The message remained on the wall long after the ink should have dried.She remembers.Elian tried to rub it away with his sleeve, but the words sank deeper into the marble as if the Library had swallowed them whole.
He whispered the phrase like a riddle. "She remembers what?"
No one answered.
He spent hours retracing his steps through the hall, hoping the path would twist back to something familiar. But the corridors were quieter now. Even the whisper of air between shelves was gone, replaced by a faint, rhythmic sound—drip, drip, drip—from somewhere far below.
At first, he thought it was the pipes.Then he realized the Library didn't have any.
The sound grew clearer the deeper he went. Stairs he didn't recognize curved down in impossible spirals, their banisters carved from black stone veined with faint light. With each step, the temperature dropped, and the smell of dust gave way to something sharp, metallic—like rain on iron.
He descended for what felt like hours until the stairs ended abruptly at a circular landing.
Beyond it stretched a vast chamber, hollow and dark.
At its center lay an ocean.
It wasn't water.
The surface shimmered with the sluggish movement of ink, thick and glistening like oil beneath a dim light. Each ripple reflected fragments of text—sentences in languages he couldn't read, some familiar, others shifting before his eyes.
Elian approached the edge and knelt.The black sea breathed.
Every few seconds, bubbles rose and burst silently, releasing faint whispers that echoed like the turning of pages. The sound was soothing and wrong at once.
He reached out.
The moment his fingertips brushed the surface, a flash burned behind his eyes—a vision, sharp and brief:
A girl laughing beneath falling rain.A book clutched to her chest.A voice saying, "Promise me you'll remember."
Then nothing. The sea stilled again.
Elian fell backward, gasping. His heartbeat thundered in his ears. "Who was that?"
The Library didn't answer, but the ripples spread outward from where he'd touched, glowing faintly as if something below were waking.
He stood and circled the shore.The chamber seemed endless, but faint shapes rose from the water—pillars, pedestals, fragments of bridges that led nowhere. At intervals, there were objects half-submerged: books bound in glass, quills made of bone, a broken pocket-watch that ticked backward.
He found a small platform jutting out above the surface, connected by a narrow walkway. Upon it sat a desk, absurdly ordinary, with a single open notebook.
He hesitated, then crossed.
The notebook's pages were blank except for one line, written in neat, delicate handwriting.
If you write your name here, you will be remembered.
Elian's throat tightened. He traced the edges of the page but didn't move to write. The last time he'd tried to name himself, the ink had vanished before he finished the second letter.
He whispered, "What happens if I don't?"
The ink sea rustled. From somewhere below, a faint light pulsed—slow, steady, almost like a heartbeat.
He sat at the desk and stared into the water. His reflection wavered, breaking apart into a dozen versions of himself—young, old, faceless, hollow. Some stared back; others turned away.
He whispered to them, "Do any of you remember me?"
The reflections rippled, distorting. For a heartbeat, he thought one of them smiled.
A drop of ink lifted from the sea and floated upward, forming a small orb before him. It hovered at eye level, then burst—splattering words across the page.
They weren't his handwriting.
Nara Rien.Archivist Candidate 02.Status: Unwritten.
Elian's pulse stopped for a second. "Nara…"
The name felt heavy in his mouth, too familiar to be foreign.He didn't know her, and yet the moment he spoke her name, the sea stirred violently. Waves of ink rose and crashed soundlessly against the stone. The notebook trembled beneath his hands, and new lines appeared.
She remembers.Find her before the Library forgets you.
The desk began to sink. Elian leapt back as the walkway cracked, swallowing itself piece by piece. He ran, heart hammering, until he reached solid ground again. Behind him, the entire platform vanished beneath the black tide.
When he turned back, the sea was calm once more—perfectly still, as if nothing had happened.
Only the notebook floated on the surface, face down.
He knelt, breathing hard, staring at the quiet expanse.The air smelled again of rain.
A thought began to form, small but insistent: This place isn't built from stone and shelves.It's built from memory—every forgotten moment, every name erased from the world. And the Library doesn't keep them safe. It keeps them contained.
The realization left a taste like metal on his tongue.
He whispered into the stillness, "Then who keeps me?"
A faint echo answered—not with words, but with rhythm.Drip. Drip. Drip.
The same sound that had led him here. Only now it came from within the sea itself.
He stared into the black mirror until a shape began to emerge—first faint, then clearer. A figure, standing beneath the surface, eyes closed, hair drifting like ink. She looked almost human.
Nara.
Elian reached out, trembling. "If you can hear me…"
Her eyes snapped open.
For a moment, everything froze. Then the ink surged upward, swallowing the chamber in a single, soundless wave.
When he opened his eyes, he was lying on a marble floor slick with black water. The sea was gone. Only faint stains remained, spreading like veins across the stone.
He sat up slowly, coughing.The message on the wall ahead of him had changed.
She is awake.
The lamps above flickered once, then stabilized.
Elian rose to his feet, soaked, breathless, and afraid to speak.Somewhere in the distance, the Library shifted again—doors slamming, shelves turning, the deep machinery of memory grinding back to life.
For the first time since he had woken in this place, he wasn't alone.