6. Danger Behind The Bars

Tapping and clicking sounds were the first thing that brought Trevor back to consciousness. Before he managed to open his eyes he also caught some metallic sound. A rustle of chains, multiple ones. He slowly peeled off his eyelids to first see a dull fog, which slowly faded away, as his vision focused. He was laying on the marble floor, with his cheek resting straight on the cold stone. Eyes distinguished the brown wood of the bookshelves seemingly surrounding him, which immediately made him realize that he was still in 'The Grand Library'.

Fortunately, the light around was bright, which dulled a bit his sense of danger in the first few seconds of him being conscious.

Groaning out of pain, he picked himself up. His back hurt a lot, but actually, no bones seemed to be broken, since he felt no sharp pain, except the dull one in his spine. As he managed to sit on the floor, he confirmed his line of thoughts, that he indeed was still in this strange place, surrounded by thousands and thousands of volumes, although the ones in his location were different. Much different. They were moving.

The bookstands were short, compared to the massive walls in the place he still had in his memories, but they were not ordinary bookshelves. The ones around had bars. Thin and in many places twisted as a form of decorations, creating serpents or some vines. A bunch even had thorns, all climbing up the pieces of furniture, blocking anybody from just picking what was locked behind. A few were even chained, but what was even stranger, was the fact, that some of them were moving. Jumping, like they were trying to escape.

They all were turned with their fronts towards him, hiding the possible titles on their spines, so there was no way for him to even tell what they were containing.

The view shocked him, even scared, as Trevor had never before seen anything like that, but with time the curiosity won.

As he got back on his feet, and made those few steps, to reach the bars, he attempted to open them, but they were shut closed. The metal clanged as he jerked the whole thing. There was no way for the boy to actually pick any of those books. Still, they responded, trying to move off the shelves even fiercer, to reach his hand, which caused him to rapidly retract it, scared of what could possibly happen.

He licked his lips, thinking what exactly he should do. The curiosity was a strong painkiller, to the point that he actually forgot of his back injury, focusing only on the strange magic tomes and other mysterious books.

There was not really much he could do with the metal bars, but there were plenty of bookstands surrounding him, so he simply turned around, to find some that were not protected. The immediate vicinity had all of the tomes locked, so he started roaming. With every minute the place seemed to be weirder, and weirder.

As he kept walking, lured by a melody that reached his ears, he noticed and approached a wooden rack turned into an archway with the grimmuars somehow held in place, not only by some physical protection in form of chains or more bars, but also by some metaphysical forces, as they remained in their spots despite being straight above his head, and the forces of gravity still working on him as they normally did.

Past it was another small space surrounded by books from every side. Those were obviously also weird. They were humming some beautiful tune, and he couldn't help but get curious. It was a chorus of tomes, opening and closing as the sounds escaped their pages. Trevor watched it like mesmerized, as he have never seen such a thing before, not even heard of anything like that.

It took him a solid few minutes, to bring himself back to the surreal world surrounding him. He was used to just a little bit of magic in his life, thanks to living in the fourth district, but this place, The Grand Library, was full of it to the point it seemed overwhelming.

If not for the immense curiosity, he would have problems believing it was all real, and not some type of hallucination.

He stepped into the open space, surrounded by the book choir, and located a pathway between the bookstands that he could use to pass through. As he did, the furniture moved, forming a corridor for him. Immediately, just like with a snap of a finger, the music got cut off. A gasp escaped his mouth as the sudden silence scared him, but after a moment of being paralyzed by the fear of the unexpected, no further changes happened, which led to him relaxing just a bit.

He peeked over his shoulder for a moment, noticing that everything behind him also changed. The small open space was gone, instead, there was a long-ass corridor filled with books. A bit unsure of what he should do, he ended up pushing forward after a short pause to think.

He kept walking and walking, for at least half an hour surrounded by the magic tomes. Some barked at him, taking him by surprise, and scaring him, but he didn't stop. There was one that emitted a strange purple mist, but he passed by it covering his mouth to not inhale it.

Eventually, he found himself in another open space, surrounded just by a few very tall racks, which was strange, because there were only a few books there, all heavily bared and on top of that chained. The metal in that place was much thicker than before.

As he stepped in, one of those books burped, for a second showing its sharp teeth, and some fragments of a page flew from the toothy maw to drift gracefully in the air, and end up on the floor.

He moved to pick them up. They had some symbols written on them, but he couldn't tell what it really was, as he have never seen such a thing before.

The whole situation made him rethink if he maybe, just maybe, should start looking for a way out. After all, he had no food and was already hungry.

- I-is anybody here? - he asked with a trembling voice.

Silence answered him.

- Is anybody here?! - he asked again, this time a bit louder.

Silence answered again.

The panic kicked in, and Trevor started looking around for a way out, but everything looked the same. Because of the fear, it took him a solid moment to realize that the corridor he came into this place was gone. There were just those tall wooden bookstands surrounding him, with the creepy books placed in them, and locked behind the bars.

- Holy shit, holy shit… - escaped the boy's mouth, as he kept spinning, desperately trying to find something that could possibly lead him to an escape.

There was nothing, but he kept going and going until his head started spinning too, and the whole world became wobbly. He fell on his ass, which brought back the back pain and a groan left his mouth.

- Ugh…

He needed to spend a moment on the floor, to get back to normal, and it made him calm down a bit. Despite the dangerous cannibalistic books, there was nothing attacking him. This then led to Trevor realizing that he came here with a mission. A mission to find the answers he was looking for. A mission to wake up magic in him.

As he thought those thoughts his eyes locked on something just to the side of where he was. A pathway seemingly no different from any other around, but for some reason, his eyes were being attracted to something that was there.

Putting some effort in, he picked himself up and started walking in that direction.