Not Again

“What do you mean, not again?” I almost scream at Dalylah. My voice cracks so loud it finally startles her, enough that she stumbles sideways just as Ulysses finishes twisting into something that should never exist.

The Choken.

Paper skin splitting like wet cloth, ink bleeding where veins should be. His mouth opens wider than bone allows, and that sound - half a chorus, half a death rattle - crawls up my spine.

“Not right now!” Yuki yells, springing back with her bow already raised. An arrow whistles past me, stabbing through a paper tentacle that had aimed straight for Dalylah’s throat. The thing howls, not in pain but in… Annoyance. Like it resents even being looked at.

Dalylah just freezes.

I lunge, grab her arm, and yank hard. “Move!” I snap, dragging her with me as another arrow rips through the air. “Goddammit, aren’t you the Hero?”

She stumbles after me like a marionette with cut strings. For someone who should be a wall of steel, she’s disturbingly easy to pull.

Meanwhile, Yuki fires again and again, the arrows tearing holes through parchment, but doing little more than slowing it down. Each tear heals with a wet slap, like paper re-gluing itself.

“Snap out of it, Dals!” Yuki barks, loosing another shot. It veers wide, cutting into a shelf. Books collapse in a mini avalanche, spines cracking.

“Careful with my books!” I scream, shoving Dalylah through the kitchen doorway, my hands shaking uncontrollably. “And use fire, damn it!”

Yuki shoots me a glare so sharp it could pin me to the wall.

“Either I fight this thing or babysit your precious library, book lady!”

“I’m asking for both!” I bark, though the absurdity of my own words nearly makes me laugh. The ceiling shakes as the monster slams into it, raining splinters of paper and plaster.

Dalylah’s still staring blankly. Her hand twitches like she wants to summon something - but nothing comes. My anger spikes, raw and hot, and before I can stop myself, I slap her.

“Get back in the fight, you idiot! You have fire magic - use it!”

Her eyes snap to mine, focus crashing back into them like lightning through glass.

“How do you…?” She begins, voice trembling.

‘I know because I wrote you.’ I almost blurt out. The truth burns at the back of my throat. ‘I know you’re terrified of fire. I know you weren’t supposed to master it until the final boss fight - the one I never even wrote.’

“It doesn’t matter!” I blurt out instead. “What matters is your friend is dying out there, and she’s destroying my damn library while doing it!”

If looks could kill, the one Dalylah sends my way would be my undoing. However, that is enough for a spark to ignite in her hand, and I push her out the doorway and into the monster’s direction. She glares at me again, but unsheathes her sword, letting the fire magic in her hand ignite the metal.

“Over here!” She yells towards the Choken, hurling a book at its direction, and I wince.

“Not the books!”

But my cries are ignored as more arrows damage and splinter my bookshelves, and books fall to the ground in waves. Books I spent a whole week organizing.

She lunges.

The fight is a blur of fire and paper, of ink spraying like blood with every strike. Tentacles lash at her, wrapping around her arms, searing into her skin. She tears free, slicing them apart in arcs of flame. The creature screams in layered voices, some that sound terrifyingly familiar, some I can’t place, until the noise is a choir of suffocation.

I want to move, to stop the fire from spreading, to save even a scrap of what’s left of my shelves, but my body refuses. I’m frozen, watching the impossible:

My main character, the idealized hero of 16 year old Aya.

A monster, nightmare born of forgotten pages.

Both locked in a perfect dance of destruction.

Every slash feels like it cuts through me, too.

And then… silence.

The Choken collapses in a rain of black ash, curling edges of burned paper drifting to the floor. The smell of scorched ink lingers heavy in my lungs.

Dalylah stands in the wreckage, sword dimming, her breath ragged. Her hands tremble where the tentacles left blistered marks. Yuki leans against the remains of a shelf, bow slack in her hand, her chest heaving.

And all around us… My library lies in ruins. A battlefield of broken spines, torn pages, and smoldering wood.

I take a tentative step forward.

“No…” I mutter, looking at the destruction around me. The building creaks and groans as a few books smolder before the fire dies down. I take another step, my knees almost giving up. “Please…”

Something in me breaks - this wasn’t supposed to happen. This place, this library, was my sanctuary. Mine. And, once again, I invited danger into it.

Once again, I failed to protect it.

By the third step, my knees do give out, and I crumble on the floor. I feel my breath quicken, so fast that I almost choke on it. I feel my eyes burning with tears, but no matter how I try, I can’t hold them back. And I feel the weight of all of my past failures crash down on me at once, crushing my chest.

“Please…” I manage to choke out, clutching in my desperate hands pieces of splintered wood and loose pages. “Not again…”

I finally let myself feel the pain of everything. Of putting my dreams on a shelf because the real world demanded it. Of getting a job I never liked, just to be sent away. Of losing everything I had once held dear and important, and becoming once again a problem for those who loved me.

Of Failing. Over and over and over again.

I don’t know how long I stay there, tears and snot running down my face as I ugly cry. I feel the splinters dig in my hands, but the pain in my chest is bigger. Meaner.

I don’t hear the conversation the two have around me. I can hear Dalylah’s accusing tone thrown at me, and Yuki’s pacifying one trying to intervene - but that’s all. I don’t even register when the knightess leaves in a huff, and when Yuki’s gentle hands lead me outside. When Martha comes running out, after hearing the commotion, and helps the archer to shelter me inside her home. I just cry, seated on a plush armchair by the fire, until I fall asleep, one single sentence ringing in my mind.

Not again.