Library horror: A vignette

[brooksmoses]

I was having a conversation with a friend to generate some ideas for a game they are running in which one of the characters (an archivist) is experiencing a hallucination, and one of the kernels of dream-logic conversation ended up with me writing a bit of librarian horror, which I am sharing here now that the players have actually played through the relevant scenes and so this won't be a spoiler for them.

Horror behind cut tags. No jump-scares involved.

Given that this was in chat, I'll just quote it with a little pre-context:

Brooks: Also in the archival theme, library stacks that go on forever.

Brooks: All of the books are the same color.

Brooks: Except one is subtly different. It's always the one that's just a foot away from the one you're looking at.

Brooks: For librarian horror, the pages fall out.

Brooks: And fly around the room making mocking rustling laughter.

[Another person contributing ideas]: I am appalled. Gleefully.

Brooks: You recognize titles on the spines, of books that are rare and precious, but when you grab one and pull it out, it's not that book after all but something dreary. This part of the library is clearly underground, with a low vaulted stone ceiling supported by columns. There are several inches of opaque muddy inky water on the ground. It is beginning to soak into the bottom row of books.

Brooks: The shelving units, made of old dark oak with carvings on the ends, are sinking, sort of cockeyed a little, as if they are in mud although there is floor underfoot. None of them ever seem to be less than ten feet tall no matter how much they sink. You have a library cart. One of the casters is stuck. You can pull books out of the lower shelves and put them on it, but they start falling off. You can stack some on the bottom shelf of the cart but the bottom ones will get wet.

Brooks: The water is salty. Occasionally a small wave comes through as if the ocean is just on the other side of the shelves out of sight. You notice that the night sky is overhead, and the moonlight is bright. You can feel a piece of seaweed wrapped around your ankle. A book falls off the shelf into the water with a quiet splash.

Brooks: The words "wine-dark sea" come unbidden to your mind, and an albatross flies over your head, low and fast and silent, back towards the direction from whence you came.

Comments

[jenett]

This is absolutely delightful and absolutely horrific at the same time, and I am delighted to get to see it.

(The watery bits, especially. All of me recoils at the watery bits.)

[keshwyn]

That is fabulously wrong, and yes indeed that is librarian nightmare fuel.

Having worked in the preservation department of the library, I expect to have this pop up in my dreams at some point.