2b_frank

he wasn't even sure where to begin processing any of this, but soon someone's rushed footsteps interrupted his attempts to comprehend whatever was going on.

"hey! you, uh-" virgil began as it ran down the stairs to meet him. "you're earlier than i expected."

"but i was right on time," nico narrowed his eyes.

"...yeah, exactly."

it turned around, ready to walk off, when he suddenly caught it by the shoulder.

"the hell did you turn this room into?"

it gave him a look that made him feel stupid he'd asked that. even though, honestly, that question seemed to be more than reasonable.

"i'll get everything back in order once i'm-" its gaze shifted to something vaguely overheard. "once i'm done here. you can stay if you wish, but for the love of all cosmic, do not touch anything."

nico was just about to pry, but just because how concerned it looked for a second while asking him to take care, ultimately decided against it. instead of making it stay beside him for any longer, he could at least take a look around.

he stepped closer to the edge, looking down. as far as he could see, disappearing into the darkness, there were rows upon rows of bookshelves between crude, uneven columns of what seemed to be wood. he couldn't even be sure there were shelves, frankly, because they seemed to rest directly on top of eachother in endless stacks.

"your organising skills are shit, you know that?" he yelled in virgil's stead. "you're supposed to be able to read the spines, y'know."

"that, in part, is the point," a voice somewhere from above responded. "but i admit it, ever since this realm came into my possession, it has fallen into terrible disarray."

he began to climb the steps as it continued.

"i have been trying to restore at least some semblance of order here, sure, even cleaned up the pages scattered across the stairs! but it feels impossible to sift through everything else at this point. and you know you can name the most outlandish thing out there and i'll still be able to do it!"

he took a closer look at the nearest column. that wasn't wood after all. those were books, too, tattered and ruined, stacked together so densely one couldn't even tell at a first glance. these, unlike the rest of the library, were spines forward, yet no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't make out a single title. yes, some symbols still were somewhat visible, but those weren't english letters. nico wasn't sure if it was something from any human language at all.

"so," he finally reached virgil as it sat on the knees, sorting through books. somehow, whenever it pulled one out, the rest remained in place, held by what was probably an invisible force, until it rearranged them by hand. "what's the deal with this place?"

"oh, yeah, i forget you don't really know that much," it sounded almost sarcastic, but nico swallowed the insult he was about to spit out in return. "it used to be infinitely bigger. this is only a fraction of what once was..."

"not what i asked."

it winced.

"right. well, it's a library, as you could tell," it looked up at him. "it contains... well, not all, not anymore, but a lot of knowledge about the world. the majority of it was about worlds other than earth, or its iterations across different universes."

"and now?"

it sighed.

"and now it's just that. iterations of earth and all about them, in an order so random i can't even remember some things," virgil put the book it was holding back between the rest, and headed down. nico followed. "i've lost most of it, because it belonged to somebody else who was much more knowledgeable than myself, but there's hope i haven't lost it for good."

it stopped near a pedestal a couple flights down. there was an open tome on it, with strange lines of text going not from left to right, but in spirals. it seemed to flow and change, too, and just looking at it was giving nico a headache.

"this one you can touch," it responded to a confused glance nico gave it over the shoulder. "it's an exit. last place you were before coming here, you'll go back there."

"but i entered through a door."

"yes, you did."

he decided not to ask anything else on the topic. not without hesitation, he reached for it. the last thing he said before his fingertips touched the pages, yellow from passage of time, was "i really think you should put rails on that staircase".

in a blink of an eye, he was already standing in front of the rec room's closed door. with apprehension, he pressed the door handle and peeked through the crack.