The library had no ceiling.
Or if it did, it was hidden behind a curtain of shifting skies, colors bleeding into one another like bruises on the heavens.
Shelves twisted and crawled across walls that were there one moment and gone the next. Aisles led nowhere, or back to where they started but not quite the same. Books pulsed faintly, as though each page was alive with breath and memory.
Altherion moved carefully, fingers grazing a title that refused to stay still. He had begun to suspect that every object in this place knew something he didn't, and took secret pleasure in hiding it.
Then he saw him.
A man. Alone, seated at a table that seemed more concept than furniture, calmly writing in midair with a quill that bled lines of liquid shadow.
What struck Altherion was not the man's presence but the fact that he stayed. He didn't vanish like the faceless people, didn't distort like the buildings. The longer Altherion stared, the more certain he became: this person was real.
Real… and wrong.
Not wrong like a threat. Wrong like something that defied a thousand assumptions at once.
The man's face was hidden, not masked, not obscured by darkness, but blurred, like a censored photograph in a documentary about forbidden truths. Fog clung to the contours where eyes and mouth should be, as though reality itself was reluctant to render him completely.
But the rest of him was solid.
A coat of dark wool with fur lining, like an old Tsar's winter garb. High leather boots. Pale gloves smudged with ink and something darker. And the air around him, it bent, not with heat or light, but with intention. Like the man did not merely sit in the world, but edited it.
Altherion cleared his throat, hesitant. "You… don't vanish."
The man didn't look up. He only smiled faintly, still writing.
"No, i suppose I don't."
"…Why?"
This time, the quill stopped mid-air. The man slowly turned his head, and though Altherion couldn't see eyes, he felt them lock onto him like nails driven into place.
"You ask a very strange question for someone who cannot remember why he's here," the man said.
Altherion's heart jolted. "You know me?"
"I know your type, the ones who wander into stories they never read. Who chase meanings like moths to flames and wonder why the smoke chokes them."
Altherion frowned. "You're not answering me."
Now the man did look at him, if such a word could be used for that blurred, unformed face. "Names, then. That is easier. I am Velimir Drahoslav."
The name fell like stone in water. Heavy. Echoing.
"…That's it? What is this place? Why are things feels wrong?"
Velimir tilted his head thoughtfully. "Wrong is a word for things you once thought were right. Perhaps this place is not wrong, only honest."
"That makes no sense."
"Exactly," Velimir whispered, as if that proved his point. "If it did, you'd already be mad."
Altherion stepped closer, more irritated than afraid. "Look, I've been walking through places that bend when I blink. People vanish the moment I notice them. Buildings breathe. And now I'm talking to a man who's writing in the air and refuses to show his face. I just want something solid. An answer. A rule. A why."
Velimir hummed softly, still drawing invisible lines with his quill. "You ask as if this place is for you."
"…Isn't it?"
"That," Velimir said with amusement, "is the question you should be asking."
Altherion ran his hand through his hair, exasperated. "Do you ever give straight answers?"
"Only to those who already know them."
Another silence. Velimir's fingers began to move again, drawing threads of possibility, fading before Altherion could focus.
"You're saying… this is some kind of dream?"
"No. This is where dreams go to die."
"Then is it death?"
"Worse," Velimir said gently. "It's memory in the moment of being erased. And the awareness that you were the one holding the eraser."
Altherion's throat tightened. He felt something stir deep inside, a phantom ache for something precious he couldn't name. "I don't… I don't understand."
"You will," Velimir said, standing slowly. "The fracture does not reveal itself to the impatient. But it cracks for the lost."
Altherion opened his mouth to respond, but Velimir had already begun to walk, his boots making no sound.
"Wait! What am I supposed to do? What is this city?"
Velimir did not turn. "Ask the ruins. They remember better than we do."
"And what if I find nothing?"
Velimir paused at the edge of the aisle. His shape already fading into shadow.
"Then you were never meant to remember,"
And he was gone.
Altherion stood there, fists clenched, jaw tight.
The only sound was the soft fluttering of books breathing around him. And his own pulse, loud as thunder in the silence.
He didn't understand.
Left alone once more, Altherion lingered at the place where Velimir had vanished, hoping, perhaps irrationally that the man would reappear and offer clarity. But all that remained was the scent of ancient paper and something colder, more abstract: the faint metallic tang of forgotten choices.
He turned back to the library. Or rather, what passed for one.
The books no longer sat still.
They whispered now. Not with voices, but with suggestion, faint rustlings that brushed the edge of understanding. He couldn't tell which shelf made the sound. Or if the shelves even stayed the same between each step.
Still, he moved forward.
His boots echoed on a floor that rippled faintly, like disturbed water. Lamps hung from wires that looped into knots shaped like constellations, flickering with light that cast no shadows. Some sections of the library grew colder, others warmer. In one corner, snow drifted in slow, deliberate spirals. In another, flame glowed behind glass with no fuel to burn.
He passed a mirror, tall and oval, until he blinked, and saw that it wasn't a mirror at all, but a window looking in on a room he didn't recognize. Or perhaps… a memory? A girl stood in that other space, crying over a closed book, though her face was too blurred to place. When Altherion moved closer, the window vanished, replaced by a blank wall of pale brick.
A small sign near his feet read:
"Shelves Shift to Reflect Guilt. Stay Still to Learn Nothing."
"Cryptic," he muttered.
The library, of course, did not respond.
He tried opening a book. The pages were blank until he breathed on them. Then ink bloomed like mold across the paper, curling into unfamiliar alphabets and symbols that pulsed faintly, as if alive. One page tore itself in half when he looked too long. Another book snapped shut with the sound of distant thunder.
Still, he read.
Not for meaning, but for patterns. For anything that made sense.
The titles were the first clue.
"The Lives You Could Have Lived"
"Index of Regrets Filed and Misplaced"
"Atlas of Forgotten Paths"
"The Erosion of Self in Sixteen Epochs"
"Memoirs of a Man Who Never Was"
Each volume heavier than the last. Not in weight, but in implication.
And then… a soft sound.
Not whispering.
Breathing.
Slow. Rhythmic. Intentional.
Altherion turned.
A chair, once empty, now held a figure curled in a long coat. Their face was turned away, buried beneath a hood. A book floated just above their lap, pages turning themselves, glowing faintly with violet hue.
"Velimir?" he asked, though he already knew it wasn't him.
The figure did not respond. But the book slowed. One word lingered in the air between them, projected like a thought that had taken form:
"Choose."
Altherion stepped back.
The shelves rustled. Lights flickered. Somewhere deep in the building, a door slammed, not with physical force, but with the certainty of a decision already made.
He wasn't just reading anymore.
He was being read.
Each breath he took etched new sentences into some unseen chronicle.
Every hesitation became a paragraph. Every regret, a chapter heading.
And somewhere within the living paper and shifting halls… something waited.
Not to be found.
But to see if he would find himself.
He had grown tired of wandering through realms that bent reason into knots. Tired of doorways that moved, of silence that listened, of time that peeled itself open like rotting fruit.
But mostly he was tired of losing track of her.
"Again with this," Altherion muttered under his breath, his voice scraping dryly against the musty air. "How many times do I have to chase that girl through worlds that don't make sense?"
He didn't expect an answer. He never got one.
Still, he searched.
The aisles grew narrower, the books more unstable. Some bled ink when he passed. Others crumbled into salt or bone-dust. And always, the air felt too watchful, as if the library itself resented his presence, yet couldn't quite force him out.
A light flickered up ahead, then snuffed.
He followed it, more from instinct than reason.
And that was when the air changed.
It thickened, grew humid and warm, like breath exhaled from something massive.
Something waiting.
A low rumble trembled through the floor. Shelves tilted. Pages tore themselves apart. A pungent stench, half-rotted wood, half sulfur, poured in from cracks in the far wall.
And then it stepped out.
No, slithered.
Or perhaps… oozed.
The creature defied easy classification. Its body was a misshapen hulk of muscle, joints protruding at angles that mocked anatomy. Six limbs dragged along the floor, two hooved, two clawed, and two wrong, coiling like roots dipped in tar.
Its face was an exposed skull framed by damp feathers and spiraling tusks. One of its eyes was a cracked compass. The other, a smooth orb filled with a spinning spiral that made Altherion's stomach churn just to look at.
It reared up and bellowed, a guttural screech like metal tearing through wet glass.
Then it charged.
Altherion barely dodged in time, the floor cracking where the beast's hooves landed. It smashed through a shelf, sending ancient tomes flying like frightened birds.
"Great. A malformed demonic librarian," Altherion hissed. "Why not?"
He raised a hand. Arcane glyphs lit up in the air, rotating like gears.
"Vector: compress. Force: repulse. Release."
A blast of kinetic energy shot from his palm, striking the beast square in its midsection. It staggered back two steps… then lunged again, more feral than before.
Its movements were clumsy, unpredictable. No technique, no pattern. Just brute strength and blind rage.
But that didn't make it harmless.
In fact, it made it worse.
Another strike, this time from a clawed limb, grazed Altherion's shoulder, tearing fabric and skin alike. Pain sang up his nerves like a violin string pulled too tight.
He gritted his teeth.
"Okay. Think."
He darted behind a collapsed bookcase, muttering quick calculations under his breath. Distance, weight, estimated strike velocity. Magical potential in the air? High. Very high.
He traced a triangle into the ground, three nodes, one for energy storage, one for release, one for manipulation.
The creature barreled around the corner.
Altherion tapped the first node with his foot. "Heat trap."
Flames erupted in a ring beneath the monster's feet, but the beast didn't slow. It ran straight through, the flesh on its limbs blackening… then sloughing off, revealing new skin underneath.
"Seriously?" Altherion said.
He snapped his fingers, and gravity bent around the second node, yanking the beast upward, slamming it into the ceiling.
It crashed down moments later, but rolled onto its feet like it enjoyed it.
Altherion wiped sweat from his brow. "Not the brightest, but damn persistent."
He reached into his coat and pulled out a crystal rod. Whispered to it. Symbols bloomed across its length like frost on glass.
Then he hurled it at the monster.
The rod exploded midair, releasing a net of luminous threads, mana-seeking, mind-locking. They latched onto the creature's limbs, anchoring it mid-charge.
Altherion ran forward, hand aglow with spellwork.
"Third law: action, reaction. Let's test the limits."
He leapt, aimed for the center of its malformed chest, and fired a concentrated pulse of arcane entropy. Not to destroy. But to destabilize. To interfere with the thing's regenerative properties at a fundamental level.
It worked for a second.
The beast screamed. Its tusks shattered. Its compass eye spun madly, then cracked.
But even as its body buckled… it began stitching itself back together.
Stronger. Faster.
Altherion landed, panting, backing away as the creature's mass surged. The net burned away. The magic nodes flickered and died.
"Okay," he muttered. "You're learning. That's... bad."
The monster lunged again.
He barely dodged.
A claw clipped his leg, sending him sprawling.
He scrambled behind a desk that wasn't there a moment ago. Bookshelves closed in, forming a shifting maze around him and the beast.
He clutched his bleeding leg, muttering new spells.
He needed a new plan.
The kind that involved escaping. Or at least not dying before he figured out what this place was.
The monster roared, echoing through the library like a promise.
And Altherion knew-
He'd need more than clever spells to survive the next round.