Vision in Red by Sajjad Rasool - HTML preview

Vision in Red

But the word ABANDONED was moving. The ink was crawling across the page, trying to cover the names.

"It's trying to erase them right now," Amal realized. "The book is alive."

She slammed it shut.

"We have it," she told Yasmin. "Go."

They turned toward the exit door.

But the door was gone.

The shelves had moved. They had slid together, interlocking like the teeth of a zipper, sealing off the exit.

They were trapped in a dead end.

And creating the dead end, standing between two shelves, was the Librarian.

It looked bigger now. Its suit was tearing at the seams, revealing gray, inky skin underneath. The smudge on its face was pulsating.

It held out a hand.

Give. (The thought pushed into Amal's skull).

"No," Amal said.

Give. It. To. Silence.

The Librarian stepped forward. The white noise rose to a scream. Yasmin fell to her knees, clutching her ears. "Make it stop! Make it stop!"

Amal looked at the creature. She looked at the book in her hands.

She remembered what Huda had said. The Watchers cannot eat ink. It burns them.

But this thing ate ink. That was its job.

So what could stop it?

The noise, the Key whispered. The truth.

Amal opened the ledger.

She ignored the crawling ink. She found the first name on the list.

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