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Levi was halfway through explaining patron protocols when the System window appeared in his vision, silent and urgent.
[SYSTEM ALERT]
Patron Analysis: Father Reven Reposo
Power Level: Exceeds Host Current Capabilities
Danger Level: VERY HIGH
Tier: UNKNOWN
Dominant Emotion: Acute Dread (Unstable)
Resolve: 97%
Warning: High risk of catastrophic panic response
Recommendation: Proceed with extreme caution
Levi's expression didn't change. He kept his tone measured, his posture relaxed, his tea cup steady in his hand.
Oh. Wonderful. He's not just dangerous, he's unstable dangerous. And I'm sitting here having a casual chat like we're discussing the weather.
His Emotive Insight confirmed what the System was telling him. The emotional threads radiating from Reven were frayed, chaotic, pulled taut to the point of snapping. One wrong word and this man might do something catastrophic.
Professional distance. Calm authority. Don't let him see concern.
"Father Reven," Levi said smoothly, setting down his tea. "I think we should approach this systematically. Your visions, your situation with the inquisitors, your theological complications. These things need structure to understand properly."
Reven looked at him warily. "Structure?"
"A counseling session. Formal. Organized. It'll help clarify what your foresight is actually telling you." Levi stood and gestured toward the ceiling.
"I have a proper space upstairs for this kind of work. More comfortable. Better suited to serious conversation."
"You're a priest? Do I need to confess my sin to?"
"Nope this is just a normal talk more scientific"
"Yeah because everything about this is scientific"
"Among other things." Levi walked toward the stairs, then paused and turned back.
"I need a few minutes to prepare the room. You'll wait here. Touch nothing. The books in this store are not decorative."
Reven nodded slowly.
"I'm serious," Levi added, his voice dropping just enough to carry weight. "Don't touch anything. Don't wander. Just sit in that chair and wait. Can you do that?"
"Yes."
Levi held his gaze for a moment longer, then nodded and climbed the stairs.
The moment his footsteps faded, the bookstore changed.
Not physically. The shelves remained where they were. The books stayed on their perches. But the quality of silence shifted, becoming thicker, more oppressive, like the air before a storm.
Reven sat very still in his chair, hands gripping the armrests.
He tried to pray.
Morvexis. Please. Just a word. Just a sign that you're still there.
Nothing.
The silence where his god's voice used to be was deafening.
Three days. Three days of prayers met with absolute emptiness. Three days of his divine connection severed like a cut throat.
Why did you abandon me? What did I do? What could I possibly have done to deserve this?
The questions circled in his mind like vultures.
He forced himself to breathe slowly, trying to calm the panic rising in his chest.
The bookstore felt like it was watching him.
Shadows in the corners seemed to shift when he wasn't looking directly at them. The whispers from the books had stopped entirely, leaving only oppressive quiet.
Reven's eyes drifted across the space, searching for something, anything to focus on besides the screaming silence in his head where Morvexis used to speak.
Then he saw it.
A shelf at the far end of the store, partially obscured by shadow. Something about it felt wrong. Not dangerous, exactly. Just incorrect, like a painting hung slightly crooked.
His instincts told him to look away.
He looked anyway.
The shelf held Victorian dolls.
Dozens of them, arranged in neat rows. Porcelain faces with painted features. Glass eyes that caught the dim light. Elaborate dresses in faded colors. They sat perfectly still, hands folded, expressions frozen in whatever emotion the craftsman had given them.
Unease crawled up Reven's spine.
Don't. Don't go over there. The librarian said not to touch anything.
But his feet were already moving.
He told himself he was just looking. Just examining. Not touching.
The dolls watched him approach with their painted eyes.
Reven stopped at the edge of the aisle, studying them from a safe distance. They were beautiful in an unsettling way, preserved moments of childhood frozen in porcelain and cloth.
Then his foot hit something soft.
He looked down.
A Victorian doll lay on the floor at his feet, its glass eyes staring upward at the ceiling. Porcelain limbs splayed at odd angles. The dress was rumpled, one shoe missing.
Why is it on the floor?
Reven glanced at the shelf, then back at the doll. Maybe it had fallen. Maybe someone had knocked it down earlier.
Leave it. Walk away. This isn't your concern.
But he was already bending down, reaching for it, his hands closing around the small porcelain body.
The moment his fingers touched it, reality fractured.
The bookstore vanished.
Time stretched and compressed simultaneously, pulling Reven's consciousness in directions that had no names. His foresight activated with violent intensity, dragging him forward through moments that hadn't happened yet.
He saw himself.
Standing in the bookstore. Levi walking up the stairs. The door to the therapy room closing.
He saw himself looking at the shelf.
Walking toward it.
Finding the doll on the floor.
Picking it up.
No. Stop. Don't pick it up.
But the vision continued, inevitable as sunrise.
He watched himself examine the doll, then carefully return it to the shelf, placing it among its companions. He watched himself dust off his hands and turn away, satisfied he'd done something helpful.
The perspective remained external for a moment, watching his body walk back toward the chair.
Then it shifted.
Violently.
Reven was no longer watching himself.
He was inside the doll.
His consciousness trapped in porcelain and glass, unable to move, unable to speak, unable to do anything except perceive. He felt the shelf beneath him, hard and unyielding. Felt the weight of his painted dress, the smoothness of his porcelain skin.
His eyes were glass. They couldn't blink. Couldn't close.
He watched his human body walk away, humming softly to itself, completely unaware that anything was amiss. The body moved with casual ease, stretching slightly, rubbing its neck as if working out a kink.
It wasn't him anymore.
Something else wore his skin now, comfortable and content, already forgetting the consciousness it had displaced.
The cabinet door began to close.
Reven tried to scream. His porcelain mouth didn't move.
He tried to reach out. His joints were fixed, frozen in their decorative pose.
He tried to pray. Morvexis! Morvexis, please! Don't let this happen! I'm still your priest! I'm still yours!
Nothing. Not even an echo. Morvexis was as silent here as he had been for three days.
The darkness came slowly, the cabinet door shutting inch by inch.
He could see other dolls beside him, their glass eyes reflecting faint light. Were they watching him? Were they conscious too? Had they been people once?
How long have they been here? How long will I be here?
The door clicked shut.
Total darkness.
Not death. Not sleep. Just eternal, conscious stillness. Aware. Trapped. Archived.
Forever.
Reality snapped back like a rubber band pulled too tight.
Reven gasped and dropped the doll, stumbling backward. His back hit a bookshelf hard enough to rattle the volumes. His hands were shaking so badly he couldn't control them. Sweat poured down his face despite the cool air.
The doll lay on the floor where he'd dropped it, glass eyes staring at nothing, innocent and terrible.
Oh gods. Oh gods. That's what happens. That's the death I saw.
Thanks fuck that a vision.
Not violence. Not fire or blade or poison.
Transformation. Collection. Archival.
The bookstore didn't kill people.
It preserved them.
Reven pressed himself against the shelf, breathing in ragged gasps that burned his broken ribs. Every instinct screamed at him to run, to burst through the door and take his chances with the inquisitors, to choose any fate except the quiet, polite erasure he'd just witnessed.
But where would he go?
Outside waited the sun priests with their holy fire and their questions, their very specific questions about plague magic and forbidden rites. Inside waited something infinitely more patient, more subtle, more absolute.
He had no god to pray to. Morvexis had abandoned him. No power to defend himself. No allies to call.
He was alone.
Completely, utterly alone.
And I touched it. I touched the doll. Does that mean it's already started? Am I already changing?
He looked down at his hands, half expecting to see porcelain spreading across his skin like frost. But they were still flesh, still bleeding from the inquisitor's work, still human.
For now.
Movement in his peripheral vision made him freeze.
Luna sat on a nearby shelf, emerald eyes glowing faintly in the dim light. Her tail swished once, twice, and she began to purr.
The sound was soft, almost soothing, like a mother comforting a child.
It was also the most terrifying thing Reven had ever heard.
Because he understood now. Luna wasn't just a guardian. She was a curator. A keeper. A collector of things that didn't belong anywhere else.
And she was deciding whether he belonged on a shelf.
Did she show me that vision? Did she let me see what happens to people who disobey? Or was it a warning? A threat?
Luna blinked slowly, her purr continuing, and Reven realized with dawning horror that it didn't matter. Warning or threat, the outcome was the same. He had touched what he shouldn't have touched. He had disobeyed the librarian's one simple instruction.
And the Library remembered disobedience.
The doll still lay on the floor between them, perfectly still, perfectly preserved.
Waiting.
Reven couldn't move. Couldn't think. Could barely breathe.
Luna's tail swished again, and she tilted her head, studying him with those ancient, knowing eyes.
Then she spoke.
"You should pick it up," Luna said, her voice a soft purr that somehow carried across the entire bookstore. "It doesn't belong on the floor."
Reven's blood turned to ice.
She wants me to touch it again. She wants me to complete the vision.
"I..." His voice came out as a croak. "I can't."
"Can't?" Luna's eyes gleamed brighter. "Or won't?"
"Please."
"The librarian will be displeased if he returns and finds his collection disorganized." Luna stretched languidly, claws extending and retracting.
"You wouldn't want to disappoint him on your first visit, would you?"
Reven stared at the doll. At Luna. At the shelf full of other dolls with their glass eyes and frozen smiles.
If I touch it again, I become one of them. If I don't, I disobey again, and then what? What happens to people who refuse the Library twice?
Morvexis, if you can hear me, if there's any connection left, please. Please help me.
Silence.
His body betrayed him, taking a shaking step forward.
No. No no no. Don't do it. Don't touch it.
Another step.
Stop. Please stop.
His hand reached out.
.
.
.
Upstairs, Levi arranged chairs in the therapy room with practiced efficiency. He set out two cups, a pot of tea, a box of tissues. He checked the lighting, adjusted the curtains, made sure everything was calm and professional.
Okay. Dangerous priest with prophetic visions and abandonment issues. God of Plague priest, no less. This should be straightforward. Just like every other Thursday. Wait, is it Thursday? I've lost track.
He glanced at the clock. Five minutes had passed.
That should be enough time for him to calm down. Probably. Maybe. Hopefully he's not having a complete breakdown down there.
Levi headed for the stairs, whistling softly to himself, completely unaware that his newest patron was currently being psychologically tortured by an eldritch cat while standing over a cursed Victorian doll.
Host would you like to try a new feature Voice transmission
What is voice transmission?
You can make your reach anywhere within the book store and the library. It will make you presence more…Majestic something you completely lack
First fuck you sass. Second of course I'm too lazy to head down
Levi sit back down in his couch.
I really need to start charging hazard pay. And get better insurance. Do interdimensional libraries even have insurance?
.
.
.
Downstairs, Reven's fingers were inches from the doll.
Luna's purr intensified.