The impact was brutal and disorienting. Aiden landed heavily on what seemed to be cold stone, his knees hitting the ground with a dull sound that echoed strangely in the space surrounding him. His vision took a few seconds to adjust, transitioning from the blinding white of teleportation to a golden and warm penumbra.
He was in a library.
But not just any library. This one defied all architectural logic he knew. The shelves rose to dizzying heights, disappearing into a velvety darkness that seemed alive. Spiral staircases floated in the void, connecting suspended balconies that should never have held without support. And everywhere, everywhere, books. Thousands, millions of volumes with bindings of every imaginable color, some emitting a soft glow, others vibrating slightly as if they were breathing.
- "Shit..." murmured Aiden, and he jumped at the sound of his own voice. It was different, younger, clearer, with a resonance he didn't recognize. He looked down at his hands and nearly cried out.
These weren't his hands. Well, they belonged to him, he could feel it, but they were those of a teenager. His skin was smooth, devoid of the premature wrinkles that illness had etched on his joints. His arms, when he examined them, were thin but firm, muscled as he had never been even in good health.
He rushed toward a golden-reflective display case that served as a mirror. The face that returned his gaze was his, but a version of himself he had never known. Sixteen years old, maybe seventeen. Fine but determined features, slightly tousled chestnut hair, and those eyes... His eyes had remained the same that particular shade of brown-green that had always been his only physical pride—but they now shone with a vitality he had forgotten.
- "What's happening to me?" he whispered, his voice breaking slightly.
A new crystalline sound rang out, and the blue screen reappeared before him:
[PHYSICAL INTEGRATION SUCCESSFUL]
[New Body: Aiden Norask, 16 years old]
[Origin World: Terra-Prime (Parallel Dimension)]
[Vital Flame: NOT AWAKENED]
[Status: NOVICE LIBRARIAN]
[Level: 1]
[Narrative Essence Points: 0]
[FIRST MISSION AVAILABLE]
[Click to access...]
Aiden reached out a trembling hand toward the screen, but before he could touch it, a dull rumble shook the entire library. The books on the shelves began to vibrate, some opening by themselves, releasing swirls of colored light.
And then, as if from nowhere, a gigantic book appeared before him. Not placed on a shelf, suspended in the air, open vertically, its pages beating like the wings of a bird of prey. The cover was such a deep black that it seemed to absorb the surrounding light, and blood-red letters pulsed on it, forming words in a language he didn't recognize.
- "No, wait!" cried Aiden, backing away, but the book began to grow, its pages spreading like a gaping maw. "I'm not ready! I don't even know how..."
His protest was cut short when an invisible force seized him and projected him toward the open book. He just had time to see the words on the title page "The Chronicles of Greyhollow" before being sucked into a whirlwind of words and images that decomposed around him.
The sensation was indescribable. As if his body was dissolving letter by letter, each part of him becoming a fragment of story, a piece of narrative. He was simultaneously himself and all the characters he had never read, bearer of all the imaginary destinies he had shared over the years.
And then, darkness.
When Aiden regained consciousness, he was lying on what seemed to be packed, damp earth. A smell of moss and decomposition filled his nostrils, mixed with something more unpleasant—a musty stench that evoked places abandoned for too long.
He sat up slowly, blinking to adapt to the ambient light. But there was practically none. All around him stretched a thick grayish fog that limited his vision to just a few meters. He could vaguely distinguish shapes—dead trees with branches twisted like accusing fingers, mossy rocks that resembled crouched silhouettes in the mist.
The system screen reappeared before him, but this time, it was different. Duller, with static running along its edges:
[WELCOME TO THE STORY]
[Mission Status: IN PROGRESS]
[Environment: CORRUPTED]
[Danger Level: ████████████ HIGH]
[WARNING: Limited system communication]
[Narrative interference detected]
[Progress: 0%]
[SYSTEM TEMPORARILY MUTE]
And then the screen went out, leaving him alone with the fog and oppressive silence.
- "Great," mumbled Aiden as he stood up completely. His legs trembled slightly, but not because of illness this time it was pure fear. "First mission and I find myself in a horror movie. Fantastic."
He took a few hesitant steps, his feet sinking slightly into the spongy ground. Every sound he made the rustling of his clothes, the slight splashing of his steps in the mud seemed amplified in the deathly silence that reigned here. Even the sounds one usually expects from nature were absent. No bird song, no rustling of leaves, no buzzing of insects.
Just the fog, and his own breathing that quickened despite himself.
Calm down, Aiden, he told himself, trying to draw on all his years of reading to analyze the situation. A book absorbed me so this is a story. Yes, that's it, a story, so there must be logic, a goal, something to accomplish. Find a village, find the inhabitants, the system mentioned corrupted, understand what's wrong.
He chose a direction at random, toward what seemed to be a downward slope, and set off. The fog was so dense that he sometimes had to extend his hands in front of him to avoid obstacles. Several times, he nearly tripped over strange objects a broken cart wheel, a pile of clothes that seemed to have been abandoned there for years, and once, something that looked disturbingly like a bone...
He preferred not to look too closely.
After what seemed like an eternity of blind walking, Aiden began to distinguish more regular shapes in the fog. Right angles, vertical lines that didn't correspond to the wild vegetation he had crossed until then.
Buildings.
His heart raced with a mixture of excitement and apprehension. A village. Finally! He quickened his pace, narrowly missing colliding with what turned out to be a rotten wooden post from which hung the remains of what must have been a sign.
The village of Greyhollow materialized around him like a nightmare emerging from the mist. The houses were low, built of gray stone and dark wood, with thatched roofs that sagged under the weight of moss and humidity. All the windows were dark, some boarded up with hastily nailed planks. The doors were closed, and several of them bore strange marks carved into the wood—symbols that gave Aiden goosebumps without him knowing why.
What troubled him most was the silence. A village, even abandoned, should produce sounds—the creaking of working wood, the squeaking of shutters in the wind, the dripping of water. Here, even the sound of his own footsteps seemed muffled, as if the air itself was too thick to carry sounds properly.
- "Is anyone there?" he called, his voice echoing strangely in the mist. "Hello? I need help!"
No answer. Not even an echo.
He advanced into what must have been the village's main street, passing a forge whose chimney had been cold for a long time, an inn whose sign creaked faintly despite the absence of wind, and several houses that seemed to have been abandoned in haste—half-open doors revealed dark interiors where personal objects still lay on tables and shelves.
- "Please!" he insisted, his voice taking on a desperate note. "I'm lost! I don't know how I got here!"
Still nothing.
Aiden felt panic beginning to rise in him. This situation exceeded anything he could have imagined. In the books he read, the hero always met someone a guide, a mentor, even an enemy who could at least explain the rules of the game. But here, he was alone with his questions and this oppressive mist that seemed to thicken with each passing minute.
He approached the inn door and knocked energetically. The sound resonated strangely, as if he were knocking on hollow wood. No response came, but he thought he heard something a slight creaking, as if someone was moving inside.
- "Is someone there?" he repeated, pressing his ear to the door. "Please, I just need..."
He stopped. Something had just moved in his peripheral vision. A shadow, quick and furtive, that had slipped between two houses before disappearing into the fog.
Aiden spun around, heart pounding.
- "Who's there? Show yourself!"
Silence.
But now that he was paying attention, he began to see them. Movements in the mist. Not distinct enough to identify what they were, but too coordinated to be effects of the fog. Shapes that moved with disturbing fluidity, always at the edge of his field of vision, disappearing as soon as he turned his head to look at them directly.
A cold sweat ran down his back. There was something, or someone, in this village. Several somethings, even. And they were watching him.
Stay calm, he repeated to himself, clenching his fists. You've read hundreds of horror stories. You know how it works. Don't panic, observe, think, find the story's logic.
But it was easier said than done when you were at the heart of the story rather than comfortably installed in a hospital bed.
A new movement caught his attention, this time right in front of him. A silhouette had crossed the main street, so quickly that he had barely had time to see it. But it was tall, taller than a normal human being, and it moved in a... strange way. Too fluid, as if it glided rather than walked.
Aiden instinctively backed up, his heels hitting the inn door behind him. His breath quickened, creating small clouds of vapor in the cold, humid air.
Then he saw them all.
Dozens of silhouettes slowly emerged from the fog, encircling him with synchronized movements that had something hypnotic and terrifying about them. They were tall, at least two meters, and seemed to be made of the same grayish substance as the mist itself. Not quite solid, but not mere illusions either. Their contours constantly fluctuated, as if they were in perpetual transformation.
And they had no faces. Just a smooth shadow where their heads should have been, but Aiden felt they were looking at him. That they were studying him.
- "What do you want?" he whispered, his voice barely audible. "What are you?"
The creatures didn't respond, but they began to approach. Slowly, silently, gradually reducing the circle surrounding him. The air around Aiden seemed to grow even colder, and now that they were closer, he could distinguish them better.
They weren't beings of mist or shadow as he had first thought. They were puppets. Giant puppets, two meters tall, made of dark wood and faded fabric. Their joints creaked slightly with each movement, and invisible strings seemed to keep them upright, making them sway subtly but constantly. Their faces were cracked porcelain masks, completely smooth, without eyes or mouth, just this white and cold surface that faintly reflected the dim light of the fog.
Aiden's heart was beating so hard he was sure the whole village could hear it. His hands were trembling violently now, and he felt his legs becoming weak. He was just a former sick person who had spent his life reading in a hospital bed he had never had to face anything more dangerous than an epileptic seizure.
Shit, shit, SHIT! His mind was completely panicking. This isn't possible, it's just a story, it can't really hurt me, right?
But the fear twisting his stomach was very real. The sensation of cold chilling his bones was very real. And these... these things surrounding him looked far too concrete to be just an illusion.
One of the puppets, the one directly facing him, took a step forward. Its wooden joints creaked sinisterly, and Aiden could see that its hands weren't normal hands. Its fingers were too long, too thin, and they ended in what looked like rusty steel points.
- "No, no, no..." murmured Aiden, backing up until his back hit the inn door. "Please, I don't even know what I'm doing here..."
His voice broke completely on the last words. He felt ridiculous, pathetic. In all the books he had read, heroes faced danger with courage, found creative solutions, kept their cool. Him, he was just terrified.
The puppet slowly tilted its faceless head, as if studying this trembling prey. Then, without any warning, it lunged.
The movement was so sudden, so violent, that Aiden didn't even have time to think. Pure instinct took over the most basic instinct of any living being facing immediate danger.
He crossed his arms in front of his face and closed his eyes with all his might, like a child hoping the monster under the bed will disappear if he doesn't look at it.
- "I don't want to die!" he cried, his voice shrill with terror. "I don't want to die like this!"
He waited for the impact, the claws that would tear his arms, the pain, the end...