It was late afternoon when he arrived. A small cottage at the edge of the woods with a rustic vibe. The drive took two hours. Elias had been to his grandfather's cottage maybe a dozen times as a kid during those summer visits. It was always magical in the way childhood memories always were. But he hadn't been back in over a decade.
It looked smaller than he remembered. Modest if he was being honest. Not at all as grand as he remembered. It was the sort of place you would see on a postcard. Old stone walls covered in ivy. A chimney and a beautiful garden that seemed surprisingly kept considering how long his grandfather had been in the hospital before he passed.
Grandpa definitely had people taking care of this place..
He parked his beat-up Camry in front of the cottage, as he sat there for a moment, staring at the front door.
Just go inside. His grandfather did a lot of things but he never did anything without a reason.
He got out, feeling around for the key in his pocket. But he never really lost track of it. It was cold against his skin.
The front door was unlocked—typical. His grandfather never locked anything.
"If someone needs to steal from an old man, they probably need it more than I do," he would always say.
Elias stepped inside the cottage.
He was hit with the smell of old books, woodsmoke and something he could only describe as lavender, maybe.
It was just as he remembered. Clustered but organized. There were books everywhere. Stacked on shelves, tucked into various corners— piled on tables.
His grandfather was a collector.
Fairy tales, mostly. Old stories. First editions. Annotated versions. Translations in languages Elias didn't recognize.
He was an amazing storyteller. He always had stories that Elias found interesting.
He'd always thought it was just an old man's hobby. Now that he was standing here with brown eyes, it felt different. Like he had just walked into a shrine.
"Alright, Grandpa," Elias muttered. "What am I supposed to find?"
He wandered through the cottage, running his fingers along book spines. Nothing seemed out of place.
Then he saw it.
A door at the back of the cottage. Unremarkable except for one thing. Elias has no memory of it.
He froze.
"...That wasn't there before."
Was it? He tried to remember. He had explored every possible angle of this cottage but he had no recollection of this door.
Was he sure he explored every part of this place?
No. He would have remembered a door. Wouldn't he?
His hand moved to his pocket. The key.
He slowly approached, like the door might vanish if he moved too fast.
The key slid into the lock perfectly like it had been used a thousand times.
Elias twisted the key.
Click.
The door swung open.
A gust of wind escaped the doorway like it had been trapped for centuries. He was met by an impossibly large space. It looked unreal.
No, it was unreal.
It had endless shelves of books stretching into the darkness. Some parts were occasionally illuminated by floating lights that looked like fireflies.
The architecture of this place defied physics.
"...What the fuck."
It seemed like it existed in a temporal space.
Shelves of books stretched upward into shadow—higher than should be possible, higher than the cottage itself. They spiraled and twisted, forming impossible geometries. Bridges of light connected them. Floating orbs drifted lazily, casting soft golden glows.
It was books. Millions of them.
And the space—God, the space. It stretched in every direction that was impossible to estimate its end. The cottage was maybe 800 square feet. This was... endless.
Elias stepped through the doorway.
The air changed instantly. Warmer. Thicker. The best description he had for it was unearthly.
He looked back. The door was still there, still open to the cottage's cozy interior.
I'm hallucinating. That's all this is, he said as he rubbed his eyes.
He took another step.
The door slammed shut behind him.
Elias spun. "No—no no no—" He grabbed the handle, twisted. Locked. "SHIT!"
His heart hammered in his chest as he pounded on the door. "HELLO? ANYONE?"
The silence was deafening.
The sound of something shifting made Elias turn around.
One of the nearby shelves had... moved. Like it actually moved.
"Okay. Okay, this is fine. This is—this is a mental breakdown. I'm having a mental breakdown." He laughed, a high pitched laugh. "Great. Always wondered when I'd snap."
He started walking. Maybe there was another exit. Maybe—
The book was small. Leather-bound without any title.
But as Elias approached, he saw something—black, crawling across its cover.
His hands moved before his brain could stop him. He picked it up.
The moment his fingers touched it, the book pulsed. It felt warm and alive somewhat.
"What—"
The book ignited.
In a split second, he had ash in his hands, replacing where the book had just been.
The ash fell through Elias's fingers.
He dropped it, stumbling back. "Holy shit—"
What was that ?
A voice echoed—not from any direction, but from everywhere. "ONE STORY LOST. THE UNWRITTEN BREACHES THE ARCHIVE THRESHOLD. ACCEPT YOUR ROLE, OR LET THEM ALL BURN."
Elias's legs gave out. He hit the ground hard, gasping. "What—what the hell was that? What is this place?"
In that moment, something materialized in front of him.
It was like a notification? Of sorts. He observed it; floating at eye level.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
CUSTODIAN NOTIFICATION
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
CLASS: CUSTODIAN OF TALES
ARCHIVE INTEGRITY: 93% (CRITICAL)
ACTIVE CORRUPTION EVENTS: 12
WARNING: THRESHOLD BREACH IMMINENT
ACCEPT ROLE?
[YES] [NO]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Elias stared at it. His mind going blank, except for the white noise. That didn't feel like anything. He really had lost his whole marbles.
"This isn't real. This can't be real."
The thing was pulsing. Waiting.
Anywhere he turned, it was in his vision.
"I—no. No, I'm not—I'm leaving. I'm going home. I'm—"
He scrambled to his feet, ran back to the door. Pulled. Slammed his shoulder against it but it remained locked.
"LET ME OUT!"
The lights begin dying. One by one. Darkness began spreading like a wave.
The golden orbs flickered. Dimmed, then went dark.
Elias's breath came in short gasps. "No. No no no—"
"ARCHIVE BREACH IMMINENT.."
"WHAT DO YOU WANT FROM ME?"
Then everything went dark. An image penetrated the darkness.
His grandfather.
Elias watched as the soft glow emanated from the darkness to reveal his grandfather.
But he was not really here.