Chapter Text
1959. Mr Caleb Woods had always loved his week-long trips to the local library in Saint Oblemore, the smell of aged pages and polyvinyl acetate. It was an absurd place for a 60 year old man to be but Mr Woods preferred it than any old pub, it though was eminent. “I must say the atmosphere of sereneness is quite tangible in here, Moris.” That was the first thing he said as soon as he entered the book dispensary. The woman at the counter was really named Doris, but Ms and Doris had sludged together to form Moris. She would stare down at the affable man and smile at the dubious nickname she had been dubbed. “Thanks y’old codger.” She grinned, showing off the silver piercing in her gum. Mr Caleb Woods wasn’t one of the old men who yelled at girls who dressed as peculiarly as doris- with her charcoal tinted dresses and pierced skin. Every time Mr Caleb wood’s would say his line she would come up with something new every time he came, sometimes it was just Thank you with a new insult or nickname at the end. “I’ll be in the back as usual, Missy, everyone in the whole city of Charlotte should know that the book’s in the back of libraries are always the bestest.” Doris watched closely as the man dissolved into the back of the shelves, the tail of his coat vanishing into the display of literature. One could tell his clothing had been from a thrift store because he smelled of dust and ash, like the pages of an old book that was casted out into the depths of a shelf never to be read again, it’s cover unseen and forgotten from memory, though even with his alsheimers Caleb seemed to always find those books. That was until the bomb anyways. A large bomb, smaller than Hiroshima but larger than a stick of dynamite dropped overhead the library, the culprit a Tupolev Tu-160 with a malice for all things joyous, a burning 666 painted in crimson on its side. The explosion rattled the town of Saint oblemore, though the flames and gunpowder didn’t reach the plot beyond the library, but the library was scorched with a heat stronger than a white flame. The books, gone, Mr Woods, gone, and lanky Doris lying curled up on the floor beneath her desk after a failed attempt to grab a dropped library card. The pilot reared their head from the cockpit, the atmosphere not seeming to bother them all that much- actually, the pilot seemed rather giddy to be doing circles and dropping explosions on the library. His face was a cherry red tint, his yellow hued eyes glistened with a burning to murder- one of his stout arms reached to the wheel and the creature did another loop. You see, the library had been holy ground- a breeding ground for all things godly and angelic, hardly a place for a goth 17 year old like Doris but she needed to pay for her flat on the teeter of France and england. The shelves were stuffed with the bible and its different versions, from the most elder translations to the newborns. It was the perfect place for a demon to terrorize, and terrorize they indeed did to that poor library on the corner of woodmore and sherry, the atmosphere dusty- a cloud of ash and burnt wood in the smoggy sky. Only a single lucky silver sterling was left on the ground of the shop, only a shivering doris was left. “Goodbye library, and bonne journée mademoiselle!” The demon with the frazzled hair called from the cockpit of the plane, smoke trailing behind him until soon he touched down on what was once the parking lot and looked out into the damage he’d done.
