Vision in Red by Sajjad Rasool - HTML preview

Vision in Red

Dust and mouse droppings and the smell of dead ink filled her nose. She crawled, scraping her elbows.

But as she crawled, the texture of the floor changed.

It wasn't concrete anymore. It was soft. Sticky.

Amal looked down.

The gray dust on the floor was melting. It was turning into a black sludge.

She tried to pull her hand back, but it stuck.

The floor was turning into ink.

And not just ink. It was turning into paper mache. The sludge was full of shredded documents, pulped and wet, grabbing at her wrists like thousands of tiny, wet hands.

Stay, the floor whispered. Stay in the record.

Amal kicked her legs. Her boots sank into the mire.

"Get off me!" she hissed.

She looked ahead. The crawl space was narrowing. The sludge was rising.

She saw a document floating in the black goo near her face. It was a land deed. Plot 404. Owner: Deceased.

The paper wrapped around her finger. It tightened like a tourniquet.

Amal gasped. The Archive wasn't just storing the documents; it was made of them. The foundation of the building was a swamp of stolen property.

She felt a hand wrap around her ankle.

She looked back.

A hand had formed out of the black sludge. A hand made of wet, black paper.

It pulled.

Amal slid backward. Toward the aisle where the Librarian was walking.

"No!"

She clawed at the metal shelf leg. The iron felt cold and solid.

Iron, she thought. Earth.

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