In a quiet coastal town, a mysterious journal is found, tucked between the pages of a random book. It belongs to an explorer who vanished a century ago while searching for a mythical island believed to grant immortality. The journal, filled with cry...
They're afraid. Not a lot, but I can feel the tension growing. Yesterday, while hauling the cartons, one accidentally fell in the water, and we lost about five days worth of rice. Morons, like I said. But...there's no one better to count on than them. Let us hope, each for our own sakes, that I am able to keep it that way.
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SHE CONSIDERED RESIGNING.
Of course, at first, Seraphina wasn't even sure if the experience she went through was real, or a hallucination of her over-enthusiastic imagination. For all she knew, this was another one of the downright crazy dreams her mind stirred up to entertain her sometimes. But when she woke up the next day, and opened her closet, there it was. The journal, hidden behind a veil of scarce clothing, as if that would protect her from it. She remembered yesterday night vividly.
She remembered how she had sat there, stared at the pages she could no longer see, felt them rustle beneath her warm fingertips, smoothed out the wrinkled edges and ran her hands over the writing in ink. When the candles and lamps had finally gone out once more, it took a little while for the panic, and the fear to return. But even then she was so much more...focused, in a way. Instead of before, when all she saw outside the high vaulted windows of the Library was an endless void, now she could spot the moonlight shining in through the glass, and the stars smiling down at her, almost coldly.
They provided her the solace, and the courage she needed to get up from that chair she seemed glued to. She was afraid. Not just of the dark, but of whatever this entailed. She was afraid to open that book and see her surname, or a close variation of it, carved into that page. She was afraid to go back to the Library. After what had happened last night, Seraphina was not sure she could maintain her sanity and well-being if she ever stepped foot in that institution ever again. However, the guilt clawing at her insides would not let her leave.
She was reminded of all that she might have to leave if she went away, and somehow, Seraphina was sure even if she resigned, packed her things up, and ran away, they would still follow her. She wasn't completely aware of who they were, but that just made everything even more ominous. After she had managed to get to her feet last night, guided by the scarce light glimmering through the windows, she reached the door and grasped the hinges like her life depended on it, which might as well have been true.
Pulling the gates open, and letting out an inexplainable cry of relief as she stepped out, Seraphina collapsed on the stairs at the base of the doors, like when she had come here, except this time it was not only exhaustion forcing her to compose herself. Her breath was ragged, her brow was sweaty, despite the cold weather, her entire form was shaking terribly, her teeth were chattering, and she felt as if, sitting there, she was not Seraphina Cassius Thorne, but a nameless entity with no meaning and no definition. She must've rested there for a long time, because when she finally decided to continue moving, the sky was much lighter.
