Chapter 1 The Library Does Not Update Correctly
Chapter 1 : The Library Does Not Update Correctly-207
If reality could be modified, would "truth" still exist?
Tick-tock. Tick-tock. Something was slowly dripping from the edge of the desk.
Scattered documents were soaked through with dark stains, standing out sharply against the pale paper. The color still carried a damp sheen, as if it had only just been left behind. The room was silent, with only the sound of liquid hitting the floor remaining, along with a faint, unsettling iron-like smell.
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Ava Morgan was a librarian.
Her features were delicate, neither sharp nor soft. Prolonged exposure to low-light environments had given her skin an almost unreal, pale tone. Her light-colored pupils appeared gray in dim light, catching only a faint, tired reflection beneath reading lamps.
Her light brown hair, tinged with gold, did not look like carefully dyed refinement, but rather the natural fading caused by years under artificial lighting. Slightly curled strands fell loosely, not from neglect, but from the accumulated looseness of countless night shifts.
She wore the standard dark uniform jacket issued for night-shift librarians, with no decoration. Functional to the point of monotony, it made her feel less like a person in the space and more like part of its background.
And yet, her presence was unusually strong.
Not because of appearance, but because of her gaze.
There was no curiosity in it, nor any gentleness. Only a kind of "over-awareness," formed through prolonged observation of environments that rarely changed.
As if she were always waiting for something abnormal to occur.
Or perhaps already aware that it eventually would.
2060 December 11 — 11:40 PM. Eastborough Central Library.
Thirteen minutes remained before closing time. Ava Morgan, as usual, was performing her final patrol. As a night-shift librarian, the job had long become a fixed routine: checking whether the borrowing system was functioning properly, inspecting lighting on each floor, reminding any remaining readers to prepare for departure, and finally closing the library precisely at midnight.
Eastborough Central Library consisted of five main floors. The Ground Floor was the busiest public area during the day; the second floor was the General Collection, with open stacks and quiet reading areas; the third floor was the semi-restricted Research Floor, accessible only to authorized personnel.
As for the fourth floor, the Restricted Archive, it was never open to the public. Most staff had never even stepped inside. The fifth floor was the maintenance level, accessible only to staff.
Beyond that, there was also a place that almost no one ever mentioned.
B1, the underground sealed archive zone, did not exist on any official floor plan. At least, Ava Morgan had never seen any record of it in public documentation, nor was there a corresponding button on the elevator panel.
Yet every so often, someone claimed they had been there. The last time she heard such a claim was three months ago, and that reader never returned to the library again.
Thinking of this, Ava Morgan stopped walking and glanced at her wristwatch — 23:40. Several readers were still inside. One was in the third-floor research section, and two others remained on the second floor.
According to procedure, she should go and remind them.
She turned, heading first to the second floor.
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Ava Morgan withdrew her gaze and walked along the second-floor corridor. Her footsteps were light, partially absorbed by the carpet, leaving only a faint echo, as if the space itself were responding to her movement.
The second-floor General Collection area was slightly dimmer than the first floor. As the spacing between bookshelves widened, the visual field naturally fractured into segmented blocks, each stretch of corridor feeling like an independent slice of time.
The eastern reading area came into view first; a desk lamp was on, its warm light flickering faintly at the edges. A figure sat at the desk.
From the side, an open book lay on the table, remaining on the same page, with no signs of turning or pressure marks. The posture was upright, not in a reading state, but more like something being maintained.
Ava Morgan took two steps forward, then stopped; she looked back.
The figure remained in place, looking up but not turning toward her. There was no reaction to her movement.
23:42.
There was still time before closing, but the position did not match any normal delayed departure behavior. She stepped closer, stopping at the edge of the aisle without entering the desk area.
On the table, aside from the book, lay a visitor registration card. Its edges were slightly curled, as if it had not been moved for a long time. Her gaze fell on the name field.
Blank.
Not incomplete—more like never filled in.
She looked up again. The figure still did not respond. Its eyes were unfocused, fixed on a point that did not exist.
A pause.
Ava Morgan spoke. Her voice was low, but carried clearly between the bookshelves:
"The library will begin clearing at 23:55. Please prepare to leave."
There was no response.
Not even a shift in posture, no movement of hands, no change in gaze.
Still, there were other readers, so she did not repeat the warning, only hoping that when she returned later, the person would already be gone.
Her gaze lingered for a few seconds. The book remained on the same page. The edges of the paper were slightly lifted, like a residual form left behind after time had stopped.
Ava Morgan withdrew her gaze and turned away, making no emotional judgment, silently recording it as a "non-responsive subject."
The moment she left the reading area, the desk lamp flickered briefly—almost imperceptibly.
When the light stabilized again, the figure was still there.
Unmoved.
Departure unconfirmed.
Maintaining its state, as if the warning had never occurred.
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The air on the second floor carried a constant smell of old paper mixed with the dry heat of an overworked ventilation system. The lighting in the reading area remained stable, as though the earlier flicker had been nothing more than an illusion.
Ava Morgan did not linger and continued toward the western side of the corridor. Her steps remained light, but the "silence" in this section felt different—not emptiness caused by absence, but a deliberately maintained stillness, as if presence itself had been suppressed.
The western reading area was brighter, illuminated by colder white desk lamps that made the edges of paper appear overly sharp.
A second figure came into view.
Unlike the previous one, this one was "doing something."
Ava stopped at the edge of the aisle, not entering the desk area.
23:44.
According to the library records, this reader was Lena Hart, a research data visitor.
She looked up almost the moment Ava stopped.
"You're here to remind me to leave, right?" she said quickly, without hesitation, as if she had already predicted the procedure.
Ava nodded. "Eleven minutes left."
Lena did not respond immediately. Instead, she lowered her head and glanced at her documents, then frowned.
"Strange." She flipped a page. The motion was quick, but not natural reading—more like verifying sequence.
"I already finished organizing this section," she said, then paused. "But now it looks like a page is missing."
Ava looked at the documents. There were no tears, no missing edges. The alignment was too perfect—as if nothing had ever been missing at all.
"You've been here the whole time?" Ava asked.
Lena looked up with a brief uncertainty.
"I think so," she said.
Then she added, "Or maybe I went somewhere else earlier."
Her tone was not joking. It sounded like an attempt to correct her own memory.
The air fell briefly silent.
Ava did not press further. She only recorded it: a second anomaly—not behavioral, but memory inconsistency.
She turned to leave. Behind her, Lena suddenly spoke:
"Don't you think… today's time feels a bit off?"
Ava stopped without turning.
"Where does it feel off?" she asked.
After a few seconds, Lena said softly:
"Like it's been repeated."
Ava did not answer. She continued toward the end of the corridor.
But at the corner, she looked at her watch again—23:45.
The time was correct.
But her walking pace was one minute behind her patrol record.
The lights on the second floor flickered slightly as she turned—no one noticed.
