain.
Simone Weil, hair like woven smoke, face still as winter water.
Kierkegaard, lounging like a fox in a courtroom.
Wittgenstein, fingers pressed together, eyes unreadable.
Arendt, silent but sharp, arms crossed like a scalpel at rest.
Anselm took a step forward. His mouth was dry, his robe clinging to him like soaked parchment.
"Why am I here?" he asked, his voice echoing oddly in the chamber.
Nietzsche laughed first.
"The eternal return of the same damn mistake."
Weil looked through him, not at him.
"You know why."
Kierkegaard tilted his head.
"You called us here, didn't you?"
Anselm responded. "I pursued knowledge. I only wanted to understand. To give meaning. Isn't that what you wanted?"
Wittgenstein narrowed his eyes.
"No. I wanted clarity. You wanted identity."
Anselm's voice sharpened. "So what if I found myself in books? In theory? I needed it. It gave structure when life offered none."
Simone Weil spoke softly, almost kindly.
"Structure is not a substitute for love."
He flinched.
Nietzsche leaned forward, shadows slashing across his jawline.
"You buried your suffering under the weight of other people's ideas. You didn't overcome your pain. You annotated it."
Anselm shook his head. "But I—I've read you all, over and over. I studied your words."
"Studying is not the same as listening," Kierkegaard cut in, voice almost amused.
"You skimmed our despair and underlined our courage. You turned our doubt into your wallpaper."
Anselm snapped, "That's not fair! I've struggled. I've sacrificed. I've devoted myself to understanding humanity!"
Wittgenstein spoke now, his voice cold:
"Understanding requires silence. But your mind never stops talking. All you ever did was explain, explain, explain…"
Nietzsche's grin widened like a blade.
"You cling to systems like a coward clings to armor. Even your freedom is methodized."
Anselm's fists curled. "So what was I supposed to do? Sit in the mud and feel sorry for myself? Become nothing?"
Arendt stood then, her voice the calmest of them all.
"No. You were supposed to become human."
He blinked. "I am human."
"No," she said. "You're a footnote. A brilliant one. But a footnote."
"You fear being wrong, more than being real," Weil added.
Anselm shivered. "To live requires risk. Action. I… I am afraid."
Said Nietzsche . "Fear? Or laziness? You rationalized inaction because you believe the world should bend to your analysis."
"You talk about meaning, but you've never tasted it," Kierkegaard added on.
"You fear faith. You fear surrender. You fear love unless it can be rationalized."
Anselm stepped back. "But I—"
Nietzsche roared.
"You live in your head, Anselm! But life doesn't. Life is in the guts, the groin, the ache! You study joy like it's a chemical, have you ever just let yourself feel it?"
Anselm fell to his knees.
"I thought I could build something beautiful out of truth."
Weil stepped down. Her bare feet made no sound as she approached. She touched his forehead gently.
"Then you must first let it break you."
Nietzsche spoke once more. "The man who looks but does not feel. Who quotes to the void and expects meaning to appear. He is no philosopher, only a shadow."
The chamber trembled. The books groaned around him. Words tore off the shelves like flocks of blackbirds. The philosophers faded, blown away like dust from the surface of memory.
Alone now, Anselm opened his mouth to speak.
But letters poured out—not words. Just broken syllables, nonsensical fragments.
He was disassembling.
Piece by piece.
No voice, no text, no argument left to offer.
Just the sound of pages fluttering in a void.
The last thing he heard was. "Now stop pretending."
And then—
Silence,