Behind the Door

Behind the Door

Rain sat with her back against the door. The sounds hadn’t changed after her... she didn’t know what to call it. All she knew was that she was back in control of herself, and that she was tired. Maybe if she went to sleep now, she wouldn't be haunted by her dreams. It was a tempting thought luring her to close her eyes. Despite that, Rain couldn’t get the image of Lon out of her head. She knew the truth; she was too scared to sleep.

Rain wouldn’t dwell on her problems; they were unimportant. She should focus on helping people like her past self had asked. Now was a perfect time to answer a question that had bothered Rain since she first saw the Mid Ring Library. Why was it so much bigger than hers?

She pushed all thoughts about what just happened out of her mind.

Rain walked the perimeter of her library, looking for any door or secret passages that might lead somewhere else. She found some arches set into the wall that looked like they should house doors, but no matter how much she poked and prodded, she could not find any. The whole area was more or less how she remembered it from her first visit. What was she missing? She asked Mr. Purple to show her the ‘Door to the Library’ skill again.

[Door to the Library: To access the Library of Oru, push your will into any door, and it will transform into a portal. Once the door closes, the portal will also close. When you're ready to leave, you can exit through any door, and it will take you back to the same one you entered from.]

She realized that it never actually mentioned what was in the Library of Oru. Had her past self been scammed? Then Rain noticed something in the description she hadn’t before. It said she could leave through any door, not just the exit door. In fact, she had no proof that there even was an exit door. If that were true, then had she just assumed the door in the entry hall was an exit because that was where she entered?

Rain sprinted back to the intricately carved door. Pulling it open, she willed her power not to enter the door. As it opened, Rain didn’t see the usual darkness indicating a portal; instead, she saw a well-lit balcony with handrails made of petrified hands clinging and clawing to each other in a frozen depiction of struggle.

Rain thought she understood her library but had only ever seen a part of it. Stepping out onto the balcony, she was stunned by the vastness around her. Balconies, walkways, and catwalks everywhere, all of them covered in bookshelves or piles of books. Books and loose papers flew around, merging into other piles or shelves. Rain saw a bunch of papers come together to form a book; not long after, an entire pile of books burned away in green fire.

Yet despite the flapping, flying, skidding, and burning, not a sound was to be heard.

When the world unfolded, Rain found herself standing on a familiar balcony. Looking around, Rain confirmed that while it looked similar to the one she had just been standing on, it was, in fact, a different place. The door leading out onto the balcony was the giveaway. Though similar, its carvings were different.

Rain had done the same thing twice and gotten different results. The first time, when she picked up the coin, her throw landed on the balcony she was standing on. The second time, when she had immediately warped to the coin, she had ended in a different place. It was almost like her present actions changed the past.

Deciding to test this theory, Rain repeated her actions a few times. It was exactly as she thought, with the coin being where she threw it unless she tried to pick it up, in which case it would have landed next to her instead.

That was the pattern until Rain was convinced, at which point the library, seemingly annoyed that Rain was trying to apply rules to it, decided to stop following them, and Rain gave up.

Looking over the railing to see how close she was to the eye, Rain found herself no closer. But how? She must have gone down close to thirty stories. How many more hers were between her and the eye? Rain found herself and followed her gaze to where another her stood. She kept doing that only to find that there was always another her. They were always farther down than the last, yet they never felt farther away.

As Rain was trying to wrap her head around all this, Mr. Purple bloomed into existence with a message for her.

[Warning: due to prolonged exposure to unreality, your mental corruption has increased by 1%, current mental corruption 4%.]

Wait, my mental corruption is only 4%?

This confused her until she remembered that her corruption had dropped 10% after... It had probably gone down another 6% when she had raised that bandit guy’s corruption by 60%. That would account for everything. She needed to get out of this part of the library before her corruption worsened. With it this low, she might be able to risk another book.

Rain was glad she could leave through any door. She had no idea how to navigate in a place where direction and distance held no meaning. Turning to the door, Rain let herself out. She had a meeting with Mr. Markson.