The Game

Chapter 11

"Keep running while you can, it'll only delay the inevitable!" He yelled, his voice straining with a wild laughter.

Your head was ringing with a pulsing pain. Your body was wracked with exhaustion but you didn't dare to slow down. You were slowly losing sensation in your legs, the aching pain was now replaced with a dull pulsing sensation. When you jumped over a table, a bookcase appeared in front of you. You crashed into it and pain shot through your face. You fell onto your back and letting go of your poker. You let out a hiss of pain and rolled to the side, struggling to sit up. He approached you, his footsteps slow and ominous as he loomed over you like a vulture over a dying animal. A sadistic grin was on his lips, revealing a mouth full of sharp teeth.

The library reverted back into its normal form, however you were surrounded by a semi-circle of bookcases. He stopped in front of you and flashed his talons. He let out a low laugh from the back of his throat and leaned in to you, his eyes glittering with a predatory glee.

"Looks like it's finally over for you. You have two choices now: you can admit defeat and save yourself or you can face your certain death," he said. "What will it be?"

Coughing, you struggled to stand up and leaned against your poker. "What do you think the answer to that is? What are you even going to do? Maul me with those gaudy nails of yours?"

The librarian chuckled and adjusted his glasses as he twitched his fingers; his dark eyes were empty, reminding you of a spider's staring down a butterfly. "I thought you would know better by now."

Before you could ask what he meant, a book flew through the air. You jumped to the side and it narrowly grazed your shoulder before it hit a discarded pen. The book tumbled on the floor, the page revealed that the pen was now inside the pages of the book. Whipping your head around, you saw that the books behind you were hovering in the air like a swarm of flies.

The librarian thrusted his hand towards him and they flew in your direction. You screamed and rolled to the side-- feeling them shooting by you as you scrambled away.

"Go ahead and run!" He cackled. "You have no chance of escape!"

You ran in a zigzag, trying to throw off the direction of the books as they flitted by you like flechettes. Your feet had become numb from all of the running-- your legs were threatening to give out at any moment. Your only hope was to run for as long as you could until he ran out of books. However, there seemed to be no end to them.

Your hand fumbled for something to throw at the librarian to distract him for a moment. Your fingers felt the garden key and you yanked it out of your bag.

"Eat this!" You threw the key at the librarian, halting his attack for a moment as his eyes darted to the key. He yelled and summoned more books. You swerved as they flew over your shoulders, landing onto the ground like dead sparrows.

You impaled one with your poker and swung at another. The librarian laughed at your suffering and snapped his fingers. A scream came out of you as another book narrowly grazed your cheek-- barely missing you by a breadth.

"Fuck!" You yelled as another almost touched your nose. You swung your poker as a heavy tome came straight towards your face.

You turned into a darker part of the library, hoping that the darkness would give you some semblance of cover. You were too focused on putting as much distance as possible that you didn't notice the smell of old paper and mildew. On either side, narrow bookcases towered over you-- almost like you were trapped in a never-ending forest. Quickly, you turned down on a row on your left and pressed yourself as flat as you could against the wall-- stuck between two bookcases. You prayed that he can't see you and held your breath.