In Sane

Sifer Aseph sat down, her legs crossed as she lay an old book she had found in the library of her apartment on them. She spent a lot of time in her apartment, not needing to work due to wealth, the main consumer of time in her days was reading either from her old books or doing proofs, something she deeply enjoyed. Snow gently fell outside as she chose to stay cozy in her warm apartment. Winter was a strange moment in her life, too cold to go out as she did in the summer as well as short days so she just resorted to reading.

She had shorter black hair, pale skin and brown eyes. She wore cozy winter clothes as she looked at the book. It was an old leather, hardback book that had crimson symbols that resembled worn out letters that were originally crimson on the black leather. The leather was both dusty but under the coat of dust, the leather felt brand new. She had noticed it earlier that day as she looked at her bookshelf for more reading material before her eyes had fallen upon that book, "What's this one's title?"

Sif tried to decipher the book's title but nothing she thought of could resolve the enigma in front of her, "Maybe its content can help me with the title, who knows what this book could be holding?" She blew the dusty cover and then opened the book, revealing the worn out pages covered in small, black print writing. They were mostly clear despite the few rubber out letters in certain words but the context of the writing was more than enough for her mind to piece the story together. The book was more than intriguing to her, with every sentence flowing into the next and revealing the story behind the words.

She arrives at a scene that made her stop and think, "Huh? What is this doing here?" She flipped back to see if she had missed a page or if the pages were stuck together, but Sif found nothing, the pages were in the right order but the scenes didn't seem to fit. She turned back to the page and began reading once more before in the corner of her eye she noticed something that was wrong, "Weren't there numbers?" She flipped back and saw the difference, "At the bottom? Why is it there?" She stopped and looked at the book, "I was, I was sure it was numbered at the bottom, not the top, or was it?" She flipped through the book some more, noticing the alternating numbering, "Weird way of numbering your pages," The scene still had no place where it was, "Hm, this is weird," As she thought to herself, another bizarre occurrence happened in front of her, the letters were moving as if alive on the page and then rearranged themselves and wrote what she had just asked before pointing out the two places. She let go of the book and pushed back against her sofa and fell back with the entire thing as the words continued to move on the page.

A noise caught her attention, a slamming window. She got up slowly and peer from behind the fallen sofa at the window, it hadn't moved, there was no snow on the floor and the air was still warm and cozy as it was before, "H-Hello? Who is there?" She called out to her empty apartment. She slowly returned to her feet and looked around as the moving letters on the book continued to move around. She looked around as nothing else in her apartment was off, just a closed window that slammed, maybe it was just someone else's window slamming and it sounded as if it was her's? A glass breaking sounded behind her as she turned to see a glass shattered on the floor. A shard slid next to her. Slowly, she crouched before reaching out to pick it up before her fingers seemed to simply go through it as if nothing was there, "What?"

She was losing her mind, first the book, then a window slamming, now a broken glass that wasn't there, "What is going on? Is anyone there?" She called out once more before standing up. The book's letters continued to move as the pages slowly began turning, the noise of the pages getting her attention. She slowly moved towards it as it simply continued, the pages flipping one by one as the letters seemed to begin talking to her, the words' letters were made up of the smaller letters and seemed to have no connection to the other before she lost herself staring at the pages as they arrived at the end and then began turning back. The words suddenly made sense. She looked back at the broken glass and saw that it was gone and sitting on the counter she had left it on, "What are you!?" She shouted at the book as if expecting it to answer her.

She was brought back to reality by the crackling of the fire as once her eyes left the book and her mind drifted back to the room she was in, everything seemed normal but once she looked at the book, the fire died out, the glass fell once more and shattered again in the exact same way as it had when she first heard it. The book was doing something. She grabbed at the book and, with the first idea in her mind, rushed into her kitchen and lit one of the pilot lights. The book's pages were closed but the faded symbols on the cover began moving under her fingers before she places it on the blue flames of the stove. She moved back slightly as the flames licked the leather and paper of the bizarre book, slowly winkling it before a flame caught onto the paper and then a burst of flames enveloped the book. She leaned back and sighed as the smell of burning leather and paper filled her apartment.