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It’s lonely in a creepy old library, the girl thinks as she rocks back and forth on a creaky chair, the wood grainy, warm and decaying. A tiny black cat is streched out on the well-worn couch across from her. Light from the setting sun illuminates the dust floating freely around the air that has collected on her skin, as though she is something from the past, a ghost of what was. The only undusted part of her is her hands, slaving away on a story. How she loves stories, where words can take her away from the isolation that is her life, almost like a defense of sorts. How she wishes someone would come and see the worlds she explores and makes and love them as dearly as she does.
The pen in her hand, cold and smooth, feather lightly tickling her wrist, comes to a stop as an idea takes root like a weed, demanding she listen. What if she took someone to her world? She sets down the pen and gets up, as if she could escape the idea. She brushes off the dust that clings to her, sending it back to the air until it inevitably collects on something again, and heads up to her room to get changed for bed. What a silly idea, she thinks as she slides under the cool, slick sheets. But she’s already making plans to go into town as her mind drifts into colorful dreams of the stories she loves
The next day she dons her favorite dark green, smooth, ankle length skirt and a black blouse before heading out of the library. She opens the door with a creeeeak, heart in her throat, not knowing what’s out there, outside of her comfort and safety and paper worlds.
Sunlight immediately assaults her eyes. For her whole life, she’s been in the library, so it only makes sense the sunlight would blind her. Her silver hair looks like iron in the sun’s rays, drastically different from how it looks under the moonlight she loves so much. She raises up a hand to her forehead to give her eyes some shade and heads off on the well-beaten dirt track to town, gravel crunching under her feet.
A tidal wave after a lifetime in her quiet, isolated library, the sheer amount of life is astounding. The smell of some kind of roasting meat calls to her nose, making her mouth salivate. Later, she tells herself, determined to explore. She looks around, grey eyes darting anxiously, to find someone who might want to know her and her world. There’s little snippets of conversations, arguments, and songs freely floating around, and she doesn’t know which ones to pay attention to, all of them battering her senses. Her eyes can’t decide whether to look at the noble’s shiny capes floating behind them like clouds, chins poised upward like they’re too good for this common town, gossiping with others, or the kids playing some kind of game that involves throwing mud. To her, an outsider, they seem so similar. Both are humans and both are tossing dirt shamelessly. Why do they insist on hate? She shakes off the thought and continues. It isn’t her place to judge
Eventually, her quest leads her to the scent of fresh bread wafting from a musty, damp, dirty alley. She steps forward cautiously, heart transforming into a caged animal. She finds a young, mud-streaked girl with poofy red hair chopped short, eating a loaf of bread that she doesn’t look like she has money for. Nonetheless, it’s someone who clearly knows what loneliness is like and might want to be her friend.
“Hi! I’m a writer and reader who explores and invents worlds. I have a library full of books, like a magical world of paper. Do you wanna visit?” She asks, excitement building in her voice.
But the red-haired girl says nothing, as if no one had spoken. She simply takes another bite of bread, crumbs falling onto the ground as she brushes them off her shirt. Even after repeating herself, the red haired girl has no reaction. When her shoulder is tapped, nothing.
Clearly, the red haired girl has no room in her life for her.
She continues her mission, discovering a little farm pasture with a boy working in the fields. He seems tired, and he definitely understands the exhaustion of working hard everyday, between his calloused hands and sweat-soaked shirt. His hair is fluffy and brown, his skin tanned from the sun. She runs up and introduces herself.
“Hi! I’m a writer and reader who explores and invents worlds. I have a library full of books, like a magical world of paper. Do you wanna visit?” She begs, hoping he notices she exists. But he just continues reaping wheat, using the back of his hand to brush sweat off his forehead.
She isn’t wanted here either. Maybe she just… isn’t wanted? She shakes her head as if that would dislodge the toxic, horrible thought. Just one last try. Then I go home. She tells herself. Surely someone wants her and her world?
Smelling of minerals and cold stone, the cave looms ominously. Goosebumps prickle her arms, warning her of danger. She’s not exactly enthusiastic, her energy drained like water from a well and hopes for this working low. She enters cautiously, finding a girl with fluffy back hair pulled back in a bun, peices flying astray as though her hair is trying to escape the prison of elastic. When she focuses on the girl’s face, she finds deep brown eyes that seem to be looking through her. The cave itself is barren, just a couple pools of water.
“Hello. I’m a writer and a reader who likes to explore and invent worlds. I have a library full of books, like a magical world of paper. Do you wanna visit?” She pleads.
But the girl just keeps on staring right though her, oblivious to the tears making splashes in the puddles on the ground.
She sits on an old bench in the town square, wiping her eyes so people don’t notice her tears. She looks up just to see something other than the drab, harsh, cobblestone ground, and finds a tall building made of stone and brick, a clock on the front that shows it’s just minutes away from midnight. Stone building… midnight… memories flash under her eyelids as she crumples under the weight of… whatever this event was. A dark figure pushing her off the roof, the clock chiming 12, the twinkling stars, the howling wind, the pain of the splat below. There was no way she could’ve survived that, she realized, her throat drying up. No wonder no one could see her.
When she finally made it home that night, moonlight glinting on her silver hair, she just collapsed in the doorway, the door still open, the night breeze blowing inside, tousling her hair. Her cat nudged his soft head under her hand, and she gently stroked his fur, his comfort invaluable right now. She pulled the cat into her lap and sobbed into it, and he didn’t care. No one should care what she does. She’s just an invisible ghost, trying to be in a living world. The funny thing is, she wasn’t sad to learn she was a ghost. It put a lot of things together and made sense. In fact, she thought it was cool. She didn’t need food nor drink, sleep nor oxygen. What she was sad about was that no one would ever see her unless they had super special powers or something. She’d never get the understanding she craved.
Just then, a cold bright light emitted from the moon, beaming down to earth. It felt silvery on her skin, and, somehow, like it was conscious. She couldn’t tell you how she knew that, she just kinda did. She was a ghost. Maybe she was just more attuned to that stuff. And she was right, because it spoke.
Don’t cry, little ghost. This world was not made for you. But step into the light, and you’ll find the world you were meant to be in. A world of paper and creation.
The tale gets fuzzy on what happened next. Some say she went into the light and got stuck in a world of her own making, to suffer for eternity. Others say she stayed in her library. Many like to say she was taken to heaven. But I can tell you what really happened, and it was none of those. She stepped into the light, entering a blank page. She became a creation, to be twisted to whatever the maker draws or writes, changed so many times she no longer resembles herself. She became a character of what she loved so much, a figment of someone else’s thoughts, always wondering what might’ve happened if people could see her.