EXO FICS.

Antoinette Blue

So please stay by my side,

and tell me you will never leave,

until I can silence the devil's voice,

-Antoinette Blue

The road to the Library was narrow, not that he wasn’t used to it, but the people who passed by doubled the usual. He was probably overthinking, or his mind wandered somewhere against the vast noise of the crowd, but he had taken a long time to notice the rain was starting to pour. He finally started to run, bumping a few students on the way and he had taken the effort to apologize but none of it matters if the students only cared about their books getting wet. He finally reached the entrance, feet cold and clothes a bit drenched but the atmosphere was rather warm and welcoming. Not until he had fully entered though that he knew why the students were running.

“Oh, Luhan,” Suho, the librarian, spoke after a deep breath. “You came in such an unfortunate time. Looks like the rain today is rather mischievous,” He traced behind the librarian and saw a few students doing something like a voluntary work. “Some of the books got wet and we’re trying to save the rest. The students had to protect their own papers,”

Luhan wondered since none of this ever happened before. He looked around the library, tilting his head really high since the library was as tall as a tower and as big as a church. He took his coat off, hung it at the nearest table and folded his sleeves up. “I can help,” He told the librarian who beamed immediately.

“Right,” He replied with a smile although it was obvious how tired he was. “Can you take these books upstairs?”

He paused for a bit. Upstairs would mean 700 stair steps. The Library is only two-floored yet it’s as tall as a tower, clearly the reason for this was the weird staircase built a decade ago that nobody thought of renovating. He had heard many stories from it, they said people used to be trapped here when it was just a tower before and not a library, and the stairs were like their only escape. If they are able to finish 700 steps, they come out alive. Others said dead people resided here, and the staircase was called Stairway to Heaven. Or Hell, depends. The most intriguing of all was at late 15th century a royal blooded family trapped a member upstairs, locked the tower, secluded him from the liberty of experiencing adulthood and was never visited. He was born with black hair and black eyes, and as naïve and ignorant the people were before, they accused him of bringing misfortune. The people had never seen him, yet they have heard every possible lie the society made up for him.

However, Luhan hadn’t really taken such story into accordance. He was inclined to believe that they were just hoaxes, false rumors, heresies the students bothered making whenever they’re not conversing with their books. Stories don’t really satisfy the human mind, but the truth doesn’t really matter.

“These books aren’t meant for display,” Suho spoke, snapping Luhan back in focus. “It’s strange though. These books are from the tower yet it appeared here. Anyway, we have to respect the history of this place. These books were never meant to be read and spread,”

The reason wasn’t necessary. Moreover, he decided to comply.

He took the first step, and the next was at the wooden tiles he realized aren’t part of the staircase. He was already upstairs, in just a blink of an eye. He looked around hysterically, books still on his hands, wondering if he really did walk up the stairs and his mind just wandered off somewhere again that he didn’t realize he was already on the last step. He wasn’t convinced though. He looked down to see the other students and sighed in relief knowing he was still at the same place.

He turned back at the tower. It looked nothing like what he heard. The walls were rough, the floor also creaked of old wood, the windows were dirty and broken and the books were scattered with ripped papers sticking out. The thunder broke out, sending flashes inside the tower and Luhan had spotted a figure under the blinding flashes even if it only appeared in a mere second. Frightened, he ran to switch the lights on and found nothing but the image he had seen of the tower earlier.