Chapter 02 – The Guide

24 April, Sunday

The library was the only place that ever felt safe to me. Its silence, its dust, the endless rows of words already written—it was a world where nothing unexpected could happen.

After the fitness test, though, even the library betrayed me. I went there to calm myself, to hide in the comfort of routine, but instead I found the truth I hadn’t been looking for. It began with a shelf. It was Row 5A, to be exact. I had walked past that row hundreds of times before, yet that day a book stood out that I swore had never been there. Its spine was cracked leather, without title or an author. Only a symbol stamped into it: a circle split into nine parts. I pulled it free. It was heavier than it should have been, as if it carried not paper but stone. Dust clung to its edges like it had been waiting here for someone particular. And finally, found that particular someone. Finally, it found me. I took the book and sat in the farthest corner of the reading hall before opening it. The pages were stiff, yellowed, ink blotched. It wasn’t a novel, not history either. It read more like… instructions. The first words chilled me:

“At the age of eighteen, the chosen will awaken. He shall wear nine skins, guiding the undoing of this world.”

My hands trembled. I read on.

The text described a “Guide of Will” who would shape-shift into nine animals, each form marking a stage in the unraveling of the human order. The wolf was the first skin. Others were mentioned only in fragments: the crow, the serpent, the moth, the leviathan. Each animal was tied to disaster. Floods, plagues, the collapse of nations. And at the end of it all, a “sphere of origin” would surface from the sea, a signal that the final path had begun. I shut the book so fast it echoed through the library. Heads turned. I forced a smile, muttered an apology, and hurried the book back to my corner. For hours, I sat with it, reading in fits and starts, my mind rejecting the words even as my eyes devoured them. It couldn’t be real. It had to be some obscure mythology, some ancient paranoia bound into an old text. But then—why did the wolf feel so alive in my bones? Why did I remember the scanner’s glitch, the shadow-shape of me revealed under the lights?

The book had a final entry, written in darker ink, as though added later:

“The Guide will not choose his role. The role will choose him. He may resist, but each skin will come, one by one. They will surely come. His body will tell the truth when his tongue cannot.”

I closed the book again, but this time I didn’t put it back. I slipped it into my bag instead.

While walking home through the narrow streets, the words followed me like a whisper in my ear. Nine skins. Undoing of the world. Sphere of origin.

It was absurd. Ridiculous. A fantasy. And yet, when I looked at my own hand under the streetlamp, I swore for an instant the shadow stretching on the pavement was not a hand at all, but a paw.

At night, I sat at my desk, staring at my diary. It was the only place I’d always been honest with myself, even about things I couldn’t say aloud. Now it mocked me. My pen hovered above the page. What was I supposed to write? Dear Diary, I think I’m the end of the world? I couldn’t bring myself to write it. Instead, I wrote something simpler:

Dear Diary, I think I’m not alone anymore. The book knows me.

I closed the cover and shoved it beneath my pillow. Sleep didn’t come. Instead, I dreamt of the sea and something vast and metallic rising from beneath the waves.

25 April, Monday

It was a weird dream that I saw last night, still oddly fresh in my mind. It was on the morning news. It was a grainy video, a shaky hand filming the coastline. A group of fishermen shouting in panic, the camera swinging to catch the waves as something broke the surface of the sea. Not a whale, not a submarine. It was a big, round sphere. Metallic, seamless and about the size of a small house. It rose from the water with no noise, no spray, as though the ocean were letting it go rather than resisting. The footage cut off as the cameraman stumbled back, but the image was enough. It was enough to make my blood go cold. I had seen that sphere already—on the page of the book.

By afternoon, everyone was talking about it. Teachers interrupted lessons to whisper. Students scrolled through their phones, replaying the shaky footage over and over. Speculation filled every corner: alien ship, experimental weapon, geological anomaly. The government called it “a maritime object of undetermined origin.” They promised it was being “secured.” But in the grainy clip, as the waves slid down its perfect surface, I swore I saw faint lines etched into it. A circle split into nine.

At dinner, my mother brought it up. “They say it might be radioactive. They’ll close the beach.” She said it casually, as though talking about the weather, but her hands twisted the napkin in her lap. My father didn’t look up from his plate. “Doesn’t matter what it is. It’s not our concern. We just carry on.” He said. Carry on. That was always his answer, even when my grandfather died, even when the factory closed. Carry on, as though routine could shield us.

I wanted to shout that it was my concern. That the book had told me this would happen. That my body already betrayed the truth. Instead, I nodded and forced the food down.

That night, the wolf came again. Not fully—just flashes. My nails thickened, my teeth ached, my lungs burned with a hunger for air that wasn’t in my bedroom. I staggered to the window and opened it wide, gasping. Below, in the streetlight’s glow, a dog was watching me. Its fur was patchy, its ribs visible. But its eyes—its eyes were yellow, almost human. It barked once, sharply, and ran off. I wanted to believe it was nothing. Just a stray. But deep down, I felt as if it had been waiting for me.

26 April, Tuesday

At school, everyone was buzzing.

“Did you hear they moved the sphere inland?”
“My uncle says soldiers are surrounding it.”
“No, no, it sank back down. It’s gone.”

Contradictions piled on contradictions. Nothing felt solid anymore. Even time seemed slippery, as though days overlapped. When school ended, I walked home, straight to the book.

I opened to where I’d left off. And there it was:

“The sphere shall rise from the sea when the first skin has awakened. It will rest, it will vanish, and it will return. The Guide will be drawn to it, again and again, whether he wills it or not.”

I slammed it shut. My throat was dry. I turned again to my diary.

The sphere is real. It’s exactly as the book said. If this is a coincidence, then the world itself is conspiring in coincidences too perfectly. I feel watched. Even the stray dog seems to know me. I don’t know how long I can keep pretending that I’m normal.

I stared at the words, wishing I could cross them out, but the ink was already dry. I shoved the diary back under the pillow and lay down. Sleep finally came, but it was not merciful.

I dreamed of standing before the sphere. Its surface reflected me—but not me. Nine figures stared back: wolf, crow, serpent, moth, leviathan, and four others I couldn’t yet name. Their eyes burned with hunger. Their mouths whispered in unison:

Carry on, carry on, carry on…