Wattpad Block Party - Summer Edition III (August 2017)

Nyhterides Presents: 'Reasons To Live' hosted by Ghost and James

"I'm not too sure about this, James. I heard the place is haunted." Ghost looked around the ominous hallway of the old mansion. He never should have agreed to spend the night in this place, even just one night, even with James.

"You're shedding feathers, Ghost." James smirked and made clucking noises just loud enough for his friend to hear him.

"Ain't funny." Ghost grumbled, but his annoyance was stolen away by the creaking of a doorway slowly opening on the other side of the hall. "Oh my-"

Before Ghost could finish his sentence, James grabbed him by the arm and dragged him to the door.

Though the old mansion was rickety and full of cobwebs and dust, what stood before them took Ghost's breath away.

"A library?" he whispered.

Mahogany shelves stood from ceiling to floor, Herculean structures able to withstand the weight of a million words. Each inch of wood had been carved into swirls and tiny flowers, every flower was graced with elaborate leaves that spread out like rays from the sun. The shelves were full of books. On the bottom shelves there were tomes that looked ancient and brittle, as though they would fall apart and turn into dust were you to touch them, their pages were yellow with age, their titles smudged and faint. On the middle shelves stood sleeker and brighter books with decorative covers and slender ribbons of gold down their spines. The top shelves were barely filled, a piece of paper here, an unfinished manuscript there.

"The library." James smiled. "This is the place I wanted to show you. There's stellar stuff here. It's kinda like," James paused in thought, "if Poe and Rossetti got together these books would be their spawns."

Ghost's pale blue eyes widened in awe. He always said, had he a million dollars he would spend every penny on books and a library to keep them in.

"You mean to tell me, this is the library you've been gushing about?" Ghost saw James nod in affirmation and utter a quick yup. "You mean one person wrote all these stories?"

James yupped again.

Ghost walked to the shelves and raised his hand. He let the tips of his fingers hover over bound leather of tales written long ago and over manuscripts still in infant stages.

James grabbed a book and plonked himself on a leather armchair. "There's a lot of beautiful and dark stuff here that I thought you'd enjoy. Poems, too, that Gothic, flowery stuff you adore. But me, I like this collection. There are no blackbirds trying to peck out your eyes, no vampires, nothing that rhymes, but it's my favorite book. Just short stories about folks." Ghost looked over his shoulder at a book James was holding up, the title read 'Reasons To Live'.

Ghost thought the title was inspirational, a sliver of hope in whatever darkness may be inside.

"I like the bits of flash fiction. I can read some for you." James flipped open to a random page and began. "Devon once told me about the daughter of a friend of his who had found a dead frog on the side of the road. The little girl had been allowed to perform a proper burial for the sad, little creature. A small hole had been dug with a stick and tiny pebbles had been placed all around it. Upon setting the creature into its tomb, it suddenly kicked its feet, stunned but certainly not dead. The little girl threw her hands in the air, terrified, and began to scream, "Kill it!" "

"Huh?" Wide-eyed, Ghost looked at his friend who was flipping to another page.

"It's part of one of the stories."