A Light in the Dark

I hear a light hum. I don’t know what it is, or where it’s coming from, but when I open my eyes to look, the sound abruptly stops.

I’m sitting on an old oak table, worn down by many long years of use. At my side is an old brass lantern that baths the area in a warm yellow glow. My feet dangle over the edge and occasionally tap against a finely crafted mahogany chair that looks like it just came out of a woodcarver’s shop.

I raise my eyes from swaying feet and behold the largest library I’ve ever seen. Rows upon rows of books spread out in every direction, culminating in a wall that reaches up to a domed ceiling that is so far away, I can barely make out where it touches the floor at the end of the stacks. The shelves seem to be made of oak as well, finely crafted, but simple in design, with a slight curve to the top and bottom shelves.

Instinctively, I look around to see if a librarian would scold me over sitting on the table, but not only is there no librarian to be seen, there are no other tables or chairs to be seen. Just rows upon rows of bookshelves.

Where is everyone? I wonder. The thought quickly changes into Where am I?

I... don’t remember anything. Not who I am, or how I got here; yet I am aware enough to know that I should know these things. I know other things, like that libraries have librarians and that they would be cross with me for sitting on the table. My head starts to ache a little; why do I know that, but not who I am?

Looking down at my hands, I can tell a little about myself. As I rub them together, I feel that they are rough and worn, like they are always in use. I wear a simple golden band on one finger. Am I married? Try as I might, I can’t remember. An old leather strapped watch is around my wrist, but when I listen closely, I can’t hear it ticking. It’s scuffed and scratched badly as well, so I can’t even use it to see my reflection.

I set my hands back on the rim of the table and push off, hopping down to the floor with an echoing clack of crisp shoe on marble. The sound reverberates around the library several times before it slowly dissipates. In the moment when it finally dies away, I am certain that if a pin dropped, I would hear it.

“Hello?” I call out, sure that if anyone else is around, they would hear me.

Silence is my only reply.

With no grand strategy, I start putting one foot in front of the other and heading to the far end of the library. I didn’t feel it at first, but walking through the aisles, I instinctively want to leave this place. It felt warm and inviting at first, there are soft light lamps hanging from every bookshelf and more overhead, I occasionally pass a soft easy chair at the end of an isle and the pull to curl up with a good book and just forget about things is palpable. Yet, I feel like I shouldn’t be here; like something isn’t quite right.

Due to my defective watch, I have no way to measure the passage of time; eventually though, I make it to the end of the hall. The last bookshelf spreads in a circle as far as I can see in either direction, with no sign of an exit. I look up and see the section header for the perimeter of the library. Ancient History.

The books on these shelves are all dusty old tomes that smell of aging leather. None of their spines are labelled, and they don’t have their Dewey decimal numbers either. I run my fingers casually over several books before I stop on one with a black spine and embossed with a red eye at the top and bottom. I don’t know why, but I choose this book. When I open it...

I’m laying in bed, snuggled up between my thick comforter and my father’s side. He has one arm wrapped around me and we are leaning against my bed’s headboard with a large pillow propped up in between. In his hands he holds a worn copy of The Fellowship of the Ring and is softly reading it to me while I drift off to sleep thinking of swords and sorcery, noble heroes and evil villains.

I close the book and blink back to myself, I’m still in the library. Was that child me? I try to think of what happened before or after that moment, but nothing comes to me.

Cautiously, I reach for another book, hoping to learn more, when the shelf begins to shake. Old dust falls like heavy snow and I can’t help but breath some in. I cough hard, ejecting most of the stale taste form my mouth and take a few steps back.

Out from the shelves themselves materializes a black haze. Thick only between the books, then obscuring the spines, before consuming the entire circular row in an inky blankness; so dark that my eyes feel like they slide off. It seems thick and impenetrable, the light from the rest of the library can no longer reach the perimeter and I know on some deep primal level that this darkness is something terrible.

I run. I don’t even consciously think about it, my feet move of their own accord and I am suddenly blazing through the stacks, my flailing arms tearing books of the shelves as I try to propel myself further forward.

Eventually, my stamina gives out and I slump down against a bookshelf to catch my breath. Somehow, I have still held on to the book and I take a moment to gently set it at my side. Looking behind with trepidation, I still see that darkness, but it is far off down the central aisles, it is not perusing me like a malicious monster. I can take a moment to rest.

I’m leaning against a shelf of much more fancifully styled spines, most of which are reds and whites. My eyes are drawn to one with a particularly ornate white pattern around the edge and I pull it from the shelf. The cover is just as barren as the spine, only the pattern that I’ve already seen continues to loop around in swirls and twists. I open the book and...

I’m dressed in a fancy black tuxedo and standing so straight it’s uncomfortable, but the feeling is blotted out by the swelling of happiness in my heart. Before me stands the most beautiful woman I could imagine. She has short cut dark brown hair, eyes that swirl in a mix of hazel and amber, soft lips, bright without makeup, that are curled up into a warm smile which eases every bone in my body.

“Do you Thomas Llane take Lilah Craig to be your lawfully wedded wife? Do you promise to love her, comfort her, honour and keep her for better or worse, for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health, and forsaking all others, keep yourself only for her, as long as you both shall live?”

“I do.” I reply without needing to think about it.

“And do you Lilah Craig, take Thomas Llane to be your lawfully wedded husband? Do you promise to love him, comfort him, honour and keep him for better or worse, for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health, and forsaking all others, keep yourself only for him, as long as you both shall live?”

“I do.” she replies in a sweet and tender voice that makes my heart leap into the clouds.

“Then, by the powers vested in me, I now pronounce you man and wife. You may kiss the bride.”

Lilah is a full head shorter than I, and I am so nervous that when I lean over, I slip and fall forward. She catches me though, with such grace that, to everyone else, it seems we were simply embracing, and I experience the most exhilarating kiss of my life.

I blink, and once again, I’m back in the library sitting in the Romance section with the book closed in my hands and a warm feeling in my heart. I can’t remember Lilah beyond what I had seen, but every fibre of my being suddenly wants to find her.

The darkness is closer now and another pang of fear brings me back to the present. It was several stacks further now, but still some distance away from me. Without taking my eyes off it, as if it would leap towards me should I look away, I gather the two books and back further down the aisles.

My mind races furiously as I backpedal away from the darkness. I have to be here for a reason, even though I don’t know what it is. If these books really do contain my memories, then one of them must explain how I got to the Library, and what this strange darkness is.

I brake into a light jog, my legs still aching from my earlier sprint. Moving up and down the aisles, I scan for the section that could be the most help to me. Philosophy, no. Home Décor, hard pass. Art, still no. After passing through half a dozen more sections, the title Adventure greets me, and I feel a surge of hope.

The spines are all still blank, so once again, I have to just trust my gut and pull the one that feels right. One of them has a multicoloured spine that stands out, so I start there.

I crest the top of a hill, weariness tugging at every muscle in my body. Looking back, I see Lilah only a few steps behind and offer my hand. She takes it with a tired smile and I pull her up the last steps.

We stand together on a ridge at the top of a mountain, nothing but blue sky and crisp air to breathe. Below us, stretches out a massive canvas of land in one direction, and ocean with patches of rolling fog in another. The sun is setting and it bathes the world in streaks and splashes of yellow, orange and red.

A thick oak tree is a few feet away and I gently draw her over to it. We collapse against it in exhaustion, holding each other close as we enjoy the culmination of our day long hike.

“I think I could stay like this forever.” I say.

Lilah snuggles up tighter and replies, “Yeah, me too.”

I close my eyes... and am back in the library.

My heart feels content and accomplished, but I know that while the memory was nice, it wasn’t what I needed. I tuck it under my arm with the others and press on.

I move further down the stack, going from spine to spine until another book catches my eye. This one is noticeable by the fact that it is smaller than the others, yet has a distinct sheen and texture to it that sets it apart from the rest. In fact, most of the books that follow have the same altered look to them. This small one screams Prologue to me; maybe one to whatever it was that led me here. I quickly pull it from the shelf and open it.

The sound or Lilah screaming causes my heart to catch in my throat, then a few moments after it stops, a soft crying follows it.

“Would you like to cut the cord dad?”

A doctor in medical scrubs hands me a strange pair of scissors. I take them in my hand and with little resistance, cut the sinewy cord before me.

Looking up, the remnants of the rope lead to the source of the crying. A tiny baby boy, covered in bodily fluids that I don’t want to think about, is still somehow one of the most beautiful things in the world. The doctors take him and gently lay him on Lilah’s chest.

She stares down at him with exhausted, bloodshot eyes and says. “Hello Jacob, welcome to planet Earth.”

Her gaze then rises to meet mine and her weary smile could have melted the polar ice caps. “We did it” she says.

“Yeah,” I reply, not having any more words to describe the maelstrom of emotions for what was about to be the greatest journey of my life.

I snap out of the memory, but this time I don’t see the library, I see only the void.

Screams fly from my mouth with abandon as I fall back, barely noticing that there were still stacks of books to my left and right. I clutch the four volumes in a death grip as my feet scramble against the floor, pushing myself away from the encroaching darkness.

After I put a few feet between myself and the wall of inky black, I roll over and scramble to my feet, every ounce of energy directed to my legs in order to propel me away from what my heart insists is certain oblivion.

I’m not sure how many stacks I pass in my mad dash, but eventually I find myself on the floor with my back to one, sobbing uncontrollably. What is that darkness... how could I do anything about it? It was closing in from all sides, eventually it would claim me and there is nothing I could do about it.

I am going to die. The though reverberates throughout my brain, sending a chill of dread down my spine.

“Don’t give up,” Lilah’s voice echoes through what remains of the library. “I know that you’re still in there Thomas.” Her words are strained and painful, but I can still hear the hope and desperate belief behind them. “Keep fighting. You have to come back to us.”

“Lilah!?” I shout to the empty library. “Lilah, I hear you! Where are you? Where am I?”

She doesn’t answer. I know that I had heard her, but she clearly can’t hear me.

I pull myself to my feet with renewed vigour. She is out there, beyond the darkness in the library. There really is something beyond, I just need to find a way to reach it, to reach her.

It was closing in around me again, faster this time. What was once a massive library had shrunk to just a few dozen rows, spreading out in every direction from a centre point. In that centre was the place I had woken up for the first time, the old oak desk, the single mahogany chair, and the brass lantern.

I move toward it, a beacon in the storm, an eye in the hurricane.

Only now do I notice the section that it sits in the middle of. The books that circle around the desk are all tragedies. Given my situation, I couldn’t help but think that one of them must have lead me here, but which one, I could only guess.

Then I realize something that I never noticed before, it was behind me when I awoke, so I must have missed it. There is a cart labelled To be shelved with a single book sitting on it.

Cautiously I approach the cart. Unlike the other books, this one fills me with almost as much dread as the darkness closing in. I consider that a good sign, such as it is. I think I’ve finally found what I’m looking for.

I take the book back to the desk and take the same place as I sat in when I awoke. The brass lamp is at my side, though my feet now rest on the chair rather than hanging next to it.

I take a deep breath, and open the book.

I’m driving. It’s late at night and it’s raining hard.

Lilah is in the passenger seat, humming along to a song I don’t know that’s playing on the radio. Jacob is fast asleep in the back seat behind her.

I round a bend and it comes out of nowhere. A car in the wrong lane, and it’s too late to avoid it.

There’s no time to process any conscious thought, but on some primal level, protection wins out over self preservation. Both Lilah and Jacob are in the right side of the car. I turn right.

The car hits me first.

I wake on the table, clutching my five books tight. The library is gone, they’re all I have left now.

The chair is half subsumed by the void, and my feet are only inches away from oblivion. Slowly, as if moving too fast would cause it to surge forward, I pull my feet up onto the table. The little brass lamp is my saviour, the last light to keep the dark at bay.

Everything hurts. A bone deep ache that makes me want close my eyes and wish it all away. I’m terrified, but at least now I finally understand. I know where I am, I know why I’m here, and I know what the darkness is.

I stand on the table, cradling my books tightly under one arm. I take the lantern in the other and thrust it before me to combat the darkness. With all the fire in my heart and the last bit of self I have left to me, I scream all that I know in defiance of the uncaring void.

“My name, is Thomas Llane! Husband to Lilah, father of Jacob! You. Will. Not. Have. Me!”

Mustering every ounce of courage I possess, I step off the table, and into the unknown.