Orion's legs wobbled as he took his first step away from the table.
The floor beneath his sneakers—once worn linoleum scarred by decades of scuffs and peeling tape—now gleamed like polished glass. It reflected the stained-glass light in warped ripples, blues and violets bending unnaturally beneath his feet. The reflections lagged a fraction of a second behind his movements.
He glanced back.
His chair remained pushed out at an awkward angle, stubbornly mundane in a room that no longer obeyed mundane rules. For a heartbeat, it felt like an anchor—proof that if he could just sit back down, everything might snap into place.
"Hello?" he called, louder this time.
"Mrs. Delgado? Anyone?"
[SFX: **VOOOOM—VOOM—VOOM**]
His voice struck the shelves and came back wrong—layered, stretched, overlapping. Like several Orions calling out of sync, some half a second too late, others too early.
No answer.
No rustle of turning pages.
No cough from a fellow insomniac reader.
No distant cart wheels squeaking in protest.
Only silence.
He started down the nearest aisle—the one that *should* have led to the fantasy section.
Habit guided his hand as he walked, fingertips brushing along the spines. That small, familiar motion had always grounded him. Tonight, it sent a chill crawling up his arm.
The books were cold.
Not just cool—*cold*, like stone left in a cellar. When he tugged one free at random, it slid out without resistance.
The cover was blank.
No title.
No author.
No worn lettering or dog-eared corners.
Just smooth, leather-like material the color of old bone.
His throat tightened.
He flipped it open.
Empty.
Every page pristine and white, faintly luminous, as though waiting for words that had never been written—or had been erased.
A prickle spread across his scalp.
"Nope," he muttered, shoving the book back into place.
He walked faster.
The aisle stretched.
In the real library—*his* library—this row ended after twenty feet, spilling into the reference desks and the humming printers. Now the shelves marched on far beyond memory, uniform and merciless. The gaps between them narrowed almost imperceptibly, the air pressing closer until the space felt like a corridor slowly tightening its grip.
Overhead, fluorescent tubes hummed their usual tired buzz—
[SFX: **MMMMMMMM**]
—but the light dimmed with every step he took away from the table.
"Jake?" Orion tried, voice cracking. "Come on, man. If this is a prank, it's not funny."
Only echoes answered him.
He turned a corner—or what *should* have been a corner—and found more of the same. Endless rows, dissolving into a gray haze that swallowed distance itself. The air grew colder, a faint draft tugging at his hoodie sleeves like grasping fingers.
Orion hugged his arms to his chest and broke into a jog.
[SFX: **SQUEAK—SQUEAK—SQUEAK**]
His sneakers sounded obscenely loud, each step an intrusion against the oppressive hush. His breath came faster, chest burning, legs starting to protest.
When he finally looped back toward the center—lungs aching, a stitch flaring in his side—he skidded to a halt.
The edges of the room were changing.
A cold mist crept inward from the periphery, rolling low across the floor like spilled milk. It devoured the farthest shelves first, blurring their outlines until they smeared into nothingness. One moment they were there—rows of blank spines—and the next they were simply… gone.
As the mist advanced, books closer to him began to lose definition. Colors drained. Shapes softened. Entire sections faded, turning translucent before winking out like dying embers.
Orion stood frozen, heart pounding.
The mist did not hurry.
It was patient.
Methodical.
Claiming reality inch by inch.
[SFX: **FLICK—FLICK**]
The fluorescent lights overhead flickered once.
Twice.
Then—
[SFX: **STSTSTST—CLICK**]
They strobed violently, white light slashing across the room in disorienting bursts. Orion's stomach lurched. He squeezed his eyes shut—
—and when he opened them again, the fluorescents were gone.
In their place hung ornate crystal chandeliers.
Heavy. Antique.
They swayed gently from chains that vanished into shadow, though no breeze stirred the air. Dozens of candles burned within their prisms, flames dancing and refracting into warm golden light that clashed with the lingering blues from the stained-glass window.
Shadows stretched long and warped across the floor, twisting familiar angles into something gothic and wrong.
The air thickened.
It smelled of aged parchment and dust—
—but beneath it lurked something sharper. Metallic.
Ink fresh from a press.
Or blood soaking into old paper.
The scent coated the back of his throat.
Orion stumbled backward, toward the table.
Toward the only thing that hadn't vanished yet.
As he retreated, details emerged along its impossible length. High-backed chairs appeared one by one, materializing with soft, soundless finality.
Dark wood.
Intricate carvings.
Velvet cushions worn smooth by use.
Dozens.
Hundreds.
They lined both sides of the table as far as he could see, empty and expectant—like seats prepared for an audience that had not yet arrived.
Orion reached his original spot and collapsed into his chair. His fingers clenched around the edges of the blank book, knuckles whitening as if it might anchor him to existence.
His heart hammered so hard he felt it in his teeth.
"This can't be real," he whispered.
"This isn't happening."
He squeezed his eyes shut.
"Wake up. Just wake up."
[SFX: **CREAK… CREAK…**]
The chandeliers swayed again. Candle flames guttered, bending sideways despite the still air.
The mist halted at the edge of the central clearing.
Waiting.
Orion opened his eyes.
His gaze drifted down the endless table, past the rows of empty chairs, into the flickering distance where the light blurred and certainty dissolved.
There—
At the far end.
Impossibly distant, yet suddenly visible—as if the space itself had folded just enough to reveal it.
A figure sat motionless.
Only a silhouette.
Cloaked in shadow deeper than the rest, swallowing light rather than reflecting it. Its head was bowed. Its hands rested flat against the tabletop.
Unmoving.
Watching.
Or waiting.
Orion's breath caught in his throat.
The figure did not stir.
But in the profound silence—
[SFX: **FSSH… THUMP**]
—the soft, deliberate sound of a page turning echoed through the vastness.
And this time, it did not fade.