Prologue / Chapter 1, Girl From Elysium

No one will notice today. It'll be quiet for once… hopefully.

Anxiety spiked through my body like I was being infringed into a cavernous, tight space. I was hesitant as I stared at the dull, oaked doors, wondering if it really was a good idea to head in.

It'll be fine… right? I didn't want anyone to notice me. I couldn't handle it, not today at least. How tiresome and time consuming was the bouts of people's rushing lips and fluttering eyes as they talked my ears off, asking me question upon question… my anxiety wouldn't have it. I sighed, feeling my own spirit lower as did my expectations with today's plans. My gaze met with the concrete ground before me, watching as leaves twiddled their way past my feet.

I could hear the sound of the nearby trees as the leaves grappled with the wind and let go, begging the wind to take their green-selves with it. I could feel it too, the lazy breeze of the wind as it swerved on by, careless as can be.

It felt nice, like strands of cold air whispering next to my ears.

It's such a nice day too…

And all I could think about was the sun flaring its light into the windows of the place in front of me, swirling a hug of warmth around me and a book.

Not to mention the luminescence it would bring to the awfully dreary-lighted building.

This was my sanctuary, my abode! I shouldn't press the fear of other people on myself whether it be real or not!

But risk always had to factor its way in. Did I want to put myself through that? I didn't want to get recognized and taken hostage by conversation or endless pictures and questions. I wanted to be left alone because there wasn't an ounce of fuel in me to talk to anyone today.

That's it!

I had made up my mind. I had walked all the way here and hadn't had a single soul recognize me. Why stop in my tracks when I'm right at the finish line. I walked into the great building, fearing the most out of my hope.

As I walked in, a smile stretched upon my face.

The library's empty.

The place was so barren and hollow; the smallest sniffle would be able to echo through the air as if it was nothing more than the crack of thunder.

Yet in its blank emptiness lay wooden structures and keepers of tales. Books… books books books books. Books were everywhere, cascaded amongst each other on numerous shelves. A building filled with lettered worlds. All I could do when I walked in, was inhale the vast ocean of frail, old pages which carried the scent of chocolate and coffee.

How much I adored the library and the forced quietness that was brought upon it. It was a great joy to not only my ears, but my eyes as well. What a shame it was that people didn't like libraries anymore, but at the same time, why would you need such things as people when you had the endless life of books at your disposal?

The lack of society among the building was so peaceful, that I could feel the peering eyes of my anxiety fade as if the waters of isolation had washed them away. No more would those dark eyes loom over me and watch my every move with insipidness and a feeling of grotesque shrewdness.

The dust of the air would catch itself into clutters and flutter into miniscule moths, frozen in the air as if gravity didn't want anything to do with the powdery insects.

The roof was nothing but mere glass frames. The windowed top let the old books bask in the balmy light of day, letting the haze of their smell drift like an eerie, invisible fog. It wasn't every day I smiled with the same warmth as the sun, but the library always felt like a disconnected home away from home; a break room from life one might say.

I walked along the shelves of books, finding the paged worlds that interested me most. I saw oh so many titles that drew my eyes in with awe… and some that were cool sounding yet mundane.

"Assassin Academy"

"Dragonblade"

"Princess of Olluvun"

"Swords and Kings"

Etc.

I did love the classic telling of these stories and how they all shared the similar renaissance appeal to them. They told the tale of treacherous power, renegades, loyalty's blood, meaningful combat, and love! The beasts of there and then were nowhere near similar to the dogs and lions of today; often scaled and spewing fire did the creatures that lurked in the spines of the books.

Though these novels were great, they never exceeded the boundaries of my expectations. They all secluded to the same plot over and over again. They never knew of the beauty of the new and unheard of. When I was reading a classical book, I always felt like I knew what to expect; like every novel was just a synonym to the one that sat next to it.

But in the chaos of a book with such a weird name like "Glass Fingers", I never knew what to expect. It was its own product, a world that was so far away from our understanding, that it was in itself… a new perspective.

I finally arrived at the section I seeked. The novels were old and coughed with dust. But in the light that the building procured, the books looked like they were covered in fuzzy, glittering shreds of silver. I brushed my finger along the titles of the many stories, eyeing each one as if I was making sure they were all there. But what I was actually trying to do was find a book that belonged to this library alone. A book that was never published and never left due to that fact. A book that was for everyone to see, but for no one in particular.

My brisk walk had come to a stop as the tip of my finger lingered on a velvet casing.

There you are.

I plucked the book from its oaked bed and swished the pages aside. I didn't care where I started the book. As long as I was reading it, I could flip to any page at any time and have my fair share of opulence any day.

The book's name was "The Girl From Elysium"

It was completely oblivious to me why this book was not everywhere. It would seem like a book that would pop out like a diamond amid rubble. Not saying other books are rubble of course, but that this one in general was… unique. And with that, my eyes landed on the pages… and watched the ink come alive.

"As the towers rose in the distance, the sky turned to a gleaming black. The buildings glowed as if to imitate the Aurora Borealis.

The huge ferris wheel started spinning, shooting off a vibrant mist of colors.

The water that separated me from the land was blushed with popping lights that jumped in the air and dived back into the ocean. Perhaps they were fish dotting from side to side.

Watching off in the distance on my small island, I awed. The dark city lit abloom was an Oasis to me. Somewhere where dreams come true.

Everything in my very being told me to swim towards this monument of a dream. Alas, despite the mesmerization and fervor I felt for it… I couldn't.

Too high and too far was the kingdom in the ocean. Everything that I was, well, was not ready for the city of bustling lights and fervent dreams. There was someone here I couldn't leave behind either.

Abruptly, the cold air heaved against my skin, like it was disagreeing with me. I took a breath in and thought about it. Next time I'll bring the white-haired girl here. I'll show her the wonderful city and the glassy lights that shimmered off the Ocean's edge. That's what I wanted to do; show her the dreaming city of Elysium."- The Girl From Elysium, Chapter 7; Elysium Evermore

It was obvious, the Girl From Elysium was my comfort book; a read that I found myself addicted to.

What I couldn't wrap my head around each time I picked up this book was… it wasn't even published according to a librarian that worked here.

It was merely a donation with nothing to it. The author was not found in any of the pages nor did he or she care to take any credit. But here it was, soaking up all of my attention.

My head shook to a shiver as I stopped thinking about it. The mere thought of all its complexity gummed the engines of my train of thought. I had to think about something else. My favorite line was, "As my body clashed against the inky water, I felt that comfort left me naked in the cold waters of the sea. Realization secreted into my flesh and pulsated into my mind. My skin became dull and I couldn't feel the fuzzy light of bliss none the more. But I also felt… everything.

Excitement, confusion, amusement, and awe! Horror and sorrow and boredom and joy, desire and disgust and confusion and guilt! They all popped out to me like colors in the rain!

But more than most and sadly too, I could feel what love truly was and how my heart was melting like a candle without it."

… The white-haired girl had said this. She didn't reveal too much about herself personally, but did give a good amount about everything else. To say she was my favorite character would be an understatement.

That's why she was my favorite character out of the two; her mysterious-esque

Of course, the main character was unnamed and barely spoke at all but something about the white-haired girl always kept me wondering. It was odd.

"Um," I heard. My little bubble around me popped as the dull but narrow words punctured my focus. I was no longer in the world of Elysium. My nose had been yanked out of the book by someone else's voice. I turned my head and saw two girls standing by my side.

One was fairly short and the other with long, brown, braided hair. They stood in front of my gaze, shaking as if my eyes had put them under a spell and caused their limbs to revert to putty.

"Are you Z-Zero?" the short girl asked with her brown-haired friend standing behind her as if I might pounce at any given second.

"Mhm." I simply replied, only by the slightest bit irritated that I was ripped away from the vision of Elysium. But the glitter that sprinkled stars in the two girls' eyes made that feeling of irritation settle into nothing but carelessness. Their stances perked up and I watched as both of them leaned to their tippy toes, like their anticipation and excitement was helium lifting them up into the atmosphere.

The brown-haired girl's lips pressed themselves into each other, locking the gates of her voice with more locks so no vocal beast may fly out and into the quiet library.

The short girl squeezed her book so hard, it made a noise, appearing to groan from the pain of her clenched fingers. And I could've sworn I saw some of their hairs flicker up as though static buzzed through their body like goosebumps. Legs shaking as if they were turning to jelly, the short girl stuttered, "C-C-Can we get a picture please?"

Sometimes I felt like a big scary monster around people. They seemed so scared of me, like I presumably had sharp, gnashing teeth and scornful snarls with an aura that pervaded animosity. Their eyes would always fill with unsteady nervousness while their voices choked with hesitation and fear. Though I was of no actual danger, it still made me feel uncomfortably inhuman.

I stood up. My smile was warm and gentle, even if my eyes spelled dainty exhaustion. I didn't like the attention and interaction as much, but I still tried to be nice when I was spotted by a small number of people.

"Sure." I answered. The butterflies that the two girls were feeling suddenly ignited into fireworks. Their faces turned cherry red as they scooted themselves closer. Discomfort and uneasiness shrouded my body as they leaned closer to me, stepping passed the boundaries of my personal space.

I tried my best to hold my waning smile, I truly did, but I could feel as my own introversion overwhelmed it so.

The brown-haired girl pulled out her salmon colored phone and clicked several photos. Regardless of how long the little photoshoot was, it lasted minutes in my head.

The two dispersed from my sides after a couple of clicks from each angle. They jumped away from me like two foxes avoiding a trap that just snapped at them.

In the waviest tone I had ever heard, the brown-haired girl asked, "S-So what are you reading?"

It was like her words jumped off the diving board of her tongue and fell to the bottom of the ground with a flop. The lack of speech was flattering though.

On another hand, I had no intention of telling her about The Girl From Elysium.

The brown-haired girl would most definitely want to read it just because of the mere fact that I mentioned its name. It would serve as a partial mnemonic device to her as the time she met me. Besides, I was being selfish and keeping the book to myself. I didn't want someone to try and read it when they didn't want to read it.

So I simply didn't reply to her question… and how horrible I was for not responding.

"Oh, um, you don't have to tell me. I just thought it'd be really good since you're…" The brown-haired girl stammered to say. Her pupils' gaze dropped down to the ground like she'd find the word she was looking for somewhere in the bristles of the grey carpet.

In the spur of the moment, the other girl blurted, "I like your song Corrupted.Exe!"

Nice save. My mind semi-sarcastically complimented.

The short girl's eyes were wide and petrified, as if she didn't know whether or not she had just gotten herself killed. It made my brain facepalm itself. I felt bad and disliked these types of situations. It was like defusing a bomb, trying to get fans to stabilize, settle down, and realize I'm a human being too. Though even in my exhaustion, I will forever always try my best to be polite.

"Me too. My favorite though is Next Year Lover." I stated with another tired, small smile. As those words maundered out of my mouth, my soft tone hushed away into the air like nothing but a breeze.

See? I'm not scary. I'm super harmless.

"What's your name?" I asked. My thinking of my own innocuous aura was incorrect because apparently I was Medusa to these two. Except rather than my gaze turning people to stone, it was my voice which statued innocent strangers. The brown-haired girl's eyes flickered from her friend then to me then back at her friend, worry sealed in those airtight eyes of hers.

"She's Himiwari and I'm Tsui!" The brown-haired girl announced.

Like Himiwari was buffering, she immediately snapped out of her frozen state.

"But my friends c-call me Hime! If you want, y-y-you can call me that too!" Himiwari told me, nowhere to hide the panicky aura that swirled around her like bees around their hive.

"Okay, Hime." I responded with yet another dainty, little smile. Never have I ever seen a girl's head turn into a cherry. I was worried she might get sick from how much she was blushing. I didn't want to ask if she was okay because I know like every other time I would just get nonsensical gibberish.

I think gibberish is a sign of a stroke. I wondered that thought a little deeper. Hopefully not.

There were no words that could be given on either side. The two girls were overloading and malfunctioning like the computers of their brain had too many thought tabs open and it left them with lag and an overheating processor.

I didn't like awkward silences. You never knew what to say and if you did, an awkward silence requires an awkward ice breaker and I wasn't up for that.

So, like the mean person I was, I simply ended our interaction.

"Well! It was good talking to you two." I stated. "I'll be reading if you need me though."

I gleamed a smile yet my disdainfully honest eyes were strained with fatigue. I tried to keep myself on track, but my brain was inordinately hypnotized in the spell of The Girl From Elysium.

I tried to keep my gaze on the two girls as they slowly scuddled away, but I was too magnetized to the book that waited eagerly for me.

"Th-Thank you again!" Tsui called out from afar, echoing the dead-quiet structure. A screeching shush snapped at her from one of the librarians. I could feel the tinge of irritation crack at her like a vocal whip. Tsui cringed and stumbled along. I didn't chuckle out loud but something in my brain did.

I sighed and looked down at my book. I wanted to read it for hours on end and get lost in the trepidation it brought to me. So… I did.

I stayed in the same wooden chair and let my soul creep from my eyes and into the ink of the book, living in the maze of words.

I switched positions from time to time, giving my body the proper rest it needed from the soreness of sitting too long. I read… and read and read… and read.

Nothing could stop me. My gaze was glued to the pages and even as I told myself to stop, my eyes swiveled on, reading line by line as easily as breathing. To put it simply, I ran down a hill and I couldn't stop myself from going down further in fear that I might trip and get hurt.

Gravity had control over me as I kept running, but instead of gravity, it was the ever weighting pressure of interest and love for everything that came next. My interest for this book was in my mind silly but true; agaped.

I couldn't stop myself, I was in a dream and the only sense of time I had was when my body would ache from sitting in an uncomfy wooden chair for too long.

Not even as the sun started to fall asleep and say its goodbyes did I pay attention to the real world. The white-haired girl and Elysium were the only things I could see through my eyes even if the light oh so silently crept its way out of the windows and into the next country.

Yet it did grow slower as the light left. The words weren't as plain and blatant as they once were in my head for one reason and one reason only. It was hard to make out some words in the dark. So every now and then the white-haired girl's face would appear smudged with blur or the main character might skip a beat of emotion because I couldn't make out a word exactly. That's what I didn't like too much about this wonderful place; the lighting was all natural.

And to most, that would be a pain. But oh no, they thought the glass roof would be enough to suffice. Though, I did enjoy rainy days here. It brought a sense of even more nothingness than what was already displayed by the empty room.

I can't get enough.

This addiction of mine was unhinged and I craved it more and more as I read more and more. All I could think about after every time I visited the white-haired girl and Elysium was how much I would fit in there instead of this placid place that viewed me as not of their own. I was secretly pretending to have normal thoughts like everyone else, not telling or responding to my own mind's wishes.

I would just act and try to fit in like the good little puzzle piece I was. But I didn't belong to this puzzle no matter how well I fit in, and it showed immensely.

I was a bright, bloody red whereas everyone was a snowy white. The point was that I was odd and had natural occurrences that other people might find… fantasmal.

Thus, The Girl From Elysium. It was nice to be in a full painting of crimson, living at your fullest extent at the cost of nothing.

"Sir, the library is closing." I heard from the other side of the book. I felt my world shatter before me. The waters steamed into the sky and the atmosphere broke apart like a room in a severe earthquake. The white-haired girl turned to dust and Elysium eroded away as if it couldn't hold together without my attention.

I looked up with discern embarking my disappointed eyes.

"I'm sorry, but you do this every time. It's time to put the book away and leave." The librarian said to me.

She had her keys on a keychain, spinning it with her index finger. A rather large, brown purse hung on her side, like it was filled with books too.

"Could I plea–" "For the last time, no. You can't take that book home with you. It's the only one here. Actually, ANYWHERE. So if you think I'd let you prance out of here with a book that was strictly ordered to stay here, you would be crazier than you look… and that's saying something." The librarian went on an absolute tantrum about it while also cutting off my begging. That didn't seem like it would hurt much, but getting insulted by a librarian who doesn't know who you are just hits differently. I could tell that if I asked again in the future, that she wouldn't even let me in the library.

But I just didn't get it, why was the book so heavily guarded? It wasn't written by anyone famous or else there would be more copies and this one would be in a museum or something.

My mind was completely discombobulated, not knowing exactly why the book was so fondly looked over by the "guardians of books" known as librarians.

It made me frustrated and I felt like it would hurt to rip the memories away from my mind and once more leave them here in the book.

They can't die again.

Every time I had to go and stop reading The Girl From Elysium, I felt as if I killed the main character, ending his story as I slammed the book closed like the main character and the white-haired girl were two butterflies effervescently wandering the pages, and then SMASH! They would be dead.

I wouldn't let them die again. At least not right now. I had to do something. I had to save them! I had to protect them. So… I pulled one little white lie.

I told the librarian that I thought I saw someone over in the children's section and as soon as she made her way over there… book in hand, I disappeared.

I could feel the chatter and hoorays from my oddly warm book as I made my escape. I felt like I had goosebumps the size of marbles. Not only that, but my spine shuddered in ice, frozen with tensity and shameful fear. I had just stolen The Girl From Elysium.