When Forever Ends (Part 1: A Game of Chess)

XI

~{§}~

E l e v e n

Erin shut the doors behind us and flicked a switch on the wall. One by one, several large chandeliers covered in tiny glass crystals flickered on and illuminated the room.

"Whoa!" everyone but Erin and Will gasped.

"Aww," Will complained. "Another library?!"

It was indeed another library. The main room we had entered was circular, with a fancy marble staircase that led down into a maze of bookshelves. A walkway ringed the area, comfy leather couches and chairs providing quiet reading spots while the railing served as something to lean on and chat quietly, watching the people below move around looking at books. The ceiling extended up into the dome. Strategically placed stained glass windows in the dome were barely visible, but still let in light from outside in wild colors. To the left and right, openings in the wall at the level of the walkway and wide hallways down below led to other, similar rooms, but neither as large or as grand as this one. On the wall next to us was a map of the library. According to the map, the library was made up of a ring of circular rooms with a courtyard in the center.

As we looked around, taking in the grandeur of the place, I realized what was missing. The people. The library and the city, as well as the whole facility, I now realized, should have been buzzing with people, but there was no one. Just us lonely travelers.

Sofie walked off into the books, dragging Will behind her. Strangely, his back seemed to have healed already. If he was in pain, he sure didn't show it. Maya, too went to look around, leaving me alone with Erin.

"Where is everyone?" I asked.

She shrugged. "I dunno. When I came here, this place was already empty and it seemed as if it had been for a while."

I decided to take the opportunity to find out more about the strange, lonely girl in white.

"Did you have many friends?"

"Huh?" she was caught by surprise.

"Well you've obviously lived somewhere other than this desert," I said, walking over to one of the leather chairs and beckoning for her to join me in the seat next to it. "Where did you live? Why are you in the Endless, anyway?"

She sank into the chair with a sigh, and I did the same.

"It was a small town, more of a village, really," she began. "Being located near the edge of the Endless, we didn't get much visitors, except for the occasional explorer hoping to be the first to map out the desert. We had a small school, where everyone knew each other. A farm provided our food, and we didn't have anything to trade for the food, so we worked. Each family worked a day on the farm until we reached the end of the list and started again."

I noticed her use of past tense, like it no longer existed anymore.

"There was a small library, with only a few hundred books, mostly nonfiction. By the time I was nine, I had read just about every book in town. Every residence was exactly the same. The only way you could tell the difference was by the location and what was in it. I had a couple of friends and we always tried to make things more interesting. It was peaceful and all, but nothing ever changed.

"Then, one day a stranger came into town. A mysterious fellow who always wore a long, black trenchcoat and dark glasses, even indoors. He had a pack on his back piled high with all sorts of random junk and claimed he was looking for a place to stay. Looking back on it now, we should have turned him away, not let him even enter our town. But since he was new, and we never had anything new happen, we let him in and gave the man a house, one of the empty ones at the back of the town that no one ever passed by.

"After he had settled in, the trucks came. There was at least one every month. They came loaded with more like him. All dressed in trenchcoats and wearing dark glasses. The trucks would drive up to his house and unload everyone. They would act all secretive about whatever they were doing and bring several silver cases into the house and down to the basement. I tried looking into one of the cases, once, just for fun, but they had so many locks on them that there was no way to open them without the combinations to the locks. After that, we wouldn't hear or see from them until the next day when they left, taking the silver cases with them, back in the direction from which they had come. That should have been suspicious enough to kick him out of our town, but we were intrigued by his activities. He was the first interesting thing the town had seen since it had been built.

"One day, he took things too far. His friends in the truck were visiting and it was the middle of the day when it happened."

I never got to hear what happened.

The scream of the alarms began again, but more distantly, as if there weren't any in the city.

Erin shot to her feet as my friends came running from the midst of the books, alarm showing on their faces.

"Everyone, outside! Now!"

We all hurried out the front doors without argument. Just before the doors slammed closed after us, the lights in the library automatically shut off.

Erin vaulted over the side of the LT straight into the driver's seat. "Get in!" she commanded and we took the same seats as before.

Before she could start the vehicle, we all stopped cold as a ferocious roar echoed throughout the empty streets and the alarms abruptly cut off in mid wail.

"This may be a little too late," I said, "but I forgot to mention that we've been followed."

She finally got the LT started and we zipped off down the main street, back the way we had come.

A tremor shook the ground as the silhouette of a huge, four legged figure, outlined by a bright neon sign behind it, leaped into the road directly in front of us. The beast made low growl that caused the air to rumble.

Erin's choice of words was very colorful as she swore and veered off into a side street. From the way her hands gripped the steering wheel tighter, until they turned white, I could tell that she had recognized the creature, and that it was trouble.

Sofie glanced fearfully behind us. "What was that thing?"

"Sand tiger. I don't know it's scientific name."

"Did we lose it?" she asked, hopefully.

"Doubtful," Erin replied, her face grim. "Very doubtful."

A dark shape hidden in the shadows flashed past us, so quickly I wasn't sure I'd seen it.

I was scared, more terrified than I'd ever been in my life. It was entirely possible that I could die tonight.

We entered a long, dark tunnel under several wide buildings.

A flash. A spray of sparks. The vehicle slammed to the ground, screeching to a stop and spraying sparks everywhere. We had lost power. The darkness closed in swiftly and silently, so thick it was almost suffocating.

We sat there in the dark tunnel, terror freezing us in place.

An animal noise almost like a menacing chuckle echoed around the tunnel, bouncing around so many times, it seemed to come from everywhere at once. A huff of breath over my shoulder. A low growl from above us. The gleam of the dim light at the end of the tunnel reflecting off of razor sharp claws.

Suddenly, the light was blocked from our view. Fierce emerald eyes glared at us, directly in front of the vehicle. I could smell its breath now, damp and musty, as if the creature hadn't eaten in a while. The animal growled at us once more, as if in warning, then was gone with a gust of stale wind, vanishing into the shadows as if it had never existed.