The Library

Act II: The Answer

"This is not the end," a voice whispered.

Atlas found himself standing alone in a dark void, but was he standing, or floating, or swimming? What was up or down, north or south? It was irrelevant in the emptiness.

"Is this a dream? Am I dead?" he thought.

He felt himself becoming one with the void, his body, his mind, his thoughts, his desires melding into nothingness.

Peace and quiet and nothing. He was almost gone now, and it wasn't so bad.

A small thought wormed through the nothing he was becoming, "Not yet."

"NOT YET"

This time the voice was louder.

Then he felt a presence; he wasn't alone in the void.

"You," a voice whispered in his head. "You seek something.

You seek...knowledge."

Atlas tried to speak but no words came out.

"Yesss," the voice continued, "I can show you the knowledge you seek."

An unblinking eye opened in the darkness, a red orb contrasting the nothingness around him.

"Look into the truth and enter, gain what you seek." the voice whispered.

Hundreds of smaller red eyes opened around the void peering into Atlas as if they could discern his every thought and feeling.

"I can see this is what you desire, enter...enter and behold."

The eye called to Atlas, and he felt himself moving towards it, closer and closer, until his vision was filled with nothing but red. He sank deeper and deeper into the eye, had it been hours, minutes, years? Did it even matter? Finally he saw something in the expanse of red, a door, simple and wooden, yet Atlas somehow knew it was ancient, perhaps older than even time itself.

"Enter and accept my gift...use my knowledge...gain what you seek."

Atlas was barely listening anymore however, he knew what he had to do. Reaching out, he laid his hand on the door's handle and gave it a pull, the door opened and instantly the void was no more.

The new view greeted Atlas's senses, rows upon rows of shelves as far as he could see in every direction. The shelves were made of a dark wood, twisting and turning, running all around in a way that was incomprehensible to the mind. He could see stairs going up to another level of the library. Or were they going down? The more he looked the more direction seemed to have no meaning in this strange place. Upon the shelves themselves sat a seemingly endless amount of books, every shape, size and material, packed tightly next to each other. Dispersed between the shelves Atlas could see blackened trees, void of any foliage, their branches reaching into the sky like skeletal fingers. Above him and around him more bookshelves could be seen with arches spanning the gaps between creating impossible geography. Yet no matter where he moved he could see a massive red moon above him, like an unblinking eye watching his every move while casting a dim red hue everywhere the eye could see. A deafening silence pervaded the air, only broken by the trees creaking in a wind that Atlas could not feel and the occasional distant sound of something skittering across the wooden floor. Atlas himself stood in a small clearing dominated by a dark wood pedestal that seemed to sprout from the floor, with a massive closed book resting on its top. Behind him, a blank wall held the same door he had entered from.

Drawn by curiosity, Atlas approached the pedestal, the wood below creaking softly as he walked. Upon close inspection, the book's cover appeared to be made of a pale leather stretched and held together in many places with stitches. Atlas dared not guess the leather's origin. The words 'Fonte Veritatis' were written on the leather in a dark reddish brown ink. He reached his hand to open the book, and upon making contact with it images and feelings shot through his mind. The images were too quick to tell apart, and they were immediately followed by an intense echo of pain coursing through his body, sending him reeling back from the book. He stood for a moment dazed before a wave of exhaustion hit him, and he gracelessly collapsed to the floor as his eyelids grew heavy. Unable to resist Atlas let his eyes close as he faded into unconsciousness.