Omega and the beast

Chapter 7

I just think he's of that domination kind; and obeying him is probably the best thing to keep everyone happy and settle. Keep the beast at bay, Belle! I'm easily influenced so that could also be the reason.

I sat in the library like always and registered books from the First World War, finding some quite interesting books and parchment in rolls that must have been written during the war. I don't know how Reed got them, but they fascinated me and I found myself reading them before registering them.

One parchment wasn't even in English but in some foreign language I didn't recognize. It had a seal and was fragile and well read. I didn't dare sign numbers on the parchments but tied a label around each of them.

"...Does he know?..."

"...Keep quiet!..."

"What?" I looked up from the parchment, holding a magnifying glass I had found with a shout of joy in a cabinet. It gave me a Sherlock Holmes feeling, making me giggle when I found it. I looked around. "Hello?"

It was a while ago since I heard it last time, the mumbling kind of sound. I've heard it from time to time. Sometimes it seemed like voices I couldn't interpret. Mostly I thought it was from my music, but after a while that I imagined things.

Once I thought it could be someone upstairs, but then Mr. Sparkles jumped down from a shelf and I thought it was his purring I heard. But now it was different. I thought I could distinguish a dialogue.

"Reed?" Silence.

I pushed out the chair and got up, placing the magnifying glass on the table by the parchment. Now, for the first time in a long time, I had no music playing, and it was not my imagination! I heard voices, or at least something. They spoke, they did!

It had sounded like the voices came from behind me and I took some vigilant steps in that direction. I walked down the room, section after section. Curious but still a bit... uneasy? When I reached the short end, I stopped. I heard nothing, but a shiver went up along my spine. I perked my ears, trying to hear signs that someone was there somewhere.

Meanwhile, I started humming a children's song my little sister listened to a lot as a child, and which we used to sing together during Halloween. It was a happy kid-melody which I hoped would ease my increasing pulse. Because it was something odd going on and it freaked me out slightly.

"I saw a ghost... A spooky ghost... It flew away, when I said hey," I sang tentatively, crouching down by a damper on the side of the fireplace.

It sounded like the wind blowing in thru it which wasn't strange considering the stormy weather. It sounded almost like a whining, and I began to wonder if I had imagined the murmur and taken the wind for voices after all. But how could I hear it so far away? It didn't make any sense! I leaned in closer with my ear. It was buzzing. Was it murmurs? I frowned, tried to concentrate.

"...Shift..."

"...Borders..."

"Run!"

"Fuck!"

I flinched and staggered back, trembled for my balance before I fell. With a thump I hit the floor and I moaned, rolling over on my back for a second before I crawled up on my feet, rushing towards the exit while glancing back towards the damper. Whatever it was, it was scary! And hell no, I wasn't going to stay there a second longer!

Mr. Sparkles, who lay asleep in the window, flinched when I hurried past him, his hair standing up before he rushed away between the shelves. I threw myself at the door, fumbling for the handle. In the corridor towards the stairs, I could see Reed walking in my direction from his office with a coat over his arm. He looked almost startled when he saw me rush up to him, panting heavily.