“Save yourself, don’t go in”these were the words i found on a note in front of the old house who’s address i’ve already long forgotten, a warning i will eternally regret not taking to heart.
In my old life i was a repossesor, it wasn’t fun, but it payed my bills and bought me books to read. Still.. it never made me happy to take away things from people who just didn’t have enough money, but we had to do it, and so i find myself getting a message about getting back a stereo-set that had been delivered but didn’t have a single payment made on it. At first i thought “who buys an expensive stereo-set if they don’t have the money?” but when i saw the house that thought changed to “who buys a stereo-set for a house that looks like it will collapse when someone whispers too loud?”
It wasn’t an exaggeration to call the house decrepit, windows were boarded up, the garden was withered, the door looked like it had been made out of the remnants of a shed-wall, but more than anything it was the front facing façade, seemingly no more than a gentle breeze away from collapsing into the street and leaving the town with a live size doll house, why would anyone live here? could anyone even live here? did the buyer write down a fake address? why wasn’t it condemned?i didn’t have the answers so i decided to try my luck and walked up to the building, finding the note, and quickly discarding it as a cheap scare tactic, i’d seen similar things before, my colleague used to call them “B.O.D’s” (Beware of dog’s).I called out to the house, thinking maybe a light would switch on to reveal some surprisingly cozy house with a polite little lady that just likes music a lot, but forgot to set up an autopayment plan with her bank or something, those are.. were the dreams. But the house stayed still, and dark, i tried to knock on the front door but it swung open instead, not stopped by anything, i figured the house as abandoned, i could just walk in real quick, see it’s empty, and then go to my car to call my boss about a fake address before going home and reading a nice book about a painter who disappears into his painting with his assistant.
I walked through the door, my second regret of that day, because as i walked through the opening i looked and found an empty house, walls bare and stripped, ceilings and floors covered in holes, shards of glass everywhere, satisfied i turned around to see the door swing back through the opening wildly as if carried by the wind, but when it stretched its hinges to the outside a creak escaped the stones surrounding it, and as my blood ran cold just like my stomach dropped to my feet the house collapsed on me, i could hear every detail in that moment, every stone, every pebble, every grain of dust, every plank snapping and shard of glass being split.. And the sound of my own screams, begging to overtake it, i thought i would be trapped at first, but while around me there was rubble of the walls and ceiling, i was fine. What caught my attention however was that i appeared to be caved in at least on one side, the full front of the house had collapsed, but while the back was damaged and threatening to join it, it still stood. My mind raced to a single thought, if i could find the back exit, a window or door to the back garden i’d be free, so i slowly made my way to the back of the house
I walked, searching for an exit, but the hall i was in didn’t even have doorways to other rooms, not even stairs to the upper floors, it didn’t make sense but i just kept walking, after minutes i knew the house went on for longer than should be possible but i had no choice, so i kept walking, as the hallways widened, and as the wallpaper began to appear less and less, even as it left me behind completely, i kept walking, as the floorboards became scarcer and eventually they too left me behind, walking on what seemed to be a rock floor, And even as the corners of floor, wall, and ceiling became rounded and one, i walked, even when the hall, which had now truly become a cave, became narrow to the point of crawling.
I thought for a time i had become the subject of a cosmic joke, having fallen into some kind of mistake of the world or universe, but i was too far to go back now, so crawling through the hole i went, and when i had almost given up any hope i had, there it was, light, a pinprick of it, but light none the less. I crawled as fast as the space would allow me, not caring for torn clothes or scratched skin, when i reached it it was small, the size of my finger, my hope to escape almost left me until i felt it, the cave, it wasn’t rock anymore, when i changed i do not know but this was nothing but regular dirt, o poked the whole with my finger and dug around, then two fingers, 5, both hands, more and more until i could squeeze my arms through and pop out like a cork from a bottle, i breathed the free air after what felt like days, my eyes closed so i could feel the breeze on my dirt covered skin, and when i opened my eyes to see where i was, that was when i finally broke.
The place i found myself in was beyond me, beyond life, i was in a universe, standing on a floating isle surrounded by an infinity of the impossible, bridges and walkways connecting endlessly and impossibly to everywhere, but not a soul in sight. I saw planets of machinery i will likely never know what purpose they served, i saw clouds of cosmic dust shimmer as they swirled around the bridges, and i saw pinpricks of cities i can’t begin to explain until i’ve found a way to take a closer look.
After i calmed down from my grief and awe i didn’t know what to do for a time, should i crawl back? would i have the energy to? what would i have chosen had the choice not been taken away from me? because the small island i was standing on began to blacken and turn to rot and dust behind me, i ran away from it, to my first walkway, a wooden walkway, with wooden railings, ornate, and swimming brown in colour, once i stepped on i turned to see the hole i crawled out of, my impossible entrance to this equally impossible place, fade to dust. I wanted nothing more than to scream and shout and demand to be let out, but never got the chance, the first plank of the walkway loosened, until it calmly shot off and floated into space, where it splintered to pieces, that then too splintered into pieces until not even dust was able to be seen, and once it was gone the next came, and the next, faster than the last, and so on, rails and posts went too, like a wave of annihilation coming towards me. I ran, as fast as i could, when the walkway split i chose sides without thinking, only hoping to outrun the erasure behind me, after what felt like a day of nonstop running my walkway ended at a door, disconnected, not belonging to anything, yet my only option. i opened it, thinking that even if the bridge disappears, maybe i could use the door as a kind of raft, but in its opening i found something else.
Through the door i found myself among shelves of books, some names i recognized, some i didn’t and some i would not be able to read, as they were not in any language i speak, or any language of earth, the room was circular, at the center a hole of approximately 7 meters in diameter surrounded by a wooden railing on metal supports, there were four layers of bookshelves from the outer wall to the most inner layer, each layer of bookshelves containing eight book cases, except for one bookshelf on the outer layer, which is replaced by a staircase going either up or down. each book case was found in groups of two, making room for four large walkways and four smaller ones, each large walkway lead to a door identical to the door i entered through, which led to no where as they too appeared to have been disconnected from walkways i assumed had been there.
When i first saw the center and walked to it i imagined i’d be able to go to the roof to see where i am, or to the ground floor to find an exit, but both hopes died before i could fully form them as i saw that both the floors above and below me went on until i truly could not see further. i found myself unable to think of what to do next, but i did find that before i could try to think of something the fatigue of my adventure thus far had finally caught up to me, and i collapsed asleep on the ground
it has been three months since i came here, this library might go on forever but it’s levels are not identical, just as the books vary from shelf to shelf so do the levels, ninety percent of the time a new level will consist of books on every shelf, all organized by the Dewey decimal system, or so i’d have to assume with the ones i can’t read among them, each floor always missing two out of ten classifiers, but sometimes a new floor will have a true bit of salvation, a food court. A starving man would eat maggots to survive but i could have never imagined when i crawled down those stairs that i would find muffins and small pies, soft drinks and water bottles. I suppose if this place is impossible, then this too can’t be outside the realm of chance.
Two more things i have discovered, a floor of research desks, stacked with paper, quill, and ink on each desk a burning candle, and on some chairs and old leather satchel or other kind of bag, i quickly snatched a bag and stuffed it with paper, some bottles of ink, and a few quills, i write this now at a food court using these instruments while eating a chicken sandwich, an experience that even as i read back to myself feels weird despite it being my near daily ritual.
The last thing i’ve discovered is while these books may all be different on each floor, different prints do exist, i noticed when walking past a kids section on one floor that carried ‘the little prince’ in English, my mother used to read me that as a child, it gave me a little bit of comfort, but then two floors down i see another kids section that had ‘le petit prince’ in it’s original French printing, so close to each other, if it had been two or more floors extra between them i would have never noticed. while this is a minor comfort in the sense that i’d be able to read some of the books i find later with different translations, it is more important because the same should be possible for the books that hold language not from my world. and this is only important because i have found a book that i can not yet read, but it’s cover shows the exact floor plan of the library, and inside it are illustrations with extensive pieces of text, if by some chance i can find an English version, i might be able to finally understand where i am, what this place is, maybe even where to go if i leave out the door when one has a walkway.
For now i look for the copy of the book, hoping against hope, i have the original with me for reference, comparing it to every book on every shelf on every level, thing is, i’ve gotten very used to the library now, i’ve walked these floors with rasped breath for months scared something will happen and change, but these days i walk down the stairs calmly and check books without my heart in my ears, and ironically, my calm has revealed to me something i didn’t know before
I’ve been hearing scratching sounds, the tapping of something miles above me, but its fast, so fast, yet so soft, it is not slow, so how big must it be to be heard from that far away, and more importantly, if it is the owner of this place, am i a welcomed guest? Or am i to it, what this sandwich is to me? Nothing but a light lunch. I wrote these pages once as a way to keep sane, to keep my memory in tact as best i could, but now i write this as a warning to anyone, if anyone, that might one day find them in the same place as me, if a door leads to a walkway; Safe yourself, TAKE IT!
I will leave these pages here when i either leave, or flee, i hope they can help you, and if i am still alive when you read this, i hope we can meet, because the endless silence was so deafening, that the sound of the tapping coming closer is almost a welcome reprieve of it, and i’m getting scared by how much i’m beginning to like it