Librarian of the Void

3: Door Behind the Catalogue

The click came from the oldest shelves.

Leo stood still, one hand inside his jacket and the strange card pressed against his chest. The sound had been small, but the library was quiet enough for him to hear every part of it.

A latch moving.

A lock opening.

Something on the other side of the shelf shifting its weight.

He did not like that last part.

Leo glanced toward the front desk. Professor Ruth was no longer visible from his position. He could hear the faint movement of papers and the soft buzz of the desk lamp.

He should leave.

This was the sensible option. Go home. Sleep. Return in the morning with an adult, preferably one who knew what an uncatalogued remnant was and had insurance against mysterious doors.

Instead, Leo reached toward the shelf.

''If this kills me, I am going to be extremely annoyed,' he thought.

His fingers touched the wood.

The entire bookcase shuddered.

Dust fell from the upper shelves. The books did not move, but their pages rustled together like a crowd whispering in a language Leo did not know.

A grey line appeared between the shelves.

This time it did not vanish.

It traced the shape of a door from the floor to a point above Leo’s head. The old wood inside the outline turned black, then transparent. Behind it was not another shelf or a maintenance corridor.

There was only darkness.

Not normal darkness.

The darkness had depth. It looked like a hallway extending farther than the library building could possibly contain.

Leo took out his phone and turned on the flashlight.

The beam entered the doorway and disappeared after a few metres.

No wall reflected it.

No floor reflected it.

The light simply stopped existing.

"That is terrible design," Leo whispered.

He was beginning to suspect the architect had personally hated visitors.

The door opened by itself.

A cold smell drifted out. It smelled like paper left in a basement, old rain, and something faintly metallic.

Leo looked toward the front desk again.

Still no Professor Ruth.

He pulled the card from his jacket. The circle and seven lines had returned, glowing faintly on the front.

His class window appeared.

[Entry point confirmed.]

[Location: Spectral Library]

[Entry permission: Temporary]

[Time limit: Unknown]

A second window opened beneath it.

[Warning: The bearer is not prepared.]

[Warning: The bearer may continue.]

[Warning: The Library will not provide protection.]

Leo stared at the final line.

The System had managed to sound almost threatening while remaining completely emotionless.

That was impressive.

"Not prepared for what?"

No answer came.

The doorway waited.

Leo put his phone in his pocket. He kept the card in his other hand and stepped across the threshold.

The air changed first.

The library’s warm, dusty smell vanished. The cold became heavier, pressing against his skin. His ears popped as if he had gone underwater, and for one dizzy second he felt the ground tilt beneath him.

Then he was standing somewhere else.

The doorway behind him remained open.

Leo turned slowly.

Through it, he could still see the academy library. The shelves looked small and far away, like a picture inside a frame. Professor Ruth stood at the front desk with her back turned.

Leo raised a hand, but she did not notice.

He lowered it.

The doorway was his way back.

That was good.

Probably.

The room around him stretched into a vast hall. Shelves rose on both sides, reaching so high that their tops disappeared into darkness. Some were made from wood. Others looked like black stone, white bone, or metal covered in rust. Hundreds of lamps floated overhead, but only a few were lit.

The floor was grey marble covered with thin lines that formed circles, squares, and symbols. Most of the symbols had been scratched out.

At the very end of the hall stood a large desk.

Behind it was a wall of shelves shaped like a staircase.

A dead clock hung above the desk.

Its hands pointed at twelve and twelve.

Leo moved forward carefully.

His footsteps echoed once, then returned from several directions at the same time.

He looked left.

A shelf labelled **Inherited Combat Forms** held books with no titles. To his right, a dark corridor disappeared between two towers of records. One of the towers leaned at an angle that should have caused it to collapse, but it remained perfectly still.

The air was quiet.

Too quiet for a library.

The normal academy library always had some sound. A page turning. A chair scraping. A student trying to whisper and failing. Even at midnight, the building felt occupied.

This place felt abandoned by something that had once been very busy.

Leo reached the desk.

A black catalogue sat on top of it. The cover was cracked, and a metal clasp held it shut. Beside the catalogue were three objects: a broken key, a dried piece of thread, and a small white stone.

Leo did not touch them.

This was a decision made by instinct and years of watching people touch suspicious objects in movies.

His class window appeared again.

[Welcome, Librarian of the Void.]

[Primary location registered: Entry Hall.]

[The current bearer has no restored records.]

[The current bearer has no bound teachers.]

[The current bearer has no recognised combat skills.]

Leo read the last line twice.

"You could have said that in a less personal way."

The System continued.

[Initial objective available.]

[Identify the first corrupted record.]

[Reward: Access to one restricted shelf.]

[Failure condition: None detected.]

[Time limit: None detected.]

A thin chime sounded somewhere above him.

One of the floating lamps turned on.

It illuminated a shelf directly behind the desk.

The shelf contained only one book.

Its cover was grey and cracked. A silver thread had been stitched across it in the shape of a crooked line. There was no title, but a black mark rested where the author’s name should have been.

Leo stepped closer.

The book’s surface looked wet.

He reached out, then stopped a few centimetres away.

A line of text appeared over the cover.

[Corrupted record detected.]

[Classification: Skill]

[Status: Murdered or forgotten]

[Restoration requirement: Identify the erased witness.]

Leo lowered his hand.

"Murdered?"

The word remained on the book.

For the first time since awakening, the joke in his head did not arrive.

He looked back at the distant doorway. The normal library was still visible, but it suddenly seemed much farther away than before.

There was a faint sound from behind the grey book.

A scratching noise.

Something moving between the shelves.

Leo slowly turned his head toward the dark corridor.

The sound stopped.

A second lamp flickered on, revealing a narrow path between the stacks. At the end of that path, a single catalogue card floated in the air.

The card was black.

A drop of red light slid down its surface and vanished before reaching the floor.

Leo’s class window changed.

[Investigation initiated.]

[Record fragment located.]

[First clue: A skill has been erased from its owner.]

The black card turned by itself.

On its back, one word appeared in pale writing.

Threadstep.