Linked Worlds | Other Dimensions #1

Nine - Salark

© 2021 Calliope Night. All rights reserved.

"No this, definitely not this, not that, oh this migh- never mind"

***

Lark felt relieved when the girl woke up. She'd introduced herself as Sia. At first, she seemed disoriented, but after they explained to her the situation, she somehow seemed even more disoriented. The girl explained her story. With the teleportation and random caves, it didn't seem very believable, but Lark had a gut feeling that she wasn't lying. Something about what she said seemed familiar.

Em suggested they go to sleep and decide what to do the next day with a fresh mind since the girl was sick. Lark agreed, at least verbally he did. When they parted ways, he intended to go back to the dorms, but the curiosity was killing him. He swore he heard something similar to what Sia said. It was on the tip of his tongue, but he just couldn't get it.

He went to the library. While curiosity did kill the cat, I'm a veori, so it should be fine, he thought. He followed the path to the central building and through the hallways to his destination

"What the hell is it?" Lark mumbled to himself.

"What is it that you're looking for, young man?" a voice said from behind Lark, startling him.

He turned around to find the librarian standing behind him. The man was a short, pudgy man in his mid-thirties who was always sweating no matter what the weather was. He always struck Lark as odd, but he'd done nothing wrong, so he just chalked that up to just disliking the man.

"Yes sir, I'm looking for a book on teleportation," Lark said.

"Oh, what a peculiar topic. Is there any reason why?" The librarian asked as he showed Lark up a flight of stairs to the shelf he needed.

"Oh no, not particularly, it just showed up in one of my tests and I got curious," Lark said casually, knowing that he probably shouldn't expose Sia.

"Ah, I see, well, I'll be off."

The man walked off and Lark started flipping through books. The school's library was the biggest in the district. There were at least 80,000 books, and the entire library was made of wood carved into intricate designs. It'd be a real shame if it all got set on fire. Although, a library-sized fire could probably roast a lot of marshmallows if they would even taste good. Ah yes, the faint flavor of trigonometry.

Lark had never really paid attention to most of the place unless he had to research for an assignment. Then, the carvings became the most interesting part of the library. He also had most of the prophetic, history, and astronomy books memorized, so didn't worry much when he dozed off in class. Now, however, he wished he'd paid more attention to the lectures. He knew he'd heard something similar to Sia's situation somewhere.

"No this, definitely not this, not that, oh this migh- never mind," Lark said to himself as he tossed yet another book onto the ever-growing pile on the table. He already knew putting everything back in order was going to be troublesome.

An hour into his stay, he had looked through all the books in the 'Teleportation and Portals' section. None of which was related to what he remembered the Nirapherian girl saying. He decided that the only way he would get anything even remotely useful was to go through the older books they had in the back. It was only accessible to the staff, prophetic, and history students, but Lark, luckily, fell into one of those categories.

Getting his approval, Lark made his way into the small room. The shelves were tall and filled to the brim with ancient books. They weren't labeled as the rest of the library was, making it a pain for Lark to find the books he needed. Lark looked through the titles of each book, some of which were too rotted to read, and others in languages he didn't know.

Finding a satisfactory collection of books, he started skimming through them all and found an unassailable urge to sleep, although he didn't know if that was because it was late or because he was bored.

***

He had found it, at long last. Well, long last to the boy since it had only been about two hours, but with all the overly complicated old grammar and spelling, it may as well have been an eternity to him.

Just then, Lark heard shoes hitting the wooden floor. "Is anyone here?" a voice called out to the dimly lit room.

"Yes, I'm in here," Lark answered back.

A janitor poked her head around the side of a bookshelf with a mop in hand as if surprised that someone would answer back.

"Well, what are ya doing in here? It's almost half-past midnight. You're not allowed to be here at this time. If it were anyone else, they would have locked the door without checking for someone! Don't you have a sense of time, kid? Get back to your dorm," the lady near shouted at him as she pointed to the door.

Lark mumbled an okay in response as he quickly shoved all the ancient books back in their place, almost breaking three. He put the important one back in place with great care, not wanting it to crumble just moments after he found it while also noting down its location. He then ran out of the library, earning another shout from the janitor.

He sprinted his way down a flight of stairs and out of the building to his dorm. Opening the door to his dorm, he realized that there were only two people awake; Tiso, the night owl, and Nathan whose diet comprised of ninety percent coffee.

"Out so late, eh? Were you with some girls?" Nathan said, poking fun at Lark.

"No, well, at least not till now," Lark replied.

"Ooh, so ya were with some girls?" He had been speaking in a broken northern accent. Lark had become accustomed to Nathan's weird accent parroting since he did so often to the point where it wasn't even something to comment on if you've known him for more than a week.

"Nathan, I was in the infirmary and then left to go to the library. I don't think we're thinking about this the same way,"

"Ah, right, how could I forget, you're the biggest killjoy out there, well second only to our good ol' Tiso."

"Look, if the two of you are going to argue, don't bring me into it," Tiso said whilst reading through a book without looking up.

"Well, you can't argue with facts," Lark replied immediately, regretting it almost as instantaneously when Tiso shot him an award-winning death glare.

Of course, Nathan was laughing the entire time.