Reverse Chronicles

Of Knowledge, Of Wisdom, Of Might

“You are finally here,” I can hear a woman’s voice inside my head. “I commend you for making it this far, but this is the end of your journey.”

“You hear that?” Keith asks.

“I can hear her,” I answer.

“Are you ready to face her?”

“I…”

“Alright, let’s go!” Keith runs up the left giant stairwell. I follow him. Together, we open the door to the librarian’s office.

Inside is a giant circular room that had shelves as walls. Books and tomes lined the walls as far as the eye can see. In the center of the room, a woman wearing white floats. She has hair as dark as charcoal and a skin whiter than her gown. Her lips are cherry red, and her eyes shine like morning sunlight. She looks like a goddess, with perfect complexion and body physique. Her gown tightened around her waist giving her a slender curve. On her forehead is a symbol drawn in the likeness of an eye, making it look like a third eye from afar. Floating around her are books, tomes, and even scrolls, having varying sizes.

She waves her hand and the door behind us disappears. She clenches her right fist and extends it in front of her, and a drop of purple light drops to the floor. A strong gust of scalding wind suddenly blew, crashing us against the wall.

I feel my strength fading away. My MP instantly depleted and my HP slowly decreased. I ask for help from Keith, but he fell unconscious.

“I told you, this is the end,” the librarian suddenly sliced her hand through the air. I feel every inch my body in pain. I look at my hands, they were drenched red with blood. My fingers fell off, then my arms. Then, I could feel my head moving away from my body.

“Josh! Josh!” a voice keeps calling my name. “Josh, snap out of it!” Keith slaps my cheek lightly. I was in front of the door to the librarian’s office. I check my fingers, hands, and neck. They are still attached. The sensation of my life fleeting away before my eyes is fresh. My body remembers my fingers, arms, and neck being cut off.

Was that an illusion? Is it a vision of what’s to come? What just happened?

“Are you ready?” Keith asks again.

“Let’s go!” We enter through the door and find the same room in my dream. Books in shelves as far as the eye could see. The only thing that differs is the woman who floated in the center of the room. She wore a blue gown whose ends floated, swirled, and flowed. It had wavy motifs and is fastened by a golden clam pin on the shoulder. Her curly hair is bright orange, extending down up to her shoulders. She has a tanned skin and rose red lips. Her eyes have a shade of blue that resembled the junction of sea and sky. The symbol on her forehead is still present, but it has a blue hue.

She flicks her hair and the door behind us gets covered with a giant wall of water. She kisses her right hand and a drop of purple liquid fell from it. A strong torrent of freezing water suddenly fill the entire room. The water’s current created a whirlpool that swirled us around. Keith grabs my hand and we swim to the surface. However, the currents got even more violent and separated us. I swam as hard as I could to reach the surface, but my strength is not enough.

“It ends now!” I hear the librarian’s voice in my head. Suddenly, I feel an opposing current in my back. I was pulled to it and my body was torn by two currents with opposing directions. I feel my entire body twisted and broken.

“Josh, hey are you alright?” Keith slaps me from another trance.

“What just happened?” I ask him.

“What happened?”

“I saw us die,” I tell him. “Not once, but twice. The first time our limbs and heads get sliced. The second time we were drowned and torn apart.” I feel my stomach trembling in fear. It remembers how I died two times. “We die if we enter.”

But how can this be? I’m still alive.

“What are you talking about?” Keith smiles and pats my shoulder. “We still haven’t gotten into the room. Wait, are you serious? You look really pale.”

“I’m fine,” I answer. Keith cast Restore and calmed me down.

We enter through the door and the same room appears again. The librarian is also different this time. She is wearing a brown crystal-adorned dress with a slit on her right leg. Her skin is black and her hair brown. Her lips are as red as blood and her white eyes shine like a diamond. The symbol on her forehead stayed the same, but now it has a golden color.

Before she could do anything, I cast Incinerate and circled around to attack her from the back. However, when I jumped to attack her, my spell vanished mid-air.

“Josh, watch out!” Keith suddenly shouts.

A sharp spike of rock suddenly appears below me. It was rising as fast to impale me. I tried to change my direction using Gust, but the spike is too fast, and it caught my left leg, impaling it.

“I will end this now!” she shouts. More spikes appear from the ground. They were all headed to finish me. However, Zealle flew from my hat and stopped the spikes with her Freezing Breath. I was about to relax, when a spike from the ceiling is crashing down towards me. I closed my eyes and feel a painful sensation of my stomach opening up.

“Josh?” Keith’s voice calls again. I vomit and fell on my knees. “Are you alright?” Keith takes me down the steps of the stairs and begins healing me. “Your body is really injured. I can feel your magic energy in disorder.”

After casting his spells, I feel instantly better. However, the feeling of being impaled lingered on. I touch my stomach and I could feel the spike still lodged inside it. I look at my hands and could picture them sliced to smithereens.

“What is happening?” I shout as loud as I could. Keith is shocked. “Keith,” I touch his hands. They were warm and comforting. “I know you won’t believe me, but we already died three times.” I begin explaining to him what happened and all the instances we perished.

“That’s impossible,” he is flabbergasted. “But I think I believe you.” He fell into silence and was in deep thought. “If she attacks us, when we do nothing or we do something, then whether we do something or not does not matter. We should attack her with everything that we can.”

We enter the librarian’s office. This time, she wore a red burning dress. Her eyes and hair are black like burnt charcoal. Her skin is light brown are her lips are flaming red. The symbol on her forehead remained the same, except that it has a red hue.

“You’re still here?” she suddenly shouted in shock.

What does she mean by that?

“No matter, I will end everything here and now!”

“Josh, get ready! She is casting a fire spell.” Keith and I combine our spells. We let out a torrent of water and surrounded ourselves with it. Her fires burn greatly, but the water provides protection, thwarting all of her fire attacks.

“How did you predict my attack?” she begins to lose composure. “Taste this!” She created a dragon out of fire and rammed it towards us. The impact evaporated the water barrier and burned us. We got knocked back against the wall. “Leave the library!” she finished us with a fiery blaze that my skin still remembers it.

“Josh?” I gasped when Keith called my name. Every inch of my body feels burning, but I have figured out what’s happening. We have already died four times and every time the librarian ends us, we come back here, unscathed. I explain everything to Keith and miraculously, he believes what I said.

“You! How do you still find the strength to come back after everything?” the librarian shouts in my head. “No one has come this far. Not even Elementalists, who are more powerful than you. For that, I’m willing to strike a deal with you. If you still have the strength to enter the door after your next death, I will grant you your wish.”

We have come this far. We cannot turn back now. I lead the way into the librarian’s office. I expected to see a librarian floating and an endless shelf of books, but this time I see a girl dressed in a robe with seven colors. She is blindfolded and sat on a chair surrounded by a pile of books. The endless shelves finally had an end and the dark ceiling is now visible, as a translucent glass ceiling.

“What’s this?” I wonder to myself.

“You have impressed me with your determination,” the young girl answers. “With that you earn my approval to access the forbidden collection. But beware, read only that which you seek!” She stands up and waves her hand. All the books in the shelves floated and arranged themselves. From the body of books, a door suddenly appears.

“You may enter.”