NOVEL WEB 1. The Library
There was once a man that had found something really special, something incredible and unimaginable, perhaps his deepest and most precious treasure. I'm talking about Pisces' hidden library. This was a very special and unique library, and at that moment in time, he was the only one who knew about it, he had been coming back to it to read all of its contents, rereading them over and over again, trying to unveil its mysteries, submerging himself in those unending and deep mysteries in contained.
It started on a warm afternoon. He was walking by the forest trying to free his mind. He had been walking through this forest on occasion for quite some time. His walks could take up to 6 hours on the way out and back depending on how far he went into the forest. This library was located in the clearing of a big hill in the middle of that forest, not many people used to come around there, so the hill was usually completely his to explore. There were actually several of them throughout the whole area, but that one was probably the highest of them all. The first time he started walking around it, but after a while he had decided that he would climb it little by little, and after a couple of weeks of walking through treacherous land, he had managed to reach its top.
The height? Well, you could say it was big as one of those so called skyscrapers, probably twice as much, I’m not really good calculating distances, and yes, I can say that you are right if you are mentioning it was quite the adventure trying to go alone, but it did make up for good exercise for him or so he thought.
While the hill was covered by trees and dense vegetation around it, at the top of it there was a small but very curious clearing, and in that clearing, you could find what seemed to be the ruins of a deteriorated castle, or a church, it was quite difficult to define with its architecture, it seemed to be made of worn out, grey bricks and some of its structure simulated what used to be a really majestic building, but now it seemed somehow covered under the mountain itself. At the top of it, there was the name “Pisces” carved in the stone itself which confusingly mixed itself with the bricks that the structure was built from.When he saw it, it gave him quite the surprise, yes, despite its height this hill didn’t have any visitors, probably because of its remote location away from the city, and due to the fact that the top of it was covered on trees, it didn’t even make it a good looking spot. Most people used to think the road to this area was already rough and difficult to do because of its state and lack of a proper highway, so the place was mostly desolated
Mostly desolated, and all to himself.
He saw a small entrance around its side. At first he thought it was some sort of small door, but it looked more like a regular old window, a window with stained glass, broken around the sides and with a small handle for you to take it and open it. He looked around, there were a few other windows on the ruin itself, but they seemed a bit too high to reach it, so out of curiosity, he got on his knees and tried to walk inside to see what he could find.
The library on its inside was incredibly huge, it was as big as a theater, after you walked inside the window, you would be met with a narrow hallway and some vertical stairs that allowed you to descend into the main hall, where all its shelves were located. The floor was made of yellow and green tiles that looked worn out with age, but that were probably still too recent and new to be constructed in a location like that. The light entered through every stained glass window and it reflected down towards the shelves themselves. It was probably a trick of the light, but some stained glass windows that were the highest seemed to show other skies to the one that was actually sheltering the forest, the cloud movements were different, some of them appeared to show stars and the windows showed different colours, but again, he had to try and strain his eyes to be able to see them from the place the library hall was buried in.
He looked around and chose one of the books. They were all hardcover brown books, very very worn out books with yellow withered down pages. He chose one of them and tried to understand what it was about. The book title said “The life of Caruncle Periwinkle as narrated by Ellen Valmonte.” In one of the first pages, there was a single note from Marlene to the reader that said “To Jazmin, my one and only love.” He placed the book back where he found it and looked at the next one, but it simply said “ The life of Caruncle Periwinkle as narrated by Marlene Valmonte, Vol 2.” He scratched his head and placed that other book back on the shelf, but looking around to the whole shelf, it looked as if it was completely filled out with volumes of that same tale, with how big the shelves were, there could be at least 300 volumes or more, all of them with the same worn out pages and hardcover covering them out. He was so strangely fascinated and bedazzled that he didn’t notice his stomach rumbling out of hunger.
He had read most if not all of the books in that fascinating library, the life of Caruncle Periwinkle documented the story of a man who had led the revolution that evolved into the independence of more than 20 countries who had been previously ruled by the The Basilio Dominion and that ended in a culture renaissance in the whole continent and starting a new era in the whole word. The library didn’t just contain only the books about of Caruncle thought, but also a lot of academic information regarding the nations and the world he lived in, as well as his family members and the people he started to fight with, the places and topics and the subjects he studied, as well everything surrounding the revolution he started. After reading everything inside that library, he reread it all over again, and then again, of course, sometimes, he would only pick a volume of his life he was really into that day, sometimes he would read repeatedly the academic books about the world he existed in, the lives inside it and everything that surrounded them.
The question that stayed with him was, why were these books there? Naturally, he looked for any information he could find about Caruncle and Ellen, but he couldn’t find anything at all, not only the character was fictional in itself, but the writer was as well, nobody had ever heard of her ever before. The sun would start to set that day, and if he didn’t leave the library in time, he would end up walking through the forest at night, when it was really hard to see, which was not just unpleasant but also frightening. There had been nights where he had even decided to stay on the library itself, but the freezing cold that creeped inside that library couldn’t be fought with the warmest sheets, or the stuffiest hoods, he had tried to stay, but ended up catching a terrible cold more than once, and even if he didn’t want to separate himself of the library of Pisces, he recognized that there were times where he had to leave. He was just that weak.
It was after he climbed the stairs and got out through the window of the buried library that he saw someone standing in front of him, it was a woman. He cleaned the dirt from his clothes and stood up, she was uncomfortably close to the entrance, wearing an animal hide top along with some shorts, she had no shoes of any kind. He looked towards her face, she had grey eyes and jet black hair, she was probably in her late thirties or early forties. She was smiling at him.
“How much did you read?” She asked without taking away her eyes from him, smiling, she was still smiling.
He looked around, there didn’t seem to be anyone else in the small clearing, the sun was starting to set and the air was getting cold and dry. He had to go home.
“Uh, sorry, what?” He asked her, not because he hadn’t heard her, but to try and gather his thoughts.
“How much did you read?” She repeated the question with the exact same tone she used before. Her voice sounded creepy, he thought maybe she was sick.
“How much… I mean, I did read some stuff, I guess.” He looked at the floor and answered her in a quiet voice. He wasn’t sure if he was ashamed of getting caught crawling out of a building, or frightened that she seemed to know about what he was up to. “Uh, do you know anything about this? The library, I mean?” He pointed towards the buried building behind them.
“Yes, actually, it is part of something I have been studying a lot, a lot.” She finally crossed her arms and closed her eyes, freeing me from that uncanny look she was giving me for a moment. “Quite the place, isn’t it?”
“Y-Yeah.” He scratched his neck, he felt as if he had been caught red handed stealing something. He was probably right, the poor idiot.
“How long have you been coming here for?”
“Uh, well… I guess it has been five years now, I think so, yeah.”
“I see, so you are familiar with the language.”
“The language?”
“Yes, were you able to decipher it all?”
“What? Well… I mean, everything was in English, I didn’t really find any books like… I didn’t see anything different.”
“I see.”
“I… excuse me, have you come here before? I have never seen you in the time I have been around.”
“I have.”
“Okay.” Silence, only silence, she was still deep in thought after what he had told her. He thought about it for a moment. He wanted to ask her more about the library, but he didn’t know how to continue the conversation. “You know, this whole thing is really interesting, I mean… not just the library but also the story, it seemed that Caruncle’s life was very detailed, and the world he lived in had a lot of detail into it.”
“Right.” She looked back at him, “but wait, if everything was in english, you must have read most of it then.”
“W-Well, yes, I have.”
The woman started looking me up and down, as if she was carefully studying him.
“In that case, why don’t you give me your opinion about it?”
“My opinion, about what?”
“About Caruncle, of course,” she smiled again, “tell me, what would you change?”
“Y-You mean, about Caruncle? As a character?”
“Caruncle was a real man.”
“A real man?”
“What would you change? Had you been in his shoes? Is there anything you would have done differently?”
He felt that his stomach had turned into a hole, his body became lighter than air, and the world around him started to get dark. He was scared, he had never been good with strangers, and even less in a sudden meeting like the one he was in. He remembered that he was telling himself that he was just making up some weird stories on his own, he was not just wondering, but fantasising about that woman’s background, letting his imagination go wild, and he had to get a reality check because otherwise he would end up with a panic attack, but… but… he also thought that if it was what he really thought it was, it would be really funny to see the expression on her face.
“I would have done a lot better,” he answered her, with a shy smile and looking towards his shoes. He wanted to give a sense of confidence, but the best he could do was to appear aloof and simple minded.
“A lot better?” She finally frowned. “How so?”
“I think that Caruncle ended up sacrificing more of his loved ones than he should have needed, if it had been me, I would have protected them.”
The woman didn’t say anything for a few seconds, her behaviour became rigid again.
“A lot of those people were fated to die.” She smiled without stopping frowning. “Caruncle blamed himself, but I’m sure there would haven’t been no other way.”
“Well… I guess Caruncle didn’t know much about what it means to keep a low profile, probably…”
“Low profile? You…”
“There are things Caruncle didn’t see ahead of himself,” he looked back at her, there was a slight smirk on his face.
“Hmm,” she chuckled, her look had turned into something uncanny and spectral. There was something about her eyes that was sucking him in, he tried to look away, but he couldn’t. “You know what, why don’t you go ahead and show me?”
“Show you?” He felt he was about to lose his balance, he wanted to get out of there, maybe if he asked her to come with him and walk down the mountain he could get some air and distract himself, he was really nervous and just wanted to go home. “Uh, wait, I don’t think we presented each other, what is your name?”
“My name is Jazmin.”
“Jazmin.”
“Yes.”
And with that, the whole world darkened.