“Duck!” Margaret shouted.

“Where?” Hans said, looking around, while Mary threw herself to the floor. She hoped the mixered martial art arena’s floor wouldn’t consider this being as being unfaithful - they’d been such a good match…

A second later, a flock of wild history books flew over her head, and quite a few collided with Hans. He flailed his arms around, trying to get them off until Margaret reached him and managed to pull him down. The books separated from the group flapped their covers for a few seconds, throwing torn pages at the lying boy. Mary made a fireball gesture towards them (roughly mimicked by Mossie’s mini arm, who collided with one of the reckless flyers already - although his gesture was purely rude, with no magic involved), and the books finally made themselves scarce. That was a good thing since Mary didn’t put much faith in the ‘perfectly operational’ wards protecting the aged bookcases from fire. Knowing this crazy house, the protection would probably mean that they were incapable of holding bestsellers or something along those lines…

Anyway, in case it wasn’t obvious - this was not what Mary hoped for when Hans told her they were going to a library. She hoped for a quiet place, with not too crooked chairs, and a nice atmosphere in which like-minded students read the books in their free time. Whether they’d be fantasy, manuals, or romances - she frankly didn’t care at that point. She probably would if her original plans for the evening worked out - but any of the options presented themselves way better than chasing after some damned rats in a library-stylised labyrinth!

“Phew, that was close,” Hans said, wiping ink stains from his face. It didn’t help… at all. “Thanks.”

“Sweetie, we’ll need to have the talk,” Margaret glared at him.

“What? Why?”

“You know why.”

“I mean…,” Hans trailed off. “I know why, but… why?”

Mary shook her head. Seriously, those two… She swept her flashlight over the next section of the damp, stone floor, making sure she didn’t miss any pests. By now, she’d gladly catch a single mouse and call it a day. The other two didn’t share her ambivalent feelings towards the ‘library’, and Hans relit his own oily torch from Margaret's still burning one.

And don’t get it wrong - Mary would very gladly burn this place down. Just not from the inside.

“Guys, could we… you know, keep going?” she asked.

“You’re no fun,” Margaret muttered under her breath.

“Alright, we should take the next right and then go straight until the end of the passage,” Hans said, after consulting the map he strapped to his wrist. “We should be close.”

“Thank heavens,” Mary said, aiming her flashlight further down the aisle. The ‘next right’ was only a dozen yards or so from where they stood. She approached it cautiously - her nerves were already strained without another surprise.

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The new corridor was a bit different from the one she was currently in. It seemed more solid overall - the bookcases used thicker wood, which looked almost like a stone the further she looked, and the floor was more even. The dampness was still there, though, and she spotted hundreds of torn pages slowly decomposing in the dark.

A shiver went down Mary’s spine - this place felt ancient. And not just in your usual ancient way, like the public school computer, or even tourist attractions encircled with souvenir stalls, where very authentically smiling people tried to talk you into buying a plastic replica of the Eiffel Tower as a souvenir from a trip to Egypt.

No, this made Mary think of the books she read, those that kept her up at night long after she’d finished reading - those that made her too scared to close her eyes even for the moment. There was something here, something about the way her flashlight beam seemed to miss the corners she pointed it at, the silence that seemed to force itself upon her when she looked at the darkness too long, and the utter lack of any obvious dangers, not even living books salivating over making her skin their next cover.

And so, Mary paused, waiting for her bickering friends to finally move their lazy rears closer. It took them a while, and if they were hoping to surprise whatever was waiting for them… well, let’s just say that wasn’t going to happen unless it was as deaf as a professor when asked a not entirely obvious question.

Once the couple deigned to arrive, they shut their mouths - the atmosphere was getting to them too. Still… It is Hans and Margaret that we’re talking about.

“Great,” the boy said, joyfully sniffing unnaturally stale air. “So we aren’t lost after all.”

He marched forward confidently.

“Wait,” Mary said. “You thought we were lost? And you didn’t care to mention it earlier?”

He shrugged and replied, barely slowing down. “It didn’t seem too important. I mean, it’s just the library, right?”

“He’s got a point, you know, honey?” Margaret said. “We’d been here like, three times already before you joined us. It isn’t that bad.”

That sounded all too familiar to Mary. She sighed heavily and walked after them. That was one of the rules their party followed, and from what she’d heard, it was the same almost everywhere - the healer should be placed in a position as safe as humanly possible. It’s much harder to fix someone’s broken arms if it so happens that it’s the same someone doing the fixing. And since the rear of their three-person convoy was just as likely to be attacked as the front, it was Mary who had to walk last, sideways. In a corridor that narrow, going backwards wouldn’t give her a much better view, and she’d probably slip after a yard or two anyway.

Seriously, did anyone clean this building? Once every other century, at least?

The others paused, and Mary took a look forward to see why - in front of them, the corridor split into two perfectly identical ones, each veering only a couple of degrees from their current direction. It was a bit creepy since the natural rough edges and stone that made the bookcases, the books themselves, and even time inflicted wounds on said books were also exactly mimicked. In each of them, on the ceiling, Mary noticed mosaics of sorts. Unfortunately, they were too ruined to understand what they represented.

They stood in silence for a few seconds until Hans shrugged and simply went down the right corridor.

“Wait, how do you know where to go?” Mary asked.

“I don’t,” he said without stopping. “But since both ways look the same, we can just pick any of them, right?”

Margaret already started after him, and despite all her groaning, Mary was forced to follow - that is, unless she wanted to be left behind. Just... why…

Blood almost froze in her veins when a deep, rasping scream echoed from ahead.