In the core of a little, languid town stood an old library, its endured blocks and transcending racks loaded up with books that had for quite some time been neglected. The residents seldom visited any longer, inclining toward present day interruptions over dusty books, however there was something else about this library. Something… agitating.
It was expressed that after dusk, when the last guest left and the entryways squeaked shut, the library wasn’t totally unfilled. Murmurs spread of a spooky presence — somebody, or something, that waited among the stacks.
One blustery night, a little kid named Clara, who had recently moved to town, coincidentally found the library. She adored perusing and had heard the ghostly tales, however interest outwitted her. The possibility of a spooky library fascinated her. As the downpour poured outside, she dodged into the library for cover.
The custodian, a fragile elderly person with a benevolent grin, invited her inside. “We don’t get numerous guests nowadays,” she said delicately, her voice scarcely stronger than the patter of downpour on the windows. Clara grinned back, taking a full breath.
The smell of old paper and calfskin filled her detects.
Clara meandered the paths, running her fingers over the spines of books. Everything appeared to be common.
Excessively customary. She found a seat at a table toward the back and started perusing, forgetting about time as the tempest outside became fiercer.
Out of nowhere, the lights glimmered. Clara turned upward, alarmed. The library was frightfully quiet. No strides, no stirring of pages, only the breeze wailing against the windows. She looked at the clock. It was clearly beyond shutting time.
She rose to leave yet stopped when she heard it — a weak murmur. It wasn’t clear immediately, yet it came from profound inside the library. Interest prickled her skin, and she advanced toward the sound. The murmurs became stronger.
As Clara moved toward the farthest corner, a chill consumed the space. Her breath turned out in delicate, foggy mists, however there was no draft. She turned a corner and saw an old, dusty segment of the library, loaded with old books bound in broken cowhide. A solitary book was exposed on the floor, pages rippling however there was no breeze.
Her heart hustled as she hunkered down to get the book. It was weighty, the cover bearing bizarre images she didn’t perceive. When her fingers contacted the pages, the murmurs halted. Once more, briefly, the library was quiet.
However, at that point, the room is obscured.
Clara’s eyes enlarged as the shadows around her bent and framed into the state of a figure — a figure hung in worn-out robes, its face clouded. The spooky figure drifted over the floor, its empty eyes fixed on Clara.
It lifted a clear hand, pointing straightforwardly at the book in her grasp. Clara’s voice shuddered. “What is it that you need?” The figure’s lips moved, yet no sound emerged.
The words showed up on the open page of the book she held:
Find the truth.
Before Clara could respond, the figure evaporated, abandoning just the reverberation of its presence. Shudder, Clara gripped the book and hurried to the front of the library. The administrator was gone, and the front entryway was locked. She was distant from everyone else in the library with the phantom’s enigmatic message. Clara peered down at the book in her grasp. It was a diary — one that had a place with the absolute first custodian of the town.
Flipping through the pages, she found the narrative of a strangely vanished man quite a while back. As per the diary, the custodian had been directing abnormal tests in the library’s cellar, wanting to open the mysteries of everlasting status. However, something had turned out badly.
The phantom was not trying to hurt anybody. It had been caught in the library, trusting that somebody would reveal the reality of its heartbreaking past.
Not entirely settled to help, Clara went through the following couple of weeks unwinding the secret, unraveling stowed-away messages inside the books. At last, one blustery evening, she tracked down it — a secret entryway underneath the library floor, prompting an underground room loaded up with old compositions and curios.
With the last piece of the riddle set up, Clara let the phantom’s soul go. The murmurs in the library stopped, and the phantom was gone forever.
Yet, some say, if you listen intently on turbulent evenings, you can in any case hear the slightest sound of pages turning, as the apparition in the library keeps on looking for reality.