Once upon a time, but not too long ago really, in a world that seems suspiciously like our own, there was a girl who lived for stories. There was seldom a time from the first moment she learned to read that she did not have her nose in one book or another, and even before that her favourite toy to chew upon as she toddled about was a child’s picture book of the soft plastic kind.

In her circumstances however it was hardly surprising, she grew up bouncing from home to home, and a handful of books was practically the only thing save the clothes she stood up in she got to take with her. However, her insular nature did make finding a permanent place to call her own challenging. So she eventually was cast adrift until eventually, she found herself in one of the few places she would settle for any length of time, a group home, where her stories finally spilled out, touching the lives of the others who were sharing her erstwhile home.

They were distrustful at first, waiting for her to inevitably vanish, but when they found to their surprise that she never did they started to warm up to her bit by bit. yet even they eventually started drifting away one by one. The home found it easier to home more energetic kids, at least easier than the quiet girl who stayed out of sight most of the time and always got tongue-tied around strangers. and just to make matters worse the few who saw her at her best, reading her tales to others and patching scraped knees felt it would be bad for the other children for her to suddenly leave, and so she settled.

The school presented no issues to her, save the obvious bullies, (she wished she could say there were no issues at all, but bullies are almost a default no matter where you are,)  she could deal with that though, this was hardly her first rodeo, and you learn a few tricks in time.

She eventually moved on from the school with solid marks, but no idea where to go from there. Finally finding a job and a real sanctuary in the form of the only book shop not owned by one of the big companies in town, the owner was nice enough, and the pay allowed her to get a little flat of her own, sure it was a little scabby, and not in the best part of town, but it was a place, HER place, and not too far from the old home, so she popped in on occasion to read to the kids, finding with each visit less and less familiar faces, until the day she stepped in and found the entire place had not a single familiar face. She had to admit that was rough on her. But still, she kept it up, reading to the new kids just like she’d always done.

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Just like that time swirled on, and she found herself a comfortable little eddy, for now, lining the walls with more and more books until they took up more of her home than she did. (Not that that was saying a lot, as previously mentioned the place wasn’t exactly sizeable.)

Then it all changed once again, with a strange smell, an explosion, then pain, and darkness.

Her world became a constant rhythm, beep, beep, beep, and what she had left was the stories she remembered. Then the unexpected, something that made her heart leap, familiar voices, and they were telling her stories. They sounded far older than the last time she met them, but they were unmistakably the kids she used to read to. They asked her to wake up, and she tried, she tried so hard to wake up, but it was like trying to wake up from the worst night's sleep times ten thousand. Even thinking much felt like swimming in molasses, let alone waking up.

So all she could do was listen, hang on, remember, and do her best to hang in there, Listening to the stories, they anchored her, helped her not drown in the darkness,  but she wasn’t getting out of this mess, merely treading water, As one by one, the voices started to slip away again. Not that she blamed them, they had their own lives to live after all. But it still sucked, and without the stories, she was finding it harder and harder to keep afloat.

Still, some of the kids stuck around, and now they sounded much older, when one of them started talking about their WEDDING she couldn’t help but wonder how long she had been like this, after that even she eventually stopped visiting, what was her name again? Wait, what was her own name? She couldn’t even remember, but she did remember the girl really loved the story about the hungry caterpillar. She’d read the tales so often they clung to her, even as her other memories faded, and slipped away, she clasped at them desperately like bubbles, in fact just like bubbles, as one by one they burst. Yet still, the stories swirled around her, they’d been her constant companion for far too long now, and she wondered if maybe the darkness around her wasn’t water, but ink.

The Beep, beep, beep that was her life was changing, as she heard the panicked nurses scrambled to try to pull her back, she felt a sharp searing pain, and another, and another  about as the rhythm switched to a beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeppppppppppppppppppp

She was just so tired now, so tired of constantly treading water, maybe if the dark is ink whatever comes next won’t be so bad, she thought to herself, as the ink thickened, and swallowed her up, maybe whatever is over there will have some good stories.

“Hmmm well you like your precious stories so much, maybe we can help each other out, depends if you’re willing to make a deal I guess,” said a voice in the darkness.