The room was too wide to measure, the ceiling too far above to guess its height. Even the walls seemed to bend, not in stone or wood but in something else—smooth, pale, and endless. The glow from the etched number 73 was the only certain thing here, casting the gathered figures into shades of ghostly white.
For a long time, no one spoke.
They shifted in their robes, restless. Some sat with knees drawn up, pressing their foreheads against trembling arms. Others stood in stiff poses, trying to look unshaken, though their darting eyes betrayed them. The air felt weighted, as though silence itself were a curtain draped over them, pressing on every chest.
The young man stood near the edge of the group, not leaning against the wall, not moving closer either. He simply watched. His eyes traced every twitch of nervous fingers, every shallow breath. The silence wasn't unbearable to him—it was useful. Silence revealed the raw seams of people.
It broke when a sharp voice cut through the stillness.
"We can't just sit here."
Heads turned. A girl stood rigid, her dark hair hanging in jagged strands across her face. Her eyes—piercing, unflinching—moved from one stranger to the next. "We need to call each other something. Or are you all happy to stay nobodies?"
Her demand rang out against the walls, echoing like a challenge.
Someone let out a harsh laugh. A boy, thin, his hands twitching at the sleeves of his robe. "Names? What for? We probably don't exist. Don't you get it?" His laugh cracked. "What's the point of names in hell?"
Murmurs followed. A few agreed, nodding at the logic. Others shook their heads violently, desperate to cling to the opposite idea.
The girl's eyes narrowed. "If you don't want a name, don't take one. But don't drag the rest of us into your grave."
The young man continued to watch. A debate like this was inevitable. Fear always needed a target, and right now it was the idea of identity itself.
Another voice joined, softer, hesitant. "Maybe… maybe she's right. We should at least… try." The speaker was a small girl with hair hanging over her face, her lips trembling as she spoke. She almost whispered the next part: "If we don't… how will we know we're real?"
That thought hung heavier than silence.
Someone muttered back, "Real? What does that even mean here?"
But the first girl ignored them. She folded her arms and jutted her chin. "Fine. If we can't remember, we'll make something up."
The boy with the twitching hands sneered. "Like what? Cute nicknames?"
"Yes," she shot back without hesitation. "Better than nothing."
A shift stirred the circle. Uneasy curiosity. If they couldn't remember who they were, maybe they could at least shape who they would be.
It started awkwardly.
The boy with the sneer earned his first. Someone, frustrated with his constant movements, called him Trip. The name stuck quickly, spat out in both mockery and practicality. He rolled his eyes but didn't argue—it was something to hold onto, even if ugly.
The girl with the sharp gaze was dubbed Glass, a mixture of respect and wariness for how her stare seemed to cut through anyone who met it. She accepted it with a stiff nod, as though she had expected nothing less.
The trembling girl, the one who whispered, was different. While they argued about her, she began humming faintly, a tune so fragile it seemed ready to shatter. That was enough. Song was pressed onto her by a stranger's tongue, and she flinched but didn't resist.
One by one, the circle began stitching labels onto each other. Some cruel, some gentle, some meaningless. The strangeness of it caused brief, nervous laughter—the first sound resembling relief since awakening.
But the young man stayed silent.
Eyes turned toward him eventually, the weight of expectation pressing. Someone asked, "And you? What should we call you?"
He didn't answer. His gaze was steady, expression unreadable.
Another voice chimed, sharper: "Come on, everyone else has one."
"I don't need one."
The reply was flat, final. It unsettled the others. A refusal to join their fragile game of pretending.
But a boy with restless energy smirked, unwilling to leave it there. "Look at him. Doesn't even blink. He's like a—what? A wall? No… a stone. Yeah. Stone."
The name spread faster than resistance. Murmurs of "Stone" moved around the circle, trying it out like a coin between fingers.
The young man didn't correct them. He didn't care. A name was only as sharp as the belief behind it, and theirs were already dulled by fear.
For a few minutes, the tension eased. The nicknames gave the illusion of ground beneath their feet. They even managed weak jokes, laughter cracking the suffocating quiet.
But illusions never lasted here.
The trembling girl—Song—broke the moment. Her voice quavered, but the words were clear. "What if… what if we're not supposed to have names anymore?"
The laughter died instantly.
"What do you mean?" someone asked.
"What if… that's the test? If we try to be someone, we get… punished?" She wrapped her arms around herself, shrinking as though the Library itself might hear.
"No," Glass snapped, though her own eyes flicked nervously to the glowing 73. "Names are proof we're real. If we forget them, we disappear."
The circle murmured again, but now the whispers carried paranoia instead of relief.
"Disappear?"
"What if that's what the number means?"
"What if seventy-three is us, and it drops when someone… goes missing?"
Everyone stared at the wall. The number glowed steady, indifferent.
A boy whispered, "What happens if it says seventy-two?"
No answer came.
The fear twisted tight again, worse than before. Every attempt at security was swallowed by doubt.
That was when the young man spoke for the first time.
His voice was calm, unshaken, precise. "It doesn't matter what we call ourselves."
The circle stilled. Eyes turned toward him.
"What matters," he continued, "is why we're here."
The coldness of it cut through the chaos like a knife. Some looked at him with suspicion, others with something close to relief. For a heartbeat, his detachment felt like strength.
But it also unsettled them—someone so calm while they trembled.
The moment stretched, until Glass finally muttered, "Fine. Nicknames, then. Just until we… figure things out."
Weak agreement rippled around. The circle broke apart. Some sat back down, clutching their knees. Others pressed against the wall, avoiding eyes. Trip muttered to himself. Song hummed again, fragile as before.
The young man remained standing. He hadn't moved since the circle began. While the others tried to stitch their fear into temporary bonds, he lingered apart, as if the robe draped on him didn't belong to their kind of body.
The Library watched.
And in that quiet, one thought curved sharp in every mind:
The nicknames sounded wrong on their tongues, as if the Library itself was listening, amused by the game they played with identity.