Book (I) The Remnant of Gregory Fischer, Prologue: A Magical Job Offer

--- Gregory Fischer ---

Slowly his eyes opened up as he dragged his dazed mind from the delightful depth of dreams that he’d been a part of and back into the world he was sadly more familiar with.

Despite being awake however he found himself laying on his mattress for another thirty minutes, his exhausted body wishing to fall back asleep even as his mind forced him to stay awake in spite of the ache behind his eyes.

Eventually a mix of his various morning needs was enough to get him to reluctantly roll out of bed to start taking care of them with a trip to the bathroom and a cold shower.

Stepping out of the shower he pulled on a pair of half faded jeans, a white button up, and to at least pretend he was capable of being an adult a black vest before slipping on his glasses and taking a look at his reflection.

A thirty-something man with brown stubble on his face and rings around brown eyes looked back at him with an exhausted grimace as he tied his shoulder length hair into a ponytail, the most effort he could put into his grooming today.

Pushed on by a hollowness in his stomach he made his way to his kitchen before throwing a couple slices of leftover pizza in the microwave for breakfast. The paper plate went into the trash because actual plates were too much work to clean, and the paper ones were cheap.

With all of that taken care of he stepped out of his spartan white apartment filled with used brown furniture and a couple of overflowing bookshelves, before making his way downstairs to the small repair shop below.

“Finally up?” Toni asked, the mechanic looking up from where she was tinkering away at a metal cylinder. “Was starting to think I was going to have to drag you out.”

“Yeah… not today.” He grimaced, running a hand through his hair as he reached for the cigarettes in his pocket.

Toni spun around in her chair before giving him a once over with her hazel eyes. “Well at least your clothes are clean today.”

“Look who’s talking.” He scoffed, flicking his fingers towards her oil stained overalls as he lit his cigarette.

“The difference is that this is a work outfit.” Toni scoffed right back, before pulling out the scrunchy she was using to hold her long ginger hair out of her way. “Also I got something for you in the mail.”

“I got mail?” He asked in confusion since the only person who knew where he lived was Toni and he just gave her all of his money since the building and everything in it was in her name.

“Yeah, a job offer.” His one friend told him as she offered him an envelope from her desk before seeing his face. “It’s not the usual kind, it’s for a library or some shit.”

“A library?” He repeated, not with interest but with much less hostility than his normal reaction to a ‘job offer’ as he opened the envelope, uncaring that Toni had already read it.

(Dearest Guest Gregory Fischer,

Having caught our interest as a loyal guest, we at the Black Briar Library would like to invite you in aiding us in the preservation and distribution of stories from across creation.

Should you be interested in this offer, please go to your preferred library promptly for a face to face interview where you can inquire any details you desire.

Sincerely The Head Librarian, Briar Black.)

“This isn’t from the local library, and that’s the only one I actually visit.” He frowned, getting the feeling that this was going to be more like his usual ‘jobs’ than he wanted as he eyed the emblem of a black rose surrounded by black thorns at the bottom.

“Sounds like it’s for some kind of literary preservation group or something, figure it shouldn’t be too dangerous if it involves books.” Toni shrugged as she watched him.

“Depends on the books.” He grumbled, scratching at the stubble on his neck as he tried to remember where he’d heard of this ‘Black Briar Library’ before. “You sure you’ve never heard of this group before? Because I can swear I have, I just can’t place where.”

“Maybe you heard about them at the actual library? You spend enough time there.” Toni pointed out.

He didn’t think that was it but, “Maybe…”

“You going to look into it?” Toni asked with a careful neutrality that covered up both her concern and frustration to everyone but him, and that was only because he knew it could be there.

“I needed to get some new books anyway.” He sighed, because usually the library and its books were an escape from his work and all the other troubles he had with the real world.

Mixing the two left a distinctly bad taste in his mouth that his cigarettes couldn’t quite overcome.

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“Good.” Toni nodded before putting her hair back into a ponytail as she went back to her work. “If you do accept their job, be sure to stop back here before you go anywhere else.”

“I’m not an idiot.” He scoffed as he started towards the shop’s backdoor, not really ready to deal with the people that would be cluttering the main street just yet.

“Yes you are!” His only friend called after him.

Once out on the streets he found himself taking an instinctively long drag of his cigarette, the chemicals within soothing the rampant nerves he got whenever he had to leave one of the two places he actually felt comfortable. (At least the back alley isn’t as overcrowded as the main street…)

Not that that made him feel any better as he could still hear the hustle and bustle right around the corner and that brought him a whole other kind of anxiety, even if he preferred the anxiety of the unknown to the anxiety of people. A quantity that was nowhere near unknown.

The fact that it took him two more cigarettes to actually get moving was part of why he’d taken the backdoor rather than the front, because Toni -in her well meaning if blunt way- would’ve forced him to get moving after the first if she knew he was still lingering.

(Going to need to get more soon…) He frowned, realizing he was already half-way down his last pack, the skull marked carton only having a handful of the white sticks left. (Might need to accept this job just to pay for them…)

With a sigh he stuffed the carton back into his pocket and started making his way towards the library, his eyes focused upward towards the numerous tall buildings that made up the cramped city streets, watching the dark gray smoke coming from his cigarette rather than the people that were around him. More than aware that if he focused on them he’d end up stressing himself out far worse as he played numerous possibilities and impossibilities out in his head.

The hike to the library was a long one that took him over an hour to make, a time he could easily half twice over if he was willing to take a bus but… (That many people in that small of a space with me is… it’s just a bad idea…)

And so after an hour of taking as many backstreet and sidealley shortcuts as he could -both to get there at a half-way decent time and to avoid the crowds- as well as killing three more cigarettes, he found himself staring up at the steps to the city library.

His only real sanctuary outside of Toni’s shop.

Making his way up the steps, he found once more that in spite of the large amount of foot traffic on the road proper he was the only one actually going into the library. (Something about how people would far prefer to simply read on dataslates and similar than to read actual books.)

Even Toni thought his preference for an actual book in his hands was odd, mostly keeping her mouth shut since it was one of the few things he was actually willing to leave the house for. Sometimes with a drop of enthusiasm even.

And so like many times before he stepped into the library, savoring the way the marble walls dampened the sound from the bustling city surrounding them. (Wait…)

His eyes darted around the library he stepped into, because unlike the small one he was almost intimately familiar with, this one was far grander. The smaller library’s warm browns and bright whites had been replaced by cool gray and dark black as the atrium stood a dozen times larger and with a hundred times as many books as the library he was used to.

The door clicked shut behind him as he’d carelessly let it hundreds of times before, only sounding significantly more ominous and final with the way it echoed through the building.

“Shit!” He cursed before rushing back and forcing the door open, afraid he’d… find the library steps that he’d just walked up and the rest of the city as busy as it ever was.

(Fuck…) He grimaced, realizing he was having one of his episodes, before turning back to the library and… finding that it was still the dark library he’d walked into and not some kind of hallucination. “The hell?”

Blinking, he stepped outside before closing the door and opening it once more to find the scene unchanged. “Okay…”

Taking a few steps back he gave the outside of the library a once over and noted how the building was definitely incapable of containing the one he’d seen. (Not that means much given some of the things I’ve seen…)

He once more stepped into the library before doing the (stupidly suicidal) thing and closing the door behind him.

After counting to ten, he opened the door once more and saw that he was still able to leave and go back to the city if he wanted to. Meaning that he wasn’t trapped here, (or that whoever set this up can’t kill it on demand…)

Ignoring his paranoia he left the door open as he made his way into the library, his eyes darting around trying to take in every detail to figure out what was going on, before pausing as he noticed the image of a large black rose surrounded by black thorns on the floor.

“The Black Briar Library…” He realized upon matching the insignia with his surroundings.

He took another look around the massive shelves, his eyes briefly focusing on the shadowy patches of darkness between them where he could swear he saw something move before moving on. (Definitely not an ordinary library…)

This wasn’t the weirdest thing he’d ever seen in his line of work, but it was getting up there, if in presentation alone.

“Hello?” He eventually called as he reached into his pocket and pulled out the folded up letter Toni had given him. “My name is Gregory Fischer and I was given this letter about a job offer!”

There were a series of thumps behind him.

He turned around swiftly, his hands half raised into a stance before noticing a trio of pillars standing in a quarter circle each with a medium sized book on it.

Cautiously he approached the pillars and once he was close enough to read their covers he couldn’t help but scoff, “Putting my name on a bunch of books… real cute.”

The fact that he could see himself using these titles for books about him was only mildly unnerving, the fact that he could take a guess at the subject matter of each book based on the titles was the thing that really bothered him.

He blinked as a white page fluttered in front of him carried by a breeze he couldn’t feel.

Snatching the page out of the air he read, (The interview has begun, Please Select A Book.)

He inhaled before exhaling. (I knew this was going to be a pain in the ass…)