According to Yumi, to gain access to their school's renowned library archive, I just need to approach the second front desk and mention her name. In that way, the guard will automatically gets me a pass in the front.
Following Yumi's guidance, I walk in the front and talk to the teller. While there are small questions, she already ask my other identification, then on- I only pointed to my sister.
The front desk teller opens a separate book, meant for special pass in the archives. She wrote the date and time in the right, and handed me next to write my own name.
"Please fill up the details in order for you to complete the addressing, Milady."
"Sure."
I write my public name in the right side, and draw my signature next to it.
Amaryllis Amelia Thessalor.
What a long name isn't it.
Once I completed the details, I handed it soon to the teller for her to check the details.
"Ama-ryllis Amelia, Thessalor.? Are you perhaps a young sister of Professor Alysse Thessalor, Milady?"
"Yes, I am a sister of Alysse."
It is still a bit too weird when I call her that, instead of Yumi'Ara.
The teller was astonished and the guard joins the conversation, once they heard a fact.
"Woah… I can't believe that- Ms. Thessalor had a younger sister." (guard)
I lean on the desk and turn a glance to my sister.
"I also cannot deduce or gave a premonition that she has a younger sister with that attitude and radiance."
The teller also leans on and the guard who's not moving any of his toes, get close.
"You are clearly speaking facts, Milady. Also up close, you two have a very distinctive resemblance." (teller)
The guard agrees.
Still looking at my sister.
"Do we?"
"Yes. When both of you entered the hall. The students who were waiting at a spot nearby the front desk, quickly noticed the two women. Radiating an air that can swiftly eradicate foul odor nearby. A known demeanor of a royal family." (teller)
The guard agrees.
As they exaggerate tremendously, the conversation deepens at that part.
"Say- Do other professors and students know Alysse? I mean, is she popular around?"
The teller leans more, and the guard is seemingly leaving his post.
"Yes!" in a whispering tone. "Milady, I will tell you with a yard of hundred miles away in a stake. Ms.Thessalor is so popular that several professors in our school hates her."
The guard agrees, but finds he's next.
"I also agree with that. There was a time in the archives, in the 3rd floor of the building where private meeting can be held at. Though it is inappropriate to listen in a private meeting. I overheard that they clearly hate Ms. Thessalor on how she meddle and make amends completed."
The teller knocks the table, with annoyance to her tone.
"Don't forget, they also hate Ms. Thessalor's beauty. To the point that in the last semester, they made fun of her and scattered stories about Miss- using a secretive potion to greatly enhance and change your appearance in a mean time." (teller)
"They are notorious… Then- what about my sister? Did she do anything?"
The teller looks back and forth, also the guard step once more, closer.
"Lend me your ear, Milady."
The teller looks back and forth again.
"Rumours said that- when Ms. Thessalor heard it indirectly to her students in the silver year. She quickly pursued the voice where it came. Then, a white and yellow light emits around her body. Students at her class cannot believe with what they had seen to her, and others had just said- it's just the sunlight bouncing through her silver-ish hair... Ms. Thessalor ask them with still-called a delicate smile. They've gotten stepping to their back when they witness her usual teaching dress, floats on it is very ends."
"In my case, I heard the story the next day when that happened... A group of student passed-by and greets me in the potion-making building… They took a gulp of saliva when they witnessed it, and quickly stomped it with jokes of their own." (guard)
My head tilts for an answer.
"What kind of jokes?"
"-if that were true, I guess Professor Thessalor already cursed them with so-called black magic. Though I do not with things like that. Still, it is believable to say the least."
What the-?
"HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. That sure is a hellfire tone… No-no no HAHAHAHAAH. Knowing Alysse as my sister." My laughter ends in a second. "I guess she can do it if she wants to."
I sigh.
The teller is left in soften-shock, and the guard is just looking at me with a widen lips.
"So the rumors is true then?" (teller)
"Of course not. HAHAHAHAHA. I'm just joking. Even I- do not possess an air of a witch and curse user."
Unfortunately, yes. We three siblings knows how to bound someone with it. I'm so sorry for lying. Yumi probably already casted them with it when she appeared to being surrounded with light
But knowing Yumi's nature, I guess she had done it immediately to cast them with misfortunes for a week.
In her thoughts, she probably already said- "Goddess of Love, Peace, Childbirth and Protection, my ass."
I know it's not a usual demeanor of her, but just my intuition when she's angry at something in our home.
"I guess you can end the story with it… Looking at you Milady. You sisters are gifted... Perhaps you have a brother? How old is he?"
???
"A brother?.. No,… I certainly don't have a brother."
You are a woman befitting of a man who has clean soul.
I don't even know if that man- our brother have a permanent soulmate or something.
Whoever you are kind teller. Be wary of someone like us.
"So much use of Archive halls."
A footstep coming forward at out conversation spot.
"I guess you three are already done with over-measly."
"Goodevening Ms. Thessalor."
The teller greets and the guard quickly taken his sides back to his original position.
Yumi wrote her name in a separate book, meant for professors and staff of the school.
Alysse Aphelia Thessalor.
While she's writing other details beside me, she asks.
"You done with yours?"
"Yes, I'm already done writing mine"
"Let's go inside then… Demetre come along with us. We're not done yet."
.
.
.
Demetre and I followed my sister as we ascended to the 3rd floor of the Archives, which said can hold private meetings. While the other floors, remains the same for the 1st and 2nd floor, as they are identical to each other; the table, the candles, corners of shelves. However, the only difference between them is the books they held:
The 1st floor are consist of the front desk, tables for studying, a hall of poetic story, a hall of fables, and a hall of free creative novels of students alike. While the 2nd floor have a hall of cryptic, hall of myths, hall of biography, and frankly speaking- has a double-number- of guards around.
If you ever find lost with what you want to find. Each of genre can be identify quickly, as there are scattered across above of a certain specific hall; what version or era- a shelves hold. Furthermore, the shelves are depend on the main-genre to sub-genre, divided into two different shelves.
Example, for one genre era, there are two pair of shelves. Meant for written/translated books, and scrolls that holds significant value. Sometimes, if one specific genre is only a singularity of their own, they are place above or below each other.
As for the 3rd floor of the Archive.
It holds basic components of a building such as basin, comfort room, and a small shop where you can buy filtered water and freshly baked bread, that came from the building of curing and factual based.
"Here's your change."
A student who is handling the shop, handed me a pandesal. A bread you usually eats in the morning. But since it is a fresh-baked, how can I resist this?
"If you ever find thirsty, just go to the 4th floor and go to the balcony- at the back. There, you can find yourself a filtered water."
"Can't believe how convenient this university is. To think that their own library has a food stall inside makes it unbelievable."
I bite the pandesal and soon heard a wonderful crisp inside my mouth.
"Make sure to thank and pray later to the one who made that idea."
Yumi sternly shared.
"By the way," I returned her gaze. "Why did we go to the 3rd floor again? Weren't we supposed to eat?"
Yumi's eyes widened, then one eyebrow lifted.
"What? Didn't I say we'd go upstairs first because I had to get something? Look at Demetre, she's already holding a wooden tray and she's coming down too."
"What about you?" -mumbled.
I said it while my mouth was full of bread.
Yumi looked at me while remaining in place, arms still locked across her chest. Then she gave me a smile, with mischief in mind.
She released her left arm, raised her hand, and gave a single, downward-casual wave. Thus, tiny stars shimmered in the space it passed through. At the end of it, she snapped her fingers, and the wooden tray suddenly appeared on her holding- right at the handle; it glows once more.
Yumi smiled again, just as smugly like always.
However, because of the intense light produced by Yumi's magic at the end, I rushed in front of her to shield it with my arm.
"What are you doing?"
-dumbfound, Yumi asked.
"I should be asking that." I glanced around, then quickly turned to face Yumi. "What if someone sees you doing that?"
"Don't worry. I do that all the time here in Augury. Honestly, they even gave me a nickname. I just don't want to say it... It's way too cringe not gonna lie."
"Forget it… What exactly do you want me to get downstairs?"
Yumi handed over the basket she'd been holding.
"There's a list inside. Just check it."
I see. So she summoned this thing from home.
Lazy ass.
My stomach is doing the sulken-growl again.
I shouldn't have volunteered earlier if I know this might happen.
.
Since, I don't have any choice.
I took the paper from inside the basket, and while heading down the stairs, I began to read it. According to the note, Yumi only wanted me to retrieve five books.
In my mind, I wondered- why didn't she just get them herself? It's not that many.
Once I reached the bottom, I turned left and immediately approached a student who looked like he was just hanging around the building, currently studying at a nearby table.
"Hello, may I ask where I can find these books?"
I showed him the paper, and he gave me an answer right away.
"Conceptualization History?... Ahhh, you'll find that over by the Cryptic."
"There?"
I pointed to the right, and he nodded in agreement.
.
I walked toward the place the stranger had directed me to, and quickly found the book I was looking for.
A book that had passed through countless hands- yet the pages inside remained entirely… looking new?
.
*twice a knock, once a sound, a clap*
.
5:37 PM
The world had gone quiet when Amaryllis took a quiet liking to one of the books she picked up.
Again, the world, seemed to lose its sense of time when Amaryllis began to read the first line: "May thou find of golden days-"tomorrow.
It intrigued her- the author's choice of vocabulary at the very inception. She kept reading, continuing until she finished the first paragraph.
Then and now, the light within the reader shifted- emptied, yet bound to something greater. But she caught up to it eventually, noticing, little by little, the sudden change in her surroundings.
She tried to open her mouth, only to find that even her heartbeat had stopped pumping blood through her veins. Close to losing composure, she wavered and thought to herself.
"It must be only temporary."
Eventually, the spaces between each shelf in the library shifted, and some glitching at the edges. The reader felt something was happening when the floor began to move- alternating between stillness and tremor.
She wanted to ask herself again, but could only graze her own skin with a body tightened, as if glued to the surface.
For more than a minute, the floor had already begun to dissipate- softly, like a gust of wind whispering beyond the stars. Yet through the reader's perception, it wasn't vanishing- it was changing its pattern, just like the walls of the library.
Following the floor's retreat, the shelves continued to shift, constantly changing and glitching.
The reader could see the changes, but could not comprehend what was happening in that instant.
She saw several versions of the shelves forming a never-ending staircase above. Perplexed, she longed to release what she was feeling- but how could she, when time itself had transcended its own existence?
Soon, the stress is getting keep inside of her. The reader starts to feel heavy and difficult to breath.
"How am I still alive?... And- weird..."
In the back of her mind, she sees countless students running past her post- yet they are also affected by the sudden shift.
The reader's perspective begins to change. She can now see the full scope of what's unfolding within the library. An ongoing siege, as if the entire country were plunging into war.
She looks at the students again and recognizes both male and female figures. But in the moment her gaze shifts, so does the truth. Now, the reader is fully aware: this is no hallucination, nor a mere threat.
Every change in her vision had first appeared as scenes of monsters attacking the innocent. The next moment bewilders her further, as the vision expands to encompass all floors of the Archive. There, she sees terror in Demetre's eyes as she begs for her life at the entrance. Meanwhile, Alysse is trying to protect those trapped on the third floor; a floor crowded with people and tangled with openings that threaten to overwhelm her.
Yet Alysse appears transformed, radiant- like a goddess. Protective to those alike, binding those who only meant harmed.
The reader blinks, trying to anticipate what comes next, but she cannot.
A light begins to spread beneath the page, and the book next-pages- force itself open.
Now, the reader is unaware of everything, as the book begins to engulf the world in darkness, its pages turning endlessly. As if the scene were a replica of the moon swallowing the earth in a day.
A clock can be heard.
A footstep can be heard.
The sounds are overlapping.
No- they are exchanging.
The light in the Archive returned- only to vanish into darkness once more. Be that as it may, it restarted. A loop. A senseless play of time. As the stars and sky above moved forward, they blinked back again in the next breath of the universe.
Blink.
Amaryllis heard the whisper of nothingness. She wanted to breathe, but the light in her eyes was still in the process of rooting itself back- as she had been spiritually dead just moments ago.
Blink.
Amaryllis felt the reunion of wind and time, once close, now near again. She found herself moving, but it wasn't her own sight.
It was someone else's. A vision of arms reaching for hers, trembling within her tears and the voice came close to her shoulder- as though conjured from joy once lived.
Her tears fell, and each droplet echoed through the solid waves of the floor. And In that moment, Amaryllis began to understand the nature of what was happening around her. Yet she still had no answer for the sudden cradle of hope pressing gently at her back.
Then, in a breath, it murmured.
"Thou find… thyself in newfound release,… Amelie."
Amaryllis heard it clearly. But no emotion stirred.
The sadness vanished. And a memory sifted through her mind.
Don't leave us again.
"Don't leave us again."
Not for one, not for two.
But to her own, speaking on herself alone.
She spoke these words as if this memories passing- were of her own.
.
"What is happening?"
I looked around my surroundings after what had happened.
It still the same Archive Library but this uneasiness I'm feeling inside is so inappropriate.
I'm on short of breath for no other reason.
But- those are real. No doubt.
No.
I stood up after contemplating and felt something lying around my feet.
It was cold- as lifeless before my body, lying face down.
Soon, A shadow broke from the silence through my left. A creature, no longer bound by the stillness before. It leaps toward, with a force that can tore through means of air.