This is the Library

I was running.

I clutched onto the only memento I had left of my dear little sister, a small orange cat mascot from a show I never watched. And as I ran, the neon lights reflected harshly around me. I could hear the yells getting closer, their voices rapidly encroaching. It was such a blunder on my part, a simple mistake. I knew once they caught up to me, my brief stint at vigilante would end, and I'd be nothing more than a footnote in tomorrow night's newsfeed. Even so, I kept running. I'd lose the footsteps for precious seconds at a time, but the bio-chip within me alerted them again of my location soon enough. In this steel hellscape of neon lights and cold metal with no escape routes left, a guaranteed dead end was my final option once they caught up to me.

I turned the next corner, and stopped in my tracks. In front of me was a door made of what appeared to be wood, with a classic brass door handle. I thought my brain must have short circuited if I were hallucinating and not being aware of the effects of a virus. But a moment passed; then another. It was as if time lost all meaning as I stared down this strange door of wood. Still clutching my little sister's good luck charm, I reached forward to the door and turned the handle. I felt the entire world fade away into a blinding white light. The floor seemed to disappear under my feet as if I were flying and falling at the same time. And what must have only been a few short moments seemed to stretch to an eternity before I felt the ground under my feet again. I regained my senses as the blinding white light gave way to a sight in front of me beyond processing.

In front of me had walls of books on multiple layers, going up higher than I could make out looking up. Each floor was divided by very steep ladder steps. In the center of the room was a coffee table, with what appeared to be comfortable seating all around said coffee table. And directly ahead on the opposite wall were more shelves of books, but also windows that allowed a form of natural light, the kind I have only seen in historical records at the museum. At this far other side of the room, there was also a rather large desk with piles of books on the edges. Sitting at the desk was a lady with large round glasses, and grey eyes that both seemed to bore holes into me, but have a touch of gentleness to them. She didn't seem surprised by my sudden visit. Instead, the lady stood, her raven-black hair framing her face and glasses, and her clothing consisting of a long skirt, long-sleeved buttoned shirt very different than my own outfit consisting of light metallic armor. She said in a quiet, almost bored tone, "Welcome to the Library."

A library.

A library was a place of information with easily accessible data uploaded to one's brain. It wasn't this archaic style of information with impossibly large shelves of an equally impossibly large collection of books. Nevertheless, I had to either accept I had heard correctly this raven haired lady I was in some form of library, or admit my brain chip had finally malfunctioned and I was hallucinating myself in this fantasy world as my life came to an end in the hands of my little sister's murderers. I tentatively chose to believe my senses were all in working order. My brain still reeling from being a library, the lady moved to the center coffee table. "Please, have a seat."

"O... okay. Got it," I managed to muster from my mouth. My voice was a little raspy from all the running I had done just before arriving here at this library. I slowly approached the center of the room and sat down on the nearest chair at the coffee table, a couch that could probably accommodate two to three people easily enough.

The lady sat down opposite me and asked, "Are you looking for something in particular?"

"What?"

I blinked in confusion. The raven-haired girl did not seem bothered by my confused reaction and merely repeated, "Are you looking for something in particular?"

"What do you mean by that?"

The lady nodded as if understanding something. "My apologies. This is the Library, a place that exists outside of space and time. I am its Librarian. Normally when travelers such as yourself arrive here, it is because of a need or desire that can usually be solved here. At the very least, we can also offer up a place of respite if you need to head out again."

Yes, this is definitely nothing like the libraries I'm used to. Then again, this is also the first time I visited such as strange place. "So when you asked if I were looking for something in particular, what did you mean?"

The lady nodded slightly at my question. "To give you an example, some people just want a little advice and push in the right direction. Others want to sit down and have a nice cup of coffee. There are others still who impose themselves here for far too long and refuse to leave."

At this, I heard a little snort of a laugh from the second level. On looking around, it seems the place was much larger and rounder than its original appearance. From the center of the room, I could see there were smaller tables that could seat one or two people at the ground level and overlooking the center of the room from other floors. The snort of a laugh came from a man who was looking down at us in the center of the room from the second floor. He had thick eyebrows and a mustache, and was dressed in a most peculiar outfit, one that seemed to be made of a soft garment of an oriental variety.

The lady let out a small sigh snd looked up to the man on the second floor. "Mr. Oda, if you have anything to say, we can discuss it later."

"I have no idea what you mean, bookstore." The man's voice (Mr. Oda, I guess?) had a slight cockiness to it's deep tones. "I am simply enjoying my retirement here."

The lady adjusted her glasses and looked to the second floor. "Once again, I am the Librarian." She turned her attention back to me. "I apologize, but this is a public space. Please ignore him." She seemed to straighten up, almost as if she recomposed herself. "And as the one overseeing this space, I can offer an ear to listen to your troubles."

I was still lost and confused of this place, this Library, but having a soft spot to sit, and a willing audience who didn't seem to have any intention of leaving me to those soulless steel monsters out there, I finally relaxed my guard. And I told them what I had gone through, of my little sister losing her life in the land of machines, of finding out she was a sacrifice in a large cog of corruption in a place where people such as myself were hunted as mere vermin. And of the justice I began meting out as vengeance against those who wronged me. And they both listened, the quiet Librarian who produced a cup of coffee for me to drink partway through my story, and the cocky Mr. Oda who sat on the second floor by himself whom eventually made his way to the first floor where we were to listen in more closely. They listened as I explained I had made friends, likeminded individuals both man and machine who fought for equality between us. And they listened when I spoke of my most recent experience, a betrayal born of my own naivete from thinking I could trust any non-machine to side for my group's cause, when in fact, they were a mole for the steel oppressors.

Once I reached the current time, on how I saw this door that led into here, I concluded my story. It was Mr. Oda who first broke the silence after I finished with an odd almost prying question of, "So?"

"So," I asked.

"So are you going back to war, or do you want out?" He came directly to the center table and sat down on the couch to my left, and the Librarian's right. His dark eyes seemed to boil with a fierceness this close. He wasn't asking me this question out of a mild curiosity.

"I... don't know." It was the truth. I felt there was too many downs in my life so far. No time to mourn my sister's death, no time to prepare to fight the good fight, and no time to rest between these events happening in quick succession.

"Well, there's no shame in running away." The statement surprised me from Mr. Oda. As I turned to look at him, he rose to his feet. "Even if you run, someone else will fight your fight. And someone else after that. And then the world you know will have changed. It might not be the one you would accept, but it will be different from your current one, a more acceptable one."

Mr. Oda, seemingly done with this topic then left to resume his position back on the second floor. The Librarian was the next to speak up. "He has more experience in this field than I. I don't know your fight. And I personally do not have experiences like you do. If you need a few days to take in your surroundings and settle your thoughts, I can offer that here in this Library."

I spent the next few days at the Library at the Librarian's suggestion. There didn't seem to be a day-night cycle at all, the light coming in from the long windows never changing. However some of the higher floors had spaces to rest, private one-room chambers to sleep in, showers and baths to cleanse oneself, and even meals could be prepared of all types, though I never saw either Mr. Oda or the Librarian cooking or cleaning. It seemed like magic the facility worked the way it did.

And after two days, I decided.

It was time for me to go. As much as I wanted to stay, I kept remembering my little sister's death. She died because of the injustice in my own world. And while someone else might deal with it, I wanted to see it through to the end personally.

The Librarian was seeing me off. "I wish you health and luck out there," she said. Her tone was measured, almost as if she had said the same thing a million times before. "If you need anything else, you know where to find us."

"Thank you, Miss Librarian. Thank you for giving me a little rest stop. This is my fight, so I will go see it through." And with that, I opened the door back out of the Library, into my unknown future.

The Librarian stood there for a short while after sending the young man off back to his world, his time. After confirming the young man would not turn around again, she wandered over to a shelf housing various books on a dystopic machine planet and its history. She chose out a newer book detailing the history of a man who rose to prominence, who brought equality to man and machine, and who honored the lives lost in the great war to establish a great era of peace.