I Think, Therefore...

If he never saw another rock again, he’d be flipping thrilled. 

“I found something strange on Google Maps and had to check it out!” Gray smiled at his phone and hoped he disguised how absolutely done he was with this trip. Someday soon, the footage would go out to his thousands of viewers, but right now he had no service, no Wi-Fi, and no feeling in his arm after hours recording his hike up the rugged mountain.  

At least it wasn’t the jungle. The last time he did one of his ‘spontaneous discovery’ videos, it took him two weeks to find the right bug spray. 

This was his best video series yet, though, far more popular than the Vegas Strip street interviews, so he massaged his shoulder and pressed onward–upward, really–until his lungs screamed from the air pressure and the altitude had him pulling his jacket from his worn pack. 

“It’s around here somewhere,” he told his camera. Gray hoped it was true. He spent days scouring Google Maps for something worth investigating. When he finally found this place, he saved the image as his lock screen as a symbol of triumph. He’d seen it so many times now that the second the cluster of boulders came into view, he flicked on the GoPro strapped to his forehead and started running. 

“I think I found it,” he huffed through wheezing breaths before kicking at overgrown weeds and what he hoped was mud. 

There it was, the hatch. Unlike the one he found in a tunnel at the foot of the Alps, this one did not require his not-yet-patented one-leg, two-arm prying technique to open. 

He peered inside, hoping the cameras caught the view even as the hazy afternoon sun seemed to be consumed by the darkness of the passage. His own eyes took several seconds to adjust. Gray was sure the microphones picked up the gasp that left his lips when everything came into focus. It was a staircase–a staircase leading down into the mountain! Holy shit! He’d break a million subscribers for sure this time. 

The entrance was just barely wide enough for him to slip inside with his bag. Gray propped the door open with a few sizable rocks, pulled out Beacon Deacon–the cross-covered flashlight gifted to him by his über-religious uncle, and started descending. 

“Wish me luck.” His words echoed down the chamber, warping with every reverberation. “Wish me luck. Wush miluck. Woosh milk.”

Gray counted one hundred and sixty-nine stairs before he decided it must be endless. It was a staircase inside a mountain. Who had the energy to carve this many steps?!

“Three hundred and twenty-six. Four hundred and eighty-two. The things I do for you guys.” 

Six hundred and twelve. There were six hundred and twelve stairs. He had to go back up. Was this divine punishment for that time he made fun of how his brother said ‘croissant?’ Even the French thought it was too much! Gray asked!

He dropped his pack on the rocky ground–or would it be rock-ground? Either way, his bag landed with a thud and Gray leaned against the wall to catch his breath. It was bumpy, but not in the sharp way he would have expected. 

Gray turned and flipped Beacon Deacon on to full blast. Was that… a book? It was. 

He tripped over his own feet as he surged further into the room, coughing as he kicked up what he assumed must be years’ worth of dust. 

The cavern was round and about the size of a school gym, sans the basketball nets. He craned his neck and still couldn’t find the top. From what he could see, books covered every inch of the walls

“What the hell? Are you guys seeing this?” 

Gray approached the nearest section. From afar, he thought they were the old sort of books libraries didn’t let you check out. He carefully plucked one from the shelf. The binding was a thick leather, but the title embossed in the spine was new, The First Town. His sister was obsessed with that book when it came out two years ago. 

“I’m so confused,” he said, just loud enough for the mic to pick up. Speaking louder felt illegal, somehow.

His microphone responded with a soft hum. “Damn. It’s got dirt in it again.” Gray unhooked it from his lapel as the hum became a buzz. “I hear you, I hear you. One second.” But it didn’t quiet, even as he squeezed puffs of air into it from the little canister in his bag. Instead, the GoPro on his head seemed to harmonize with the microphone, then his phone, then his flashlight. Together, they were like a swarm of bees growing more agitated by the second. 

“What the hell?” Gray said again, scrambling to turn everything off. They crescendoed in one shrill screech before dying out together.

“Um. Guys? What was that?” It took a beat before he realized there was no one to talk to. His cameras were fried, and he was all alone. 

He expected silence, but there was a soft purr sounding from in front of him, more like a motor than a cat, unfortunately. He could have had a familiar!

Gray checked his gear one more time, but it was definitely dead. He would investigate if only he could see, but without Beacon Deacon, he was more likely to knock the shelves down like dominos. He really didn’t want to die under the weight of several thousand books. Or by the blunt force trauma of several thousand books. 

He chanced a step forward, arms held out in front of him like a particularly handsome zombie, but managed to kick his discarded bag. What luck, he found the only item on the ground. At least he wouldn't have to search for his bag. His bag that held all of his things. His things which included a lighter! 

Gray dug through his pack and pulled out the Flaming Hell, the ultra-strong lighter his father gave him after seeing Beacon Deacon. His dad even stuck a big pentagram on it as a petty little treat. 

Gray flicked it on and held it as close to the shelves as he dared. All he could find were books, but the hum definitely sounded like it was coming from there. He leaned closer and Flaming Hell flickered–no–the shelves flickered! 

Gray whirled around as every wall quivered in and out of existence before disappearing completely. 

“Um. I don’t know what just happened.” There was no one to listen, but he had to at least pretend like he wasn’t on his own here. 

Low blue lights kicked on from a strip in the floor as he crossed the juncture from the old library into, well, he wasn’t sure what. The space had doubled in size, though the ceiling was just as high. It was easier to see now as another section of lights clicked on from above. 

Shelves still lined the walls, but they were a strange blend of vines and metal, like a jungle mated with scaffolding. Instead of books, they held hundreds of… no way. 

Gray’s steps stuttered as he neared. Someone had to have set him up because there was no way the shelves were really covered in jarred brains. 

“Nick? Taj? Did you do this?” His friends didn’t pop out from behind the shelves. Now that he thought about it, no one he knew could afford such a crazy prank. 

“No. I am Aurora Initella.” 

He whirled around so fast that his long ponytail slapped him across the face. “What the hell! Who are you?!”

The woman was tall and thin, like the car models his brother always had on his walls growing up. She had just as many clothes on, too. Aurora’s shirt was one in spirit only, barely covering her chest and tied loosely behind her neck. Her skirt wasn’t much better. Wasn’t she cold? God, he sounded like his grandmother.  

“... I am Aurora Initella.” Her voice reminded him of the afternoon he spent by the deep blue waters of Turkey’s Iztuzu Beach. It was one of the more peaceful days he ever had until he heard the vicious caw of a hawk and watched bloody duck feathers bob on the waves.

“What are you doing down here? What is this?”

She hummed. “I believe it’s proper to introduce yourself first.” 

“Uh, right. Name’s Gray Griffin.”

Aurora tilted her head so far her ear hit her shoulder. “Is it?” she asked lightly. 

“… It’s John. Jon Vaughn.”

“Why did you lie, Jon Vaughn?”

“It’s not a lie. It’s a stage name.” Was this really the conversation two people in the depths of a mountain surrounded by brains were having? Was he on drugs? He’d never had a drug before. 

“We are not on a stage.” He hadn’t been on a stage since his eighth-grade production of Greece, but he figured it was close enough. He had been an amazing Sandy, a real hit at the Brighton Boarding School for Boys. 

 “It’s a figure of speech, but now that you’ve mentioned it and I definitely was not the one to bring up the terrifying ambiance first, what the hell is this place?”

“A figure of speech. Interesting. I will make a note of it.” She stood completely still, completely silent. Gray counted to twenty-nine.

“Um… hello? I have unanswered questions.”

She twisted her gaze to him with her entire neck. What commitment. “This is a library.”

He peered over her shoulder at the room of horrors. “I don’t think it is.” 

“This is a library,” she repeated in exactly the same tone.

“We’re surrounded by brains! Human brains!” 

“Is that not a library?”

“I… okay, you’ve got me on a technicality, but there’s no way you think this is normal!”

“Is any home normal?” What was with this woman? The way she answered questions, she’d be a prosecutor’s nightmare. At least, he could hear his state prosecutor mother saying so. 

“You live here?” His voice hadn’t been so high since puberty. Maybe it was best that his mic died. “Were you the one who carved the insulting number of stairs?” He couldn’t imagine it, not with her stick arms and her nearly pore-less skin.

“The library was made by the Knights of Knowledge.” 

Gray snorted. “That’s not a real thing.” 

He read about the Knights in a fiction series back in elementary school. The Knights of Knowledge traveled the world trying to understand humanity only to bumble their way into increasingly ridiculous situations. You know, maybe he was a Knight of Knowledge.

Aurora shook her head so jerkily she surely gave herself whiplash. “They named themselves after the books.”

His hands braced his head. “Can you read minds?”

“You were speaking aloud.”

“Oh.” He lowered his arms and cleared his throat. 

“The Knights—” she gestured wildly with a locked elbow. The sorry excuse for a shirt slid down too far. He averted his eyes. 

“Can you put on more clothes first? I know this is your home, but I don’t think this is a good way to host a guest.” 

“Does this not please you?” She cocked her head unnaturally again. “Master Paxal prefers it.” 

Gray peeked through his fingers and raised a brow. “Master Paxal sounds like a sexual harassment lawsuit waiting to happen.” He could hear his mother saying that, too. 

“How is this?” Between blinks, her clothes lit up and grew into a pin-striped power suit. 

“Am I in a magic girl anime or something?” he mumbled. Forget the embarrassing voice cracks. He wished his camera was rolling. No one was going to believe him. 

“I am not magic. I am—”

“Aurora Initella, I know.”

“—an avatar.”

“You’re what now?”

“I am the voice to these memories,” she gestured again to the surrounding brains. This time, she remained blessedly covered, “a face for the library.”

“So, you’re not real then?”

“What is real and what is fake?”

“I’m too dumb and emotionally compromised for philosophical debate.”

“To be dumb is to lack knowledge. The library can help.”

Gray dropped his face into his hands. He wanted to go home. He wanted to bury himself under his covers and forget all of this had ever happened. Hell, he’d even listen to his parents and get into improv if it meant he didn’t have to have a conversation with this woman… avatar… person…? 

“If it’s such an amazing library, why doesn’t everybody know about it? Why hide it under a mountain five hours from civilization? Isn’t the point of the library to share with the community?”

She blinked. Gray only just realized she hadn’t been before. “We do.”

“What does that mean?”

“Perhaps you have read Terminal Living: A Mindset Game or Blue Crescent Dying? Maybe The Inquisitor’s Bed or Memory’s Nest?” 

“I think everyone and their twice-dead grandmother have read those. They’re some of the most famous books of all time.”

“And who wrote them?”

“I don’t know, smart, famous people?”

“So you think.” She smiled with too many teeth. She was like an attractive barracuda. He paused. Scratch that. “This place is the Library of Memory. It houses the greatest minds of every generation.”

“You mean these are…” he eyed the closest brain. E.A Poe. “No way.”

“With their knowledge, I can write you your perfect book. Do you want a science fiction story by Agatha Christie? Or maybe you would like a romantasy by H. P. Lovecraft?”

“You’re stealing their work.”

She took a step closer. His feet felt welded to the stone. 

“It is merely utilization of their knowledge. They are dead. They have no use for it anymore.” 

It felt wrong, though he couldn’t find the words to explain why. Even if he did, he didn’t think she had the capacity to care. 

“What do the Knights want?”

“‘He who has Knowledge has the world.’ That is their slogan.” 

“Then why use it like this? Why steal—utilize—” he corrected before she could, “it in this way? If you can actually extract thoughts from the world’s greatest minds, why not use that technology to cure disease or something?”

She shrugged, or tried to. Her shoulder–holographic shoulder, he realized–sunk into her cheek. “They tried at first, but they could not find an agreeable course of action.” 

“But this was agreeable?” 

“There were a few issues.” He followed the line of her too-wide eyes to a small section of brains. Oh. 

“Man, people of the past were seriously kill-happy, huh?”

She hummed again. It was just like the purr he heard before. “Murder is common in all eras.” 

“You sure know how to comfort a guy.” He ran a hand through his hair. “Look, I just wanted some good content for my socials, not to uncover some crazy conspiracy. Maybe tell your programmers or whatever to cover the entrance to their secret lair better. It’s a miracle no one else has ever stumbled onto it before.”

“But, Jon Vaughn, they have.” She pointed across the room. The area was close to the exit, so he walked the path to a darker corner, lit by half the floor lights as the rest of the library. 

“We have had lots of guests,” Aurora said into his ear. When had she gotten so close? She had no presence, no solid form or footsteps. “They have taught me so much.”

Something sharp pricked his neck. His vision blurred. 

“And you will too.”