Hesitating only for a moment, the girl, Abigail Carter, stepped into the room, her eyes just catching the miracle of the dust at her feet swirling, dancing in the whirls and eddies of the passage of her shoe, excited to be part of the infrequent incursion of light into darkness. She was alone as the great doors behind her closed and the light was shut out.
Hello?
Abby heard her voice echo off... some back wall beyond the darkness, and the electric vibration of a generator kicking on somewhere beneath the dust she could no longer see playing at her feet. She held the letter tightly in one hand while digging through her pocket to find her cell phone with her free hand.
Hello?
She asked again.
I got a letter? It told me to come here... Is there anyone here?
Silence.
I should have known better. Her dad told her to ignore the letter. A mistake of the post variety. So...she did. For the better part of a week! Abigail thought that was a long time considering how boring her life had become.
It was OK when school was still in session--she could do homework and pretend that the world outside her window was a little less gray. But with the Christmas holiday, she had a month of time without school-work, and access to the books through her tablet at school. A month without new stories to explore or new characters to befriend. That was the real tragedy.
That's when the letter came.
The world's greatest collection of literature and characters open for a special exhibition! Explore new worlds, Abigail Carter! Adventures beyond your wildest imagination, Abigail Carter! A new life, for you Abby! 1111 East Alexandria Avenue. Boston, Massachusetts.
A new life, for you Abigail Carter.
So, here she was. Standing in the darkness beyond the giant wooden doors leading into 1111 East Alexandria Avenue. And she couldn't find a single person, not to mention the world's greatest collection of of literature...
Abby unceremoniously let the note fall to the floor with a sigh. She should have known better than to hope for something exciting to wake her out of her miserable life.
Somewhere in the distance a light clicked on, a pale flickering line in the darkness. Abby could barely make out the ghosts of what appeared to be shelves in the dim light it cast. She thought she'd try once more.
Hello?
Another row of lights came on, closer, and illuminating what clearly were more shelves. Another row came on, and another, and another until what had been a dark terrifying vastness was entirely illuminated by the white-blue glow of the overhead fluorescent bulbs, and the dark terrifying vastness became something else entirely, something much more comfortable for Abigail Carter. A library.
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