The Eternal Sleep

The Sleeping Library

“You sure this is the place?” Luca stooped on the top of the tall wall, eyes searching for any suspicious activity.

“Not really, but this is what the map from Book Keeper says.” Luca huffed, not happy to remember the many hours it took to drag Armando away from the pleasant NPC. It’d taken them three days to actually find and get to the ‘Sleeping Library’ and Luca was a little over enthusiastic to finally get inside and get his hands on every book, if possible.

They were standing on the outskirts of what looked like an ancient castle, fitting with the unnecessarily large front yard, fancy gate and wooden doors. Jay was itching to get inside along with Luca, but Armando and the others insisted on checking for traps. So far, they had no evidence that the library was even open or if any one had ever been there.

Luca suggested teleporting himself into the middle of the walkway to check for traps but was met with strong resistance. After his stunt with the shadow creature, the others were determined to not let him out of their sights, despite his many protests that they were in a game. Though, his argument was pretty invalid considering he would have done the same if he were in their position.

“Alright, looks pretty clear to me.”

“Finally!” Luca jumped from the wall, teleporting to the gate and doing the honors of pushing them open. They opened gracefully and silently; Luca braced for any attacks that Armando might’ve missed. Luckily, there was only the sound of the wind through the trees. Luca shrugged his shoulders and walked in.

“Think there’s anyone inside?” Jay nudged his shoulder, nodding his head to the gigantic doors ahead of them.

“Who knows, it’s a wonder if anyone even knows this exist.” Luca whispered back, “I mean, if Armando didn’t know, I’m not keeping my hopes up that this place might be of any use.”

Luca dropped his hand on Jay’s shoulder, teleporting them up the countless stairs. He winced as Jasper cursed and sat heavily on the floor, waving at the others to signal that the area was safe. “Who wants to open the doors?”

“I vote Lu, he was the one that found out about the library in the first place,” Rene shrugged, “besides, he already seems to have a death wish from his last stunt, why not make him the stunt guy?”

“I don’t know if to thank you or curse you…” Luca scowled, sticking his tongue out at her like a true, mature adult. He sighed and shook out his hands, squaring up his shoulders as he averaged the size of the doors. He glanced at Jay, meeting his eyes questioningly and nodding his head at the door. His partner in crime shrugged and braced his palms at one door, waiting for Luca to do the same.

The doors opened surprisingly easy for its size, not even a creak was heard. Luca shielded his eyes instinctively as air seemed to be sucked into the building from the open doors. He startled and bumped into the door as a sneeze rattled into the darkness, with wide eyes, he stared at Armando.

“How?” the four screeched.

“I genuinely don’t know.” Armando sniffed, “I have allergies, I’m so accustomed sneezing when I open a new book or going into dusty places that I just kind of expected it to happen and… it did.”

“Wow.” Luca shook his head roughly as if physically trying to remove the memory from his mind. He peered into the darkness, inching towards, unable to see anything beyond a couple inches. “Do we have flashlights ‘cause-“

As he took a step past the door, torches flared up with a loud ‘frwoosh’, startling him so hard that he barreled straight into Jay trying to get out of the building. Jay steadied him, getting him back to his feet and lightly pushing him forward, “How it is that you can face a scary shadow monster in an underground cavern, by yourself, with no light and come out fine, but you go into a library and look like a cat whose just seen a cucumber.”

“One, rude, you dunno why does cats are afraid of cucumbers, it could be a natural reaction to get away from danger, and two, at least I had an idea of what I was going up against, this library could have anything-.”

“Like shelves as tall as skyscrapers and forty-foot large cube just hanging around above it?” Olivia whistled.

“Wha- wow.” Luca’s disgruntled thoughts exploded into fine dust.

It was like walking into some sort of separate, dystopian world. A platform stretched out before them, glowing gems and gold carved onto its surface. The walls were lined with bookshelves, stretching off into what seemed to be a never-ending ceiling. They broke into floors, floating tiles giving clear access to the books in place of ladders.

Stairs were placed at what seemed like random, stretching from one wall, above them and reaching the shelf at the other wall. Long columns of stone reaching down to the platform, strange languages etched into the marble. Leaning over the platform, Luca could see more bookshelves stretching beneath them, no end in sight.

Scattered on large tiles and platforms were chairs and sofas, conveniently placed for both privacy and easy access to books. Pens and papers littered the tabletops that they could see, some books were misplaced on tiles as thought readers were in the middle of them and never returned it.

The most eye-catching sight of the day, however, was the gigantic cubes that floated above them, giving off a glow as though it were absorbing the light from the torches and scattering it back out. Despite the lack of windows, there were not many shadows in sight, Luca was reminded of midday instead of an old, dusty library.

From the distance, the cubes were all translucent, reflecting items too far for them to make out clearly. Jay nudged him, tapping his wrist and nodding at one of the highest tiles he could spot. Luca sent at questioning look back at his best friend, as curious as he was, he didn’t want to teleport both of them up there and risk Jay falling.

Jay gave him a cocky smile and held out his hand. Luca rolled his eyes and grabbed his upper arm instead, glancing at the suggested tile. Jay swayed as their feet touched the ground, Luca letting him down on one knee to steady himself. With a small thumb’s up to Olivia, he daringly stepped to the edge and gazing at the strange cube closest to him.

They had a gel-like appearance to them, the corners lined with solid substances, varying from cube to cube. Inside, the images shifted in and out like a bad connection to the television, Luca could hardly make out the shapes. Curiously, he stretched his hand out to one, the gentle light calling him like a singing siren.

“Luca don’t!” He flinched at Jay’s shout, the tip of his fingers brushing the cube. He caught Jay’s warning glare for a few seconds before his world erupts into blue light, not unlike his teleportation totem. It hardly last seconds before he landed roughly on a road. Luca scrambled to his feet, barely managing a avoid a carriage heading straight at him. He swiveled his head back and forth, trying to take in his surroundings, only just missing the clip of another carriage.

The rain was pouring, people rushing on the pavements to get to shelter, their expensive dresses and suits sprinkled with raindrops. The streets were alit with torches, buildings made of stone and glass reflected candlelight. Luca raised his hand to one of the passing individuals, a word of greeting on his lips.

His hand passed though, dissolving into blue wisps of smoke, solidifying again after a few seconds. The man didn’t react, continuing on his set path. Luca looked at his own hands, watching the raindrops pass through his hands like he wasn’t even there. He walked up to a small café, resting his hand on the knob and turning it, gasping as the stability under his feet disappeared and the world dissolved into purple sand.

Luca yelped as he was tossed onto a tile, the library coming back into focus. He threw himself to the edge, hurriedly glancing at his surroundings, it was just as he came in. A voice called his name, Jay was standing on a tile a couple of feet above him, near the cube he’d been unceremoniously thrown from.

“You okay?” Luca gave him a thumbs up, pulling himself to his feet and teleporting next to him, “What happened, one moment you dissolved into some kind of blue smoke and then you’re back on a tile a minute later like nothing happened.”

Luca didn’t answer him right away, placing a hand on his shoulder and teleporting them to Armando’s side. The young genius immediately took a look at Luca’s stats, pulling up another screen beside it. “What was that about?”

Olivia and Rena completed the circle with curious looks. “Not sure, it was like a was in the old days when carriages and stuff were still a thing.” Luca recounted his time in the cube, describing it in as much detail as he could.

“From the info Book Keeper gave me, looks like you entered a ‘space-sphere’.” Armando glanced at the cubes with interest, “You essentially entered a place built to resemble either a place in the game or a time period in the real world.”

“Interesting, are there any payments or side effects to this?”

“Aside from disorientation, nothing that I’m seeing.”