Camilla turned and ran. The sounds of her hurried footsteps were muffled by the decorative carpets of the library. She bolted back down the bookcase-hallway.
She stopped dead in her tracks again though. Yet another noodly see-through specter was floating into view at the end of the hallway. Camilla turned and hid behind one of the cases.
Ghosts? Camilla thought. She couldn’t think of anything else it could be. She didn't want to stick around to find out. She kept moving through the bookcases and sure enough she kept spotting the flashlight wielding creatures. All of her running and stealthy speed walking led her to another hallway. Not a bookcase hallway, but a wide stone one.
The walls and ceiling of it were all made of hearty bricks. A large rolling carpet decorated the floor. Small lamps illuminated the rows of doors that sat on the walls. Each door had a small window in it revealing the room inside. Camilla could see the rest of the library at the end of it; more staircases and bookcases lie just past the tall arch.
Camilla ducked into the hallway and pressed her back against the wall. She could see the faint blue glow of the monsters slowly creeping across the way she had just come from. She slinked across the wall, trying to stay out of sight. The glow of the specters got wider and more intense as they grew closer. Her heartbeat began ringing in her ears.
Camilla thought on how she would defend herself should it come to that. She wondered if it was possible to punch a ghost. Camilla could see the profile of one of the luminescent beast turning the corner, no doubt about to see her. Fear began to constrict her entire body. Camilla was so afraid of what was coming in front of her, that she didn’t see the door that was slowly opening behind her.
In one quick motion, Camilla was yanked behind the door and pulled into the room.
“Mmmph-mmph!” Camilla tried to scream. Whoever had snatched her up had placed a firm hand over her mouth, though. The other hand was being used to keep her from squirming away.
“Quiet!” the grabber instructed. “They’ll hear you. Just stay still.”
But Camilla didn’t stay still. She kept wiggling and doing her best to scream past the stranger’s cold hands.
“I’m trying to help you.”
Camilla stopped fighting for a quick second. The grabber released her at the sight of her compliance. Camilla quickly turned around to see that the person who had seized her was not a terrible monster come to snatch her away into the night, but a woman. Flesh and blood like her.
She looked into the dark face of the woman who stood above her. Her brown skin gave way to the tight, onyx colored hair atop her head. It was tied up very firmly in a tense, rigid, professional bun. The light from the hallway shined across the parts of her hair that lay slicked down. The woman wore a long, gray trench coat over a polo shirt and khaki pants. Between the hair and the clothes, the lady seemed to be in a kind of uniform.
The mystery woman put a finger to her lips, signaling Camilla to be quiet. She pointed towards the window and then crouched low to look out of it. Camilla followed suit. The two looked out the small window and sure enough, one of the flashlight holding apparitions was floating down the hall.
“What are they?” inquired Camilla as her voice shook.
“Security guards,” replied the woman.
“What!” exclaimed Camilla in hushed concern. When Camilla thought of security guards, she thought of pudgy men with funny hats twirling night sticks. Not… whatever these things were. She tried to think more rationally. Maybe they weren’t ghosts, but projections meant to scare intruders off.
“They aren’t dangerous, but they aren’t very gentle about kicking you out either .”
Rationality blew out the window. If these were just images from a projector somewhere, how could they physically throw you? Camilla kept her eye on the “security guard” as it floated down the hallway and out of view. Camilla and the woman sighed with relief.
“Don’t worry,” the woman started. “They only do night shifts. They’ll all disappear as soon as the sun comes up. It shouldn't be too long now .”
The woman spoke in the kind, confident tones of a wise mother. This was the first person Camilla had seen or spoken to in what felt like a day. Having someone around who knew what was going on dampened some of the fear and frustration Camilla had been filled with.
The woman laughed. “I guess you’re new to this whole sneaking-into-the-library-at-night thing?”
“What? No, I wasn’t even… I was stuck in the rain, I -,” Camilla fumbled over her words. So much had happened, she wasn’t sure where to start. “I need to call my mom. Please, please, tell me you have a phone.”
The woman patted herself down. “Don’t think so, but uh… oh! You can just use the courtesy phone over there.”
Camilla turned. The room they were in had a number of small wood tables and chairs strewn about. It seemed to be some kind of study or conference room. Large windows on the other side of the room let in waning beams of moonlight. And sure enough, sitting on a pedestal next to the windows, was a landline phone.
Camilla rushed over.
“Just try to keep it down, okay? More of them could be coming,” said the woman as she kept watch.
When Camilla got to the phone, she remarked for a second on how strange it was. The phone was ceramic with a number of little carvings on it. All stars and moons. It looked less like a real phone and more like a decorative prop. But Camilla was really in no place to be picky. She picked up the receiver and began to punch in buttons.
She listened nervously for the phone to spit out a dial tone. But the phone didn’t do so. She was met with a loud three tone beep. An automated voice on the other side replied with “We’re sorry, but the number you have dialed does not exist.”
A ball of anger and panic began to coil in Camilla’s stomach. Frantically, she began to punch the number in again. And again she got the same voice. She tried over and over, another six or seven times. Each time the automated voice answered her, letting her know that she was not getting through.
Camilla let out an enraged wail and threw the phone against its base, surprisingly not breaking it. The woman at the door spun around.
“Hey! What the heck? I told you to keep it down.”
Camilla picked up the receiver and began slamming buttons again.
“Stupid phone… won’t dial out…flippin’... dumb… argh!” The entire phone and pedestal it stood on shook as Camilla kept viciously jabbing the buttons.
“Look,” said the woman, noticing how upset Camilla was. “Maybe the number your trying to reach is too far away. Those phones don’t reach out very far.”
“We can’t be that far away from Massachusetts!” snapped Camilla. That was what she wanted to believe anyway.
The woman looked at Camilla. She started to ponder for a minute on what the frustrated girl had just said.
“Massachusetts,” she started, still thinking. “That’s a funny word. Never heard of a Puzzleworld named that.”
Camilla stopped mid button push. Her hand froze on the phone numbers. Like a slow computer, her mind whirred trying to process the information it had just received.
“What did you just say?” Camilla murmured hesitantly.
The woman kept watch and didn’t meet Camilla’s bewildered gaze. “I just said I’ve never heard of a Puzzleworld called Massachusetts. Don’t think there is one actually.”
Camilla put the receiver back on its base with a shaky hand. She walked back to the other side of the room and stared up at the woman.
“Puzzleworlds,” the word barely squeezed past Camilla’s lips. Like it didn’t want to leave her mouth for fear of becoming real. “You said we’re in the Puzzleworlds.”
“Well, of course,” replied the woman. “Where else would we be ?”
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