Chasing Shadows

Chapter 1

Soft white specks twisted and turned in a graceful dance within the flood of sunlight that poured through the large gothic style windows. The entire place both tasted and smelled of dust. It was rife with it in every corner, on every shelf, on most of the books. But that's how most college libraries were with their thousands of texts, the majority of which seemed as if they hadn't been touched in decades.

Harper wondered vaguely if this observation would've held true for the students that came before the age of computers, or was it just this generation that held what she could only describe as an aversion to physical books? Well, when it came to researching school assignments at least.

Even now, as Harper herself sat in her University's library with the intention of doing research for her senior thesis, the only physical object that could be seen in front of her was a laptop. Sure, she would eventually find it necessary to rise from her seat and find an actual book to add to her "copious" collection, but one book among the thousands that were available hardly counted as much. Definitely not enough to stir the ever abundant particles of dust that seemed to hold the library and its inhabitants in its thick, musty clutches.

The truth was that she actually came for the quiet, and on this late Saturday afternoon, the school library was the perfect place to find it. She had this entire cathedral of written texts all to herself.

Well, practically to herself, if you didn't count the librarians and the student aids who occasionally rolled by with their squeaky cart of books that needed to be returned to their shelves. Or the one other person that seemed to be using this day to get some work done.

He was three tables down from Harper, and had disappeared behind a comically large stack of ancient-looking, leather-bound tomes. As she looked, his head popped up for the first time in an hour, hair haphazardly sticking up where he'd been clutching it, an anxious look plastered across his face. Harper had to slap a hand over her mouth to keep a laugh from escaping, he looked exactly how she felt at the moment.

Despite hours of studiously reviewing her notes, the document on her computer screen remained mostly blank. On a frustrated sigh, she ran that same hand over her face and then pulled agitatedly at her roots.

Her meeting with her advisor was this Monday, and she was going to need a lot more to show him if she wanted to get any help with this thesis. So, mimicking her neighbor three tables away, she dived back into her work, giving herself over to it so completely, that when she looked back up the sunlight had gone and there was only darkness outside.

With a quick glance at the watch on the underside of her wrist, she decided it was finally time to pack it in, and so began to gather her belongings.

"Is anyone coming to meet you?" Harper wheezed out a stifled cry. Her throat was so dry from hours of dust inhalation and little use, that that was all she could manage when she looked up to find her neighbor standing directly in front of her.

"Sorry?" She finally squeaked out with a hand clutched tight to her chest, as her heart attempted to regain it's previous, steadier pace.

"Oh, I didn't mean to scare you," he apologized quickly, but with a hint of amusement in his eyes, he tried again, "It's pretty late, I just wanted to make sure you wouldn't be walking back to your dorm alone."

She raised an eyebrow warily, was he hitting on her? In the middle of an abandoned library, in the middle of the night?

As if he could read her thoughts, "Sorry, it's just that, if my dad knew I let a girl walk home by herself on a night like this, well he'd murder me."

He cracked an all too charming grin that made his piercing blue eyes twinkle, and hers narrow suspiciously, "I'm in an off-campus apartment, actually. I drove here."