The Book Nook

25

 The room was dark when I awoke. The only beacons in the darkness were the tiny lights of the time on the kitchenette stove and other various tiny lights on a couple of the appliances, maybe the coffee machine or a microwave.

When I stood up off of the scratchy couch I had to get my bearings straight to remember which direction the door was in. Feeling my way around with my arms out, I brushed past the table in the center of the room, pushing a couple of the chairs in and out of my way to not stub my foot on them. I made it to the door without hitting anything and reached for the handle.

On the other side was only more darkness. I didn't understand how that could be. Was the power off in the entire building? Was this Alexandria's doing? Or did the power actually go off and she had left the room to go see what the problem was?

The timing of it all was just so fishy, being that it happened precisely after I had nodded off on the sofa.

I remembered that just before I'd decided to shut my eyes for a moment, Alexandria had departed to go use the washroom. I looked both ways down the hallway and amidst the faint light from the red exit sign, I managed to spot the restroom doors, one for men and one for women. All I knew was that this was some hallway in the back area of the library closed off to patrons.

I wandered over to the door of the women's washroom and tapped on it. There was, as I expected, no response. I put my hand on the doorknob and gently turned it. It wasn't locked and the door pushed open easily. It was all dark inside like a tomb.

Knowing I wouldn't find what I was looking for in there, I drifted back down the hallway and headed out to where it opened up into the cavernous library of books.

It felt like I was emerging out of a door facing a long tunnel-like hallway except that the walls were made of books. There was still faint light coming in from the high windows where the light pollution of the city lingered.

I didn't remember any aisle of books in the library that ended with a doorway at its conclusion. It was a weird design. I figured that the only way to go was out into the library so I decided to follow this strange book corridor. Why would they make an aisle like this? It was several yards long at least, not being able to see much further in the dark, and without any openings that branched off to other aisles. Looking behind me this strange book aisle ended in this doorway I had come out of which was probably only intended for the library's employees only.

But when I looked back behind me, the aisle only ended at a plain white wall. I instantly thought I must be hallucinating. Hadn't I not just come from that direction?

I went back to it and felt along the hardness of the wall, but nope it was just that - just a plain, white wall. No door.

Maybe I had turned a corner without remembering, it then having led me to this corridor, but I knew all I had done was exit the break room into the hallway with the restrooms and followed it out to here.

It wasn't making sense, perhaps I was still groggy from my spontaneous nap that made my mind fool me. I must have been even more tired than I'd thought.

Not knowing what else to do, I headed back into the heart of the library. This particular aisle of books seemed to go on forever and the shelves were too high to see over them and find out where inside the library I was exactly located. I tried looking up at the large overhead windows to place my location but it was like there was a fog of darkness above everything, yet somehow light trickled in just enough to be able to let me see maybe five feet in front of me at all times. But most oddly of all, I could swear I was able to hear music in the distance.