Page 20 of Us Dark Few

Her fingers furiously tapped against the black banister. She was already a few minutes late. Her eyes strayed upward and she let out a deep sigh.

What the hell.

If she was going to die in Braderhelm, being defeated by a staircase wouldn’t be a bad way to go out. Maybe she’d return as a ghost and haunt others who dared to traverse the deadly prison.

She tentatively placed a foot on the first step. The board creaked loudly but appeared to be stable. Khalani breathed a sigh of relief and continued to steadily climb higher and higher, spiraling around. The sound of rusting metal echoed down the staircase.

After several loops, she reached the top and faced a black door with a small white symbol in the corner. She inspected it closer. It was an odd triangle-like shape with five points. Strange.

Should she knock?

The few libraries in Apollo were open to the public, but she rarely went due to their limited selection. All books from the Great Collapse were restricted. The Council only allowed its citizens to read books for school, training for various jobs, or the Apollo Ordinances. She didn’t expect this library to be any different.

She knocked on the dilapidated door a few times and dust fell around her knuckles. A full minute passed, but no one came to the door.

“Hello? George sent me here for duty,” Khalani shouted.

Silence.

Another thirty seconds passed, and Khalani banged on the door louder. “Helloooo!” The door swiftly opened, and her hand knocked against air.

An old woman appeared. She wore a large silver monocle over one eye and had short, dark hair so frizzy and thick that it looked like she’d just tangled with an electric socket. A tiny silver necklace around the woman’s neck caught Khalani’s eye.

She wasn’t wearing prisoner garments; instead, she had on a long purple dress that grazed the floor, adorned with a golden sun thatstretched all the way to her flowing sleeves.

The woman quickly grabbed Khalani by the arm with a speed she wasn’t expecting and pulled her through the doorway.

“No noise, no noise! You’ll mess her concentration,” the old lady yelled, slamming the door shut and rushing past Khalani.

Khalani scrunched her forehead and glanced around in silent confusion. She found herself wedged between two towering wooden shelves filled with books that reached the short ceiling. The air carried the scent of old leather, and the room was enveloped in deep shadows. The only light emanated from a candelabra on a short circular table at the far end of the bookshelves.

The frizzy-haired woman hurried to the table, focused on an unusual metal object. Khalani traced her hand along the bookshelf as she followed.

Apollo Ordinance Volume One.

Apollo Ordinance Volume Two.

Every leather spine bore the same title, like what she would find in any Apollo library.

Her attention cut back to the old lady mumbling to herself as she tinkered with the weird gizmo.

“Umm, excuse me, are you Winifred?” Khalani asked.

“Shhh!” The old lady waved her hand. “Come see, come see.”

Once she walked past the two long bookcases, the room opened up. To the left of the table was a wooden desk pushed against the stone wall, with papers and books stacked on top. Khalani squinted. Those didn’t appear to be Apollo Ordinance volumes. Or any sanctioned book, for that matter.

She stepped forward to get a closer look, but something else caught her eye. It was a medium-sized painting in a golden frame, positioned in the center of the stone wall. It depicted a man wearing a long white coat in a desert, walking toward a tall metal building that spiraled into the sky. Strands of red and blue flowed along the sides of the building, intertwining like coils of DNA.

Khalani continued to study the odd picture, her eyes narrowing when the woman tapped her shoulder. “Come sit. You must see.” Excitement tinged the woman’s voice.

Khalani forgot about the strange painting as the woman pushed her down onto a creaking black chair. In the center of the circular table lay a small wooden box. The frizzy-haired lady flipped the box and held some metal tools toward the bottom. She meticulously worked, leaning her head so close the monocle almost scratched against the wood.

“Okay.” The woman set down the tools. “It should work.” She placed the wooden box upright and turned a knob on the back.

Khalani heard a light ticking and leaned back warily. Her muscles tensed as the box opened and a tiny, porcelain girl in a pink ballet costume emerged.

The soft sound of music began to filter through the air.

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