I wanted to credit the artist for the cover art, but couldn't find their name. If any of you know the artist, I would appreciate it if you could comment their name. As always, feedback is appreciated.
-Cryspr
The Librarian couldn't remember how she had come to the Library. It had happened a long time ago, she was certain. But how long ago? Years? Decades? Maybe even centuries? At one point, she had kept track. She still had the little notebook from that early time, kept safe in the pocket of her coat. Whether she had brought that with her, or she had found it somewhere after arriving, she had no clue. At first, she had kept meticulous notes, always marking down the date as she knew it. But at some point, she had stopped. The reason for that, like all the answers she sought about herself, eluded her.
The Librarian felt at her pocket with a slender hand as she walked across the bridge, tracing the corners of the notebook carefully through her coat's fabric. She had been thinking about it less and less as time went on. Would there come a day when she forgot about it entirely, misplacing it and losing it for the rest of time? "Maybe that's where all of these came from," she announced matter-of-factly, gesturing vaguely at the volumes under her feet. "People like me, dropping books over the course of ages."
The bridge was made of books, of course. Everything in the library was. Books, stacked up into leering towers and precarious bridges. The Librarian could vaguely recall a time when that had seemed strange to her. Books were something a Library contained, not something it was composed of. But then, what else would make up a library? What was there in the world other than paper and binding?
The Librarian cursed softly as she stumbled over some poorly stacked textbooks. One of them she accidentally kicked, causing it to skid a meter or so away from her, flying open as it did so. The force of the opening book threw it an extra few inches, which was all it needed to go tumbling over the edge of the bridge. Steadying herself, the Librarian watched it fall. The bridge was a solid wall of texts, a few meters wide and nearly fifty in length. As for how high it was, the Librarian couldn't hazard to guess. About fifty or sixty meters below her, everything faded into a bluish-green haze, a curling mist which she had never found a way to safely reach. As she watched, the textbook was swallowed up by it, leaving behind a curling flower of foggy disturbance. She listened for the sound of a thump below. Nothing came back.
"I could always throw myself over, I suppose," she said. "But then, part of me says that might be a bad idea." She stood there for a moment longer, staring down into the colored cloud. Then the Librarian shrugged to herself, and continued walking.
"It might be fun, though," she continued out loud, being more careful to step around loosely packed books. "A few moments of freefall, as opposed to a lifetime of walking. And who knows? Maybe there really isn't a bottom. Maybe I'd just keep falling forever, just like everybody else who came this way."
It was an interesting thing. She had never seen anybody else here before. And yet, she knew that other people had been here. How did she know that? Likely, her mind was simply telling her fairy tales, trying to ease the pain of absolute solitude. But if that was true, then how did she explain the bundles?
The Librarian reached the end of the bridge. In front of her was a square tower, also made of stacked books. At last. Her destination. A fragile entrance stood in her path, propped up by carefully placed volumes around the rim of the opening. Taking a deep breath, the Librarian entered, careful not to disturb the edges as she passed into the room within.
There was no roof within, of course. Roofs were impossible to build out of books. So the room was lit by the lavender sky above, where a purple moon watched the landscape silently. The Librarian made a rote gesture as soon as she saw it, tapping her index finger to her temple and extending it towards the sky. The gesture was meaningless to her now, if it had ever meant anything. Still, the Librarian felt a bit more comfortable as she took in the room before her.
It was devoid of furniture, which wasn't odd in the slightest. None of the previous stops had contained anything of that sort. The floor was made from hardcovers, each one bound in a different color, forming an aesthetically pleasing tile pattern beneath the Librarian's feet. In one corner sat a large cloth bundle. It was bound with a silver cord, with an odd symbol printed onto the cloth.
Making a sharp exclamation of excitement, the Librarian rushed to the corner, and began groping at the cloth. It was bundled in a way that allowed it to come undone easily, exposing its contents to the purple light. A basket of apples was the first thing she noticed. Inwardly, the Librarian groaned. "Carrots last time, and now apples. I'm still holding out for some cheese, you know." Putting the basket to one side, she rummaged through the rest of the sack. A few bottles of water, kept in metal containers. A thin paperback volume was included in the bundle as well. The Librarian didn't call many things about this place odd, but she did find it annoying that nearly every book in the Library was written in a script she couldn't translate, let alone understand. So far as she could remember, which wasn't saying much, the books she got in her bundles were her only available reading material.
After rummaging a bit more, her hand caught what she was looking for. A single sheet of paper, with a simple drawing on one side. It depicted a simple path, including details on the time it would take to get from one end to the other. An 'X' marked the tower the Librarian knelt in. Yet another leg of her journey. "Well, I didn't expect this to be the end quite yet." She pulled her backpack off, and began stuffing things inside. She swapped the new book for the one she had finished yesterday, placing the old one on top of the discarded cloth. Then she pulled out the map from the last checkpoint tower, and put it on top of the book.
This done, she swung her bag back on, and stood up. At the far end of the room was another entrance, leading to another bridge. Beyond that, she could see another building in the distance. The Librarian sighed. "They'll be there, you know," she said to nobody in particular. "Whoever it is that's been doing this. Whoever built the towers and the bridges. When I get to the end, they'll be there." The Librarian looked up at the moon again. It looked almost consoling. She made the gesture again. Then, nodding to herself, the Librarian continued along her chosen path. "I wonder what they'll be like. If they're anything like me, they must be sick of books by now..."
