Arc 1. Chapter 9. The other library.

"Huh..?"

The door creaked as Phil opened it.

Before their eyes, a great library opened up with thousands of books.

On both sides stood bookshelves packed with books that covered many things about the world that they were in. Secrets waiting to be discovered.

Han stared in amazement at the library, which wasn't nearly as big as Cloud's but gave off the vibe of all-knowing just like Clouds.

Han tried taking a step inside but Cloudia stopped him with an arm.

"Maybe you should wait, sir Han."

"What, why?"

Cloudia nodded toward the middle of the room.

Han turned his head toward where her eyes were looking.

He had been too focused on examining the room to notice it. In the middle of the room stood a strange little creature.

It was as dark as anything else from that world, with four legs and great fangs that could easily chew one to bits. It growled at them, drool dripping down its dark chin.

Han felt a sense of unease at the creature's presence, though he had never seen it before. The strange dog-looking monster scared him if only a little.

Maybe it was because of the look in its eyes, no, its eye, because this creature had only one, white eye, staring right at them from above its snotty nose.

He was scared to walk inside. It looked like the small four-legged beast would chew him to bits if he did. And if it did, how would he pass this obstacle exactly?

"sigh. Morris, calm down."

Han turned his head around.

Despite already fulfilling Han's quest, Phil had followed them inside the library and was now walking straight toward the monster dog.

"Wait! Phil, that's!"

"sigh, calm down, will you? Morris isn't dangerous if she recognizes you. sigh."

Han swallowed as Phil ignored his warning and walked up to the beast dog.

Han bit his lip as Phil stretched out his hand, but surprisingly, it wasn't ripped right off.

Instead, the dog started panting like any friendly dog, licking Phil's hand as he petted it behind its ear.

Phil grinned at Han's reaction and stood up from the sitting position he had taken to pet the dog.

"you scared?"

"Who wouldn't be..?" Han half whispered.

"I-is it safe to go in?" He continued.

"as long as she doesn't take it the wrong way. this is Morris's duty, to protect us. She sleeps in the library, so we just walked in on her siesta, you know."

"Sigh. Can't be helped." Said Cloudia which confused Han a little since the one who was supposed to sigh was Phil.

When he thought about it, the more they had conversed, the more Phil stopped sighing.

The thought made him happy and gave him hope that he maybe could befriend the gray children someday if he wasn't able to return to his world again.

That thought made him sadder, but he still kept the smile on his lips.

"what are you grinning about?" Asked Phil, seemingly confused about why Han had suddenly broken into a smile.

"Nothing," Han said as he stopped this strange act.

"sigh, you don't need to stop smiling, I was just asking why. doesn't this world look so depressing that it would be strange for anyone to smile?"

Han looked at him strangely.

"Weren't you laughing and passing a ball around with your friends a minute ago? Or grinning at me a second ago?"

"t-that doesn't count! my friends aren't depressing. in fact, they are the only thing in this world that is colorful to me. but this world has been giving me the creeps for a while now..."

"That so? How long have you been here?"

"sigh, from what I can remember, I appeared here yesterday, I think."

"Really? I thought you had been here for a long while."

This confused Han a little, he had thought that the gray children had been here for a longer time than just recently. Or maybe it was just Phil? But how could he say that the other gray children were the only thing that was colorful to him if he had just recently met them?

"But, how can you feel that way about people you just met?"

The question hadn't come from Han, but from Cloudia, who also must have picked up what Phil was saying, something that made them both sink into thought for a moment.

"well, I do have memories of them... kinda. I know their name and what I love about them. I also know that I'm closer to some of them rather than to all of them. but I can not remember how I got these memories, it just felt natural for me to know these things like it was a standard. like I always knew them..."

Han was barely listening. The reason was the dog, Morris, who had started to growl in a low and dark tone. Like it was putting on a threatening act to try and provoke something. But Phil had sunk into thought too. Probably thinking over his own words.

The atmosphere grew more and more tense as Han felt as if the sounds from the other two were being drained out, drained out by that creature.

Its eye didn't blink, didn't flicker, didn't even move, and yet Han felt himself starting to sweat and feel nauseous.

What was going on?

The world around him started to become blurry as he kept looking at the dog, he could see and feel all of it.

This wasn't normal, this wasn't what a dog should do, right?

It was speaking to him, the eye. He had seen it before? No, but he had known of its existence.

It was the eye of this world, that reset all objects to their original state. An eternal reset, an eternal return.

"No-!"

He grabbed his head with his glove-covered hands.

A voice whispered to him. From where? From inside his head?

He had stopped staring at the eye. No, it was there, it was everywhere. Watching him from every corner of that room, it stared at him, locked eyes with him, and embraced his mind with its own, penetrating his thoughts and blurring out everything that wasn't it.

It wasn't a dog anymore, it wasn't a creature, a being beyond anything he had ever seen. It was killing him. Choking him in his mind, killing his thoughts and feelings, and slowly, slowly killing him.

Die.

No!

Die so that I will live.

Noo!

You'll continue to die, over and over and over.

Stop! Get out of my head!

I will never leave.

AAH-!

"you okay, Han?"

He felt a hand on his shoulder.

Han looked up only to see Phil's face, one that he did not expect.

Cloudia was also there, looking worried.

"What- the hell was that?"

"what was what?"

"N-nothing."

He stopped clenching his head, getting up from his half-sitting position on the stone floor under him.

The voices had disappeared. He had had a conversation with a being out of this world, or maybe it wasn't even he who had had that conversation but someone else. It took him a little while to understand that he wasn't continuing the conversation, for it felt so close it was almost like he was there.

"Are you sure you are alright, sir Han?"

"Y-yeah, I just thought of something bad."

"hmm…"

Phil looked at him suspiciously, but Han was too tired to excuse himself further and just left him to have whatever thoughts he wanted about him.

"sigh, if you are too tired, the dormitory is two floors down, you can borrow my bed."

"If it fits me, I would gladly…"

"what do you mean by that?!"

Han gave Phil a small smile.

Phil, who must have noticed how exhausted Han was, kindly offered him to take a pause and calm down in his bed, an option Han gladly accepted for he had not slept at all if he didn't count himself passing out in Cloud's library.

He was tired, more tired than he had ever thought. His body was slowly giving up and he had not even started the research of trying to escape that world.

He was lazy, lazy enough to not even try. He should have done more, he could have done more. But he was way too tired for this and easily accepted the offer to relax, for he had not since coming to that world.

As he followed Phil down the stairs again, Cloudia tugged at his sleeve.

"I'll stay in the library, is that okay for you, sir Han?"

"Yeah, yeah, do as you please, Cloudia."

He gave her a strained smile and waved goodbye before sprinting after Phil, who hadn't noticed their goodbye.

The way down somehow felt harder than the way up.

He still felt extremely nauseous. The world was spinning lightly and he had to hold onto the walls to not fall over as he continued down the corridor.

"It's a long way…"

"it sure is…"

They continued, down stairs he had never used before, down underground, to a dimly lit up room that had the same atmosphere as the gray rooms.

Not only did it look like the gray rooms, it felt like it.

The walls looked like they would suffocate him, the cold air it gave off creeped him out, the smell that it never had.

Was this home?

He fell on a bed, whether it was Phil's bed or anyone else's he couldn't tell.

He was so tired it felt like he would pass out and sink through the floor.

Slowly, Phil helped him up and covered him in a gray blanket before petting his shoulder and wishing him well.

The door shut behind Phil as he went away and Han's consciousness flew away.

He was laying in dark water, no, ink. Warm ink.

The warm ink came from him. He was leaking warm, black, ink.

But it wasn't ink, and the various deep marks on his body weren't natural. He was bleeding out, brutally.

"Ah-"

Deep scars covered his body, marks that indicated the arrival of his soon-to-be, death.

Blood poured out of him and into the bed, covering the blankets and pillow in more blood, dying the gray red for his blood wasn't gray yet.

"Aaah-!"

Immense pain struck him like a lightning bolt.

"AAH!"

Pain, pain, pain. Everywhere in his body, he felt pain.

"AAAAAA!"

Death was here.

Pain- Death- Pain- Death- Pain- Death-.

Where was he bleeding? The wounds, the scars, the body.

Who had done this? Phil? No, he had been chewed to bits.

The Cyclops dog, Morris came up in his mind and he coughed up blood all over his thick winter jacket.

The eye. It was watching him, laughing at him as he bled out in Phil's bed.

Blood was now running down his limp hands to the floor. He couldn't move them, they had been chewed to bits, some of his fingers bitten off.

Why had that dog done this? How could this have happened? Why was he the one to be killed?

"ahh…"

He felt death envelop him as his soul started to give up on the body it possessed, and he felt himself leave himself there to die.

Han looked at himself, dead in Phil's bed in a pool of blood.

And as he traveled back into the light, he woke up in the gray rooms once more.

"I'm glad you got my message."

"You did good, my dear. It is dangerous to have such an individual here in this world."

"you didn't have to kill him…"

"And why is that, my dear?"

Three figures were standing over a bed in the dormitory, looking down on a bloody corpse belonging to someone who had left that world already.

"look at the mess she made. that is my bed, not hers."

"Yes, I see. But you should not have welcomed such a stranger into this castle."

"easy for you to say, you are never here."

A shorter figure spoke to the tallest while another short one made their statement.

"Oh, it will be alright, firstborn."

The tall figure put its hand around the shortest, one who did not seem to be agreeing with the other two's opinion on the matter. Protesting against their way of taking care of a problem that was no more.

"It was right of you two to call me, one who enters this world will suffer the consequences. I am very glad that it did not escalate to something worse than this. If the man laying in that bed had the intention, he could have hurt you children badly."

"Understood, master."

The other figure, who was taller than the first, agreed with what the tallest was saying, nodding in agreement as she stepped back.

"Death shall be the consequences, 'Han.'" Said the master as they stepped away from his bloody corpse, a small dog following right after.