The Last Page… The First Word

BookCity was built on silence; on stories; and on secrets.

A city completely isolated from the whole world, stretching beneath a criss-cross of bridges in a seemingly endless maze of dusty bookstores.

To move around, the citizens had to walk on the roofs of the stores, and jump from roof to bridge and back again. Even though there were escalators, they rarely worked, and when they did, they groaned under the weight of the people; and the stairs leading to the top were no different.

People moved around in the labyrinthine corridors, looking to get lost in the next story, and the next, and the next.

In BookCity, reading was more than just a way to pass time, it was a way of life, and this is how the Keepers wanted it.

Books meant stories, and stories meant adventures all over the world from a stationary spot; and adventures meant distractions so that the people don’t ask about the books that should never be found.

As even in a city full of books, there still remained some hidden; a secret, deep and dark undergound. An Archive protected by the Keepers, and only those who worked in it knew about it.

And yet, there was one who knew about it who didn’t work there, one who got the knowledge from her late father, and one who broke the ultimate rule: taking a hidden book from the Archive.

Safa, a woman in her mid-thirties known for her wild and curly red hair stood on a perch on a bridge looking down at the city she had always called home, and inside her coat was the first book ever, “The First Word”.

Offering endless knowledge about language and how it came to existence in the first place, The First Word book was known to be an item of myth and legend, and this is how the Keepers wanted it to be as they kept the people of BookCity hostages, not with chains and cells, but with stories and adventures.

But Safa broke these chains of ink and paper, and her father was the one behind this. Raising her to think on her own, listen only to her own voice, while always telling her the stories no one knows, the stories that were not in books and novels.

“There’s a difference,” he had always told her, “between a story that teaches and a story that distracts.”

And that was how Safa came upon the forbidden book, but the Keepers had eyes everywhere and they knew what she had done.

They started to mobilize their troops, hidden between the people, to find the red-haired woman who has managed to break into their vault and stealing The First Word.

From her perch atop the city, Safa could see the Guards even as they tried to blend in with the people; so, she got up and started to jump stealthily from roof to bridge to roof, and as she rounded a corner, she bumped into someone.

Taking a step back and clutching the bundle under her coat, Safa’s mind whirred with what she should do as she looked up, but thankfully, when she did look up, her eyes met those of a kind older woman, one who Safa has known since she was a child.

Leila was a friend of Safa’s parents and has worked with her father in the Archives.

“They’re looking for you,” murmured Leila.

Safa swallowed hard. “I know.”

Leila hesitated, then reached out to caress Safa’s cheek before pulling out the long necklace Safa had hidden under her clothes; a necklace that had an old and rusty key hanging from it.

Leila held the key and whispered, “Your mother gave you this key when you were a little girl. It has been passed down to her from generation to generation, and now it is your turn to use it”.

Safa extended her hand and Leila dropped the key into her palm. “Use it?” She asked Leila bewildered.

“Yes!” Leila answered. “This key is your way out of here, your ticket to safety.”

A sudden sound had both women looking around warily, footsteps.

Leila leaned in closer to Safa and whispered hurriedly, “Remember your dad’s stories. Find the Original Bridge and look for the Blue Door. Unlock it and go.”

Then, Leila turned around, walked quietly and quickly, and joined the crowd of people going down to the city.

Safa stood frozen a couple of seconds before the sounds of the people broke her from her reverie and she ran.

Going down into the city, Safa easily blended into the people until she reached the outskirts of BookCity where the original bridge was built.

It took her some time to find the Blue Door, but she eventually did. Taking out the necklace from under her shirt, she got the key and put it in the lock, opened the door, and went through.

As she heard the door slam behind her, Safa was assaulted with sounds and smells she has never known before and has only read about in books.

The sea air was very different than the dusty air Safa has been raised in; it smelled beautiful and free. The sounds of the waves were comforting in a way she never imagined.

She took a few steps closer to the ocean with her hands atop her face to stop the mist from going into her eyes which immediately went to the tall and mythic lighthouse in the distance.

Safa has just finished her last page in BookCity and crossed the borders into OceanCity, a city she had only heard about and believed to be a part of a legend. The Keepers kept the citizens of BookCity so distracted that they were unaware of the existence of other cities, other peoples.

But the borders between cities were blurry and magical, only reached with certain keys crafted in WitchCity.

Safa had heard these stories from her father but, as they were even more far-fetched than the books she read, she always believed them to be a work of fiction.

But now, she was standing in one of these cities with no clue how to proceed. So, she wrapped her cloak even more around her body, put her head down, and walked.