The space beyond swallowed him whole as he shoved the door open.
Creaak!
A creak resounded as he strained his muscles, his face turning slightly red as he felt the weight of ancientness pushing down on his trembling arms, like a primordial dragon breathing on him.
His pectoral and trapezius muscles stiffened, chest heaving a little, using all the effort he could muster to push the behemoth of a door open, like the gates to an alternative world just beyond it.
The door finally opened with the last of its resistance, scraping the red and green tiled flooring.
"This...." His eyes widened as he took in the breathtaking view that he had not dreamed he would ever live to see.
A gigantic golden hive-like structure adorned with countless gleaming golden stones that resembled the house of El Dorado, or perhaps something only King Midas would touch.
Hundreds of hexagonal cells stacked upon one another, filled to bursting with ancient tomes, books, and scrolls. The scale was staggering. If the largest modern stadiums were cities, this was a whole continent in itself.
He merely stood there, dazed.
A faint golden light glimmered from thousands, no, hundreds of thousands of sconces embedded in the walls, a strange mix of modernity and ancient grandeur.
Dust motes floated lazily in the air, disturbed only by Noel's quiet steps.
His footsteps were slow—deliberate, as he caught his breath, his eyes surveying the area in cautious interest, yes his eyes glimmering with a hint of unhidden excitement. He ran a hand along one shelf, marveling at the variety of books — some bound in cracked leather, others inscribed with strange symbols that seemed to shimmer and pulse faintly under his touch.
"Is this really just a library...? Not some kind of tomb left by some ancient beast as an inheritance?" Noel mused in intrigue.
For a moment, Noel let himself imagine what secrets these walls might hold. He felt strangely calm despite the strangeness. The world might be shifting under his feet, but here in this library, knowledge seemed eternal.
I wonder who built such a thing. I mean, I'm in another world filled with Gods, so there are probably other supernatural beings out there. Or races. Still... doesn't that mean that magic exists as well?
In that case, would that mean that this library was completely built using magic...? How interesting. Although he was in awe of where he was, his expression remained stoic as he navigated through the maze-like hive library.
As he walked around the library, which seemed endless, his eyes paused on a book that seemed to faintly glow, which made Noel's eyes widen in curiosity as he approached it.
Well, curiosity killed the cat.
But who said he was a cat? He was a... a... hmm... what was he again?
Ah, yes, a human. So curiosity wouldn't backfire on him the same way it did for cats.
Leaning forward slightly, Noel's hands reached out to touch the book but halted midair. As if making peace with himself, he blinked once before shaking his head with a dry smile, pulling back. He once more folded his hands behind his back similarly to a seasoned scholar.
"Okay, Noel... Rule #1: Do not touch anything that is glowing. That is how people seem to die in movies."
He weighed his options, hesitation lingering in the air, an internal conflict taking place inside him.
He stood there for a few moments, observing the glowing book.
Upon seeing that the glowing book — light green with a dark green edge — did not cause anything mystical to occur further like flying or chanting a certain gentleman's name, his interest in it waned, and he walked away.
He raised his head, as if attempting to look at the ceiling, a soft gasp emanating from him as he realized there weren't one or two floors, but rather, after a short time count, he arrived at the result: at least thirty floors.
As he tried to estimate the height of a single floor, he determined, using the measure of a shelf which he had calculated using a formula of his, that it reached around fifty meters.
Noel's brow twitched.
Fifty meters for a single floor.
Multiplying it by thirty floors... That would give a result of at least one thousand five hundred feet.
One thousand and five hundred feet.
Perhaps this library was the incarnation of Burj Khalifa?
His eyes flickered to the ceiling that covered the library. A circular-shaped ceiling with countless overhead lights that lit the library in an ethereal fashion, yet in the midst was circular glass formed in the centre of the well-lit circle, putting the slightly grey clouds on full display, yet the gloom not dulling a single inch of the colorful library.
Noel once more looked around him as he realized he could no longer catch sight of the entrance that had led him to where he was.
"Oh..."
No door in sight. Either the library had moved again, or his sense of direction had finally filed for retirement.
Taking his tassel off for a minute, he puckered his dry lips as he ran a hand through his hair to the back, a soft sigh escaping his lips. He gently closed his eyes, bathing in the spectacular light, inhaling the gentle air the library offered to its unexpected guest.
"Less than an hour, and I've already gotten lost. Some talent, huh?" He pressed his lips together into a thin line, his eyes narrowed as he held the bridge of his nose sharply, letting out a slow breath through his nose.
A hint of frustration crept on his features.
"I should have f*cking stayed in the classroom."
----------------
Hours could have passed, or maybe minutes — time felt loose here.
Time had become a blur. Or did time even exist here? Noel had began to doubt the thought.
Noel had wandered through endless corridors of knowledge, each turn revealing more impossible architecture—floating shelves, whispering scrolls, and books that rearranged themselves when he wasn't looking.
"The.... entrance..." A bead of sweat gently made its way down his shining forehead. His breaths were irregular because of the suffocating temperature with his full-fledged uniform, but they were within the boundaries of what a man would feel upon being stuck in his office for hours with a heavy winter jacket.
His legs ached, his breath shallow, and his mind saturated with wonder and fatigue.
"If time doesn't exist here, does fatigue? Because my legs seem to be nodding their head in agreement..."
He did not know when or how it happened. He did not know if he had walked around the library, or if he hadn't even walked halfway around it.
If there was one thing he could determine, it was that getting to the center of the library was by no means a simple feat; there did not exist many entrances to there that would assist him to do so.
In fact, when he had seen several entrances to the center of the hexagon like shelves, he had expected to find himself in a place filled with more interesting things to take note of.
But- no, nothing.
A dead end.
He entered several entrances, and yet, every single one of them was a dead exit.
He clenched his fists until his knuckles turned white, cursing under his breath.
"If I ever meet the architect of this library, then I pray he flees, because I'll f*ck-"
He was about to continue his series of curses from the first generation of the poor soul that built this library before his words trailed off, as he noticed something that he had not previously seen.
He halted in his tracks, his breath caught in surprise.
Noel's steps stuttered—one sandal-clad foot hanging in midair.
A faint hitch in his side reminded him he'd been holding his breath.
A.... staircase?
He cocked his head, lips parting just enough for a slow inhale that sent a shiver through his spine. How had he missed this? He glanced back—no sign of it before. His brow lifted in wry disbelief
Since coming to this world, Noel felt that his focus had started to decrease at an alarming rate. To the point where he probably wouldn't even tell if a mythical beast was devouring him or not until the last part of his skeleton remained.
Pressing two fingers against his temple to soothe his temper, he took steady breaths to calm himself down.
He straightens up, eyes scanning the staircase with a mix of suspicion and admiration
It wasn't any staircase, goodness gracious. No.
He finally found a staircase. It was made of floating, glowing amber hexagons, hovering in defiance of every natural law.
A spiraling structure of hexagonal steps, each one carved from translucent amber and glowing faintly from within. It rose like a honeycomb tower, winding upward through the open air, suspended by nothing but magic and mystery.
Noel blinked, unsure if his exhaustion was conjuring illusions, or if his hallucinations were getting stronger.
How odd, he thought. From what he knew, the longer drugs ran in the blood, the more they faded with time. Seems the thing that he had smoked was perhaps some alien-strange drug that had opposite effects to what normal drugs did.
He stood for a moment as if deciding on something before he cleared his throat.
Noel squinted up the spiraling amber steps. "Hello? Anyone up there? A guide would be nice, maybe a map? Even an exit sign would do."
No answer.
No, rather, there was an answer.
His own echo echoed, and echoed, and echoed, and echoed.
His eye twitched as he heard himself repeating his last phrase multiple times, as if attempting to make him feel guilt for interrupting the sacred silence of the library.
Noel sneered in response to the library's pathetic attempts.
He'd f*ck it over as payback ten times over as a bare minimum, with a 101% interest rate for all the suffering it caused him.
Noel stared at it, sighed, and without an ounce of hesitation, he began to climb.
In hopes of finding anything remotely similar to a couch or so to take off his shoes and rest his arse. It was well earned.
Frustration.
There was no handrail.