The shelf closed above me.
It did not shut with the sound of wood meeting wood. It was slower than that, quieter, like a long breath being drawn by something that was not alive in the way people were. The boards seemed to stretch, their grain groaning as if they had been waiting a very long time to move again.
I reached up, searching for the seam of light that had been there only moments ago. My fingers brushed the surface and met something that was no longer solid. The wood rippled under my touch, smooth yet shifting, like the surface of a pond disturbed by a small stone. My hand sank deeper than it should have, sliding into a cold that clung to my skin like frost.
There was no way back.
The darkness was thick. It wrapped itself around me until it felt like a second skin. I could hear my own breathing far too clearly, uneven and shallow. I took a step, but the ground was not where I expected it to be.
The floor gave way without warning.
I fell, but not in the way falling should feel. My stomach lifted, my head swam, and the world seemed to fold around me. Then, just as suddenly, my boots struck something brittle. A dry crunch echoed in the stillness. I crouched and touched the ground. My fingers brushed against curled edges of paper, fragile and crumbling at my touch. Pages. Countless pages, some whole, some torn to ribbons.
The air was dry, filled with the taste of dust and the weight of time.
When I breathed in, it felt as if I were swallowing the silence of a thousand forgotten voices.
A faint glow appeared ahead.
It began as little more than the spark of a dying coal, trembling in the dark. But as I moved toward it, the light grew, stretching thin fingers through the shadows. Shelves emerged on either side of me, towering far above my head.
They leaned inward as though they had been waiting for someone to pass between them.
The books rustled. Leather bindings flexed. Pages shifted against each other with soft whispers, like voices speaking too low to hear clearly.
The glow pulled me forward.
Something moved with it. It did not make a sound, yet I felt it pressing into my mind, sliding through thoughts the way water slips through the cracks in stone. I could not understand the language, but the meaning settled deep in my bones.
Come closer.
The black book I carried had grown heavier. It was no longer cold. A slow, steady warmth spread through it, the warmth of something alive. My grip tightened until my knuckles were pale.
The ground was uneven, shaped by the piles of scattered paper. Some were soft, others cracked under my weight like dried leaves. I stepped over a mound of parchment and kept moving toward the light.
At the end of the aisle, I saw it.
A door stood alone. No wall surrounded it. The frame was crooked, built from mismatched wood, pale planks smooth as river stone set beside beams dark and cracked. The handle was metal, its surface dulled and worn by countless hands over ages.
Light leaked from the narrow gap between door and frame.
Shadows shifted within it.
Open.
The whisper returned, louder this time.
I hesitated. The black book in my hand pulsed once, almost like a heartbeat. Still, I reached forward.
The handle was colder than ice. My fingers ached as they wrapped around it. For an instant, it felt as though someone was holding it from the other side. Then, the resistance faded, and the door swung open without a sound.
The air beyond was thick and damp, smelling faintly of fruit left too long in a dark place. I stepped through.
The shelves here were taller still. Their tops vanished into shadow. The books on them were different. Some were bound in stone, polished to a smooth shine. Others were covered in scales that shifted as if breathing. A few had no titles at all. Their covers moved faintly, almost imperceptibly, like the rise and fall of sleeping chests.
The door closed behind me.
I did not turn to see if it was still there.
Ahead, the aisle stretched straight and narrow until it ended in another pale glow. Standing in the center of that glow was a figure.
It was tall, so thin it looked like it might vanish if I blinked. Its edges were blurred, like ink bleeding into wet paper. It had no face, yet I felt its gaze as surely as if it had eyes.
I walked toward it.
Each step was quiet, muffled by the uneven floor. The shelves seemed to bend closer the farther I went, their shadows reaching toward me. Once, my hand brushed the spine of a book, and something twitched beneath the leather cover, pulling away as though resenting the touch.
I stopped a few paces away.
The figure raised one long hand. Resting in its palm was a key.
It was longer than my hand, carved from something as clear as glass. Within it drifted tiny sparks of light, swirling slowly as though caught in a current. The glow inside pulsed, steady and deliberate.
Will you trade.
The whisper was direct now, carrying no hint of patience.
I looked down at the black book in my hand.
What for, I asked. My voice was little more than a breath.
The figure lifted its other hand, palm open. The space above it rippled, distorting the air. A heavy pressure pressed down on my chest, unseen yet undeniable.
Only what you will give, the whisper said.
The glow within the key deepened, bright enough to cast thin shadows across the floor.
I hesitated. The black book's warmth had grown into a steady, living heat. It felt as though my pulse and its own had begun to move together. Yet the key called to me, promising something just beyond my reach.
The figure began to lower its hand.
I stepped forward before it could turn away.
My fingers closed around the key. The moment I touched it, the whispers rose like a sudden storm. The shelves groaned. Pages tore themselves free and whirled into the air, spinning like startled birds.
The figure leaned closer.
Now open what waits.
The shelves slid back into the shadows. The ground stretched out into a wide, open space. At its center stood another door, far taller than the first. Its surface was covered in carvings that twisted and changed each time I tried to follow their lines.
The key grew warm in my hand.
I took a step forward, and the carvings began to glow. Light ran through them like water, spilling out across the empty space. The glow spread to the shelves far beyond, revealing that the path I had walked through was gone.
Only the door remained.
And something waited on the other side.
---