Library Abduction

Its not easy selling books, nowadays everyone either reads books online or isnt interested at all.

Sadly, the old fashioned and elegant role of providing a hardcopy hand to hand book became...old fashioned. Surprising, I know.

There are only a few left following in such caved in footsteps, one of which is a young man named Sebastian Reed.

He was currently stuck in a library the size of a museum, the outer part of the building was held together by four ancient white columns.

The inside on the other hand was decorated by an office desk centered in the middle of the room, the desk itself was an aged hazel coloured antique passed down in Reed's family.

The desk was covered in old records and paperwork listing the date and time of book deliveries, along with a register of all the evil doers who shall end up in the deepest of hells for their great sins...Late RETURNS!!

The rest of the surroundings was filled with hundreds of shelves filled to the brim with books of all colours and genres, they were all split into two different balconies connected by firm rusted staircases whose rails were interwined with plants and yellow tinted lights.

The floor was made of red oak wood which slowly faded over time, but the part that stuck out the most is the black spiral staircase leading to bedroom on the second floor.

Inside was a young 22 year old man with brown hair and pale skin, asleep on his bed, enjoying the official sleep as long as I want day A.K.A saturday, the day of rest.

The room was quite simple a bed against the wall, a brown shaded closet opposite and a small bookshelf hanged on the wall and two bed side tables around the bed.

What one could notice was an alarm clock on the right side bed side table about to go off in five minutes, ruining his sleep.

1...

2...

3...

4...

Before the alarm could go off the young man woke up with a yawn, his hair in a mess scattered all around and his eyes barely opened.

"Uhh great, whats the point of setting the alarm if I'm going to wake up before it goes off"

"What a total waste now I've got to shut it off"

"But I dont feel like moving, but if I dont shut it off it'll just keep ringing and ringing"

"Uhh it makes me tired just thinking about the whole thing"

"Some mornings are such a drag"

Believe it or not this speech has been a long lasting tradition repeated everyday. The man liked his beauty sleep.

"Lets see if I can finally open that book today"

This has been his only motivation to get out his beed for the past month or so, he even closed off his library to the public for 'medical emergency'

During last months delivery of books he received a couple of additional boxes, inside one of the boxes he found an old sketchy looking book that he could not open for the life of him.

And so, for the past month instead of productive activities like selling books or I dont know paying bills to survive through the winter he has been occupied with opening the impossible to open book.

He took a shower, cleaned himself up and put on some fresh clothes.

Moving to the kitchen he opened the fridge and prepared all the ingredients he needed for a new recipe he wanted to try out for some while now.

There is a lot you could say about Sebastian Reed, was he more lazy than half the population? Yes, yes he was.

Was he selfish and obsessed with his own comfort and peace? Yes, yes he was.

But did he have a great talent for cooking? Yes, yes he did.

"Lets see if I have everything, I dont wanna eat leftovers again"

In all honesty, it is the only redeeming quality the man had.

He took out a mixing bowl along with three eggs, cracked the eggs against the edge of the bowl and poured all of them into the bowl one by one.

He then gently beat eggs right after seasoning with a pinch of salt and freshly ground black pepper.

Next, he took out a pan and 15g of unsalted butter. Pouring the butter in the pan and turning on the heat, he waited until the butter started foaming.

After, he poured the beaten eggs into the pan and cooked for a while, at least until the bottom of the omelette was slightly set.

Right after he pushed the set parts of the omelette into the uncooked centre of the omelette and kept cooking until the omelette has set even further.

Finally, he took 40g of smoked salmon and roughly chopped and placed them into the centre of the omelette and kept cooking for another half a minute.

He turned the heat off, moved the omelette onto a serving plate and sprinkled the top with chopped olives.

And voila! You have yourself a smoked salmon omelette.

Cleaning all the mess up he finally sat down to enjoy his food, but before he could even take a bite he heard a loud sound from the living room opposite to the kitchen.

Walking into the living room he saw the cursed book that has been making his life a hell on the floor, right next to the bookshelf adjacent to sofa.

The bookshelf itself was filled with all sorts of manga and light novels he read in his spare time. But the one that stood out the most was a bright yellow coloured manga volume of a young boy with blonde hair and blue eyes.

Walking over and picking up the book he immediately noticed that the cover itself had no title whatsoever instead there was a dark design of a swirling red mass.

The cover itself created a visual illusion, the more you looked the more you would be pulled it, over time the mass even started to slowly move and twist.

"This thing is giving me a headache"

Sebastian didnt know why but his head started beating like a drum over and over, his legs started feeling week and his throat dry.

Unknowingly he ran his fingers past the edges of the cover and noticed it was actually loose.

"No god damm way...dont tell me"

He didnt know why but for some reason whenever he thought about not being able to open the cover of this book he would go insane.

It was like a constant itch at the back of your head that you couldnt get rid of no matter what, the cursed ancient long forgotten artifact has long since stolen his sleep and even filled his dreams.

It was difficult to admit but the thing has been slowly eating away at him for a long time. It was his source of shame, fear and greatest anger.

The sheer fact that the cover of the book budged by a milimeter at this exact day made him want to burst out laughing.

.....

He did burst out laughing, the idiot.

"HAHHAHA!!!! IT MOVED IT MOVED"

"IM GONNA OPEN IT AND SELL IT FOR A SHIT TON OF MONEY"

"WHO KNOWS WHATS INSIDE MAYBE ITS MADE OF GOLD PAGES"

"MHAAHAHAHAHA!!"

"DADDYS GONNA GET A NEW CAR"

"GUESS WHOS GOT TWO THUMBS AND A NEW CAR"

"THUIIIIISS GUY!!!"

....I-D-I-O-T

Sebastian slowly calmed himself after laughing like a mental hospital escapee for another two minutes, he composed himself for his invisible audience and decided to make a decision which will change his life forever to come.

He opened the cover of the book to the first initial page and the instant he did a dark red mass of nothingness burst out like a century old beast starving for all, everything and anything.

The crimson vortex brushed itself against his skin, rushed upon him and entered past his skin and blood.

Past his organs, his lungs and heart and etched itself onto something humanity will not discover for another millennia, his centre of existence and deepest part of him, his soul.

The split second and the split moment that this beast of nothingness reached his soul, it started devouring and feasting, draining every miniscule, every particle representing the meaning behind his existence.

His wit, his humour, his memories and trauma, his personality and favourite song, every part no matter how small, that made him what he was and made him stand out from all the other eight billion other organisms on this hardly sustained ecosystem of stardust in the milky way.

All of it, morphed itself unwillingly from everything, or maybe atleast something, to nothing at all.

Even then, that was not the end.

As just like a mirror, the soul reflects the body and mind.

His body started fading all at once akin to paint being ran past bleach.

Suprisingly, the process was not painful it was similar to falling asleep after fatigue.

Though not painful it happened faster than Sebastian could even fathom any last sentence, a sentence to represent his short life, a last message to mother nature to show that he was here....It the end he did manage to fit in a few audible words.

"Well fuck me"

....

I-D-I-O-T

What no one knew was that this was the start of Haruka Kurogane, the strongest swordsman across all the five shinobi countries.

The White Wolf Of The Leaf

The Golden Eyed One

The Distant Blade

Master Of Crows

Kensei