I crossed the desert, the sand started to become wet under my feet. I tried to process what I had heard, and seen. There was a culture left beyond the cities, and it seemed different somehow. Crude, forgotten. I had been spared, somehow I felt that I was never in any real danger. I was probably safer back there than I was alone. I think I understood what those lights were that I was admiring the rubble back in my Rome. Truck headlights.
——
The trek across the desert was long, but simple. I made good time the first day, adrenaline still pumping from the encounter. I walked until I almost couldn’t, then I ate briefly and slept under the stars. I surveyed my pack that morning and saw that its contents, minus the wine, were all safely inside, even the console. I checked the map, not far to the library now. I felt determined, reinvigorated. There was so much still that I didn’t understand. I was far from the city, farther than anyone I knew had ever been. I was doing something real, I felt alive. I wasn’t ready for what I found. I continued on through the desert for another day and night. By then I was tired and my provisions were low. In the excitement, and my panic, I forgot all about the return journey. I wasn’t considering what was behind, only forward.
At first I couldn’t see it, the desert receded and became the bank of a lake. The water was clear, it looked pure enough. I considered swimming momentarily but decided against it, I was out of practice and besides, there didn’t seem to be any plants or fish around the lake. I thought that was unusual but dismissed it. I carried on around the side of the lake. A short while later I could see it. A large shape looming on the far side of the lake. It was oblong, and tilted, protruding from the landscape. It marred the otherwise picturesque scene. As I got closer I recognize it as the library I was searching for, it was the same material as the others, anyone from the city would be familiar with that material, although it looked slightly different. The construction seemed older, but somehow more refined. The walls were sleek, and the domed point wavered above the water. It was also large, twice the size of the others. I wondered why it was way out here, forgotten, slowly shifting into the sand. As I got closer I could see weeds and vines beginning to encroach on the edges, tying it to the earth. The backside was raised, with large arches protruding. I couldn’t see an entrance. I brought the console out of my pack and confirmed I was at the marked location. When I scanned the library the console found nothing. I was stumped for a while and decided to make camp shortly off the beach, I started a fire and gazed at the arches. Tea helped me concentrate. I considered the blueprints of the other libraries and tilted the images on screen. Were they to fall over like this one, their entrances would end up… in the lake. I sighed, another obstacle. I decided to sleep and see if answers would come in the morning. I was still determined to undercover the mysteries of this library, and finish the trail that I had started on so long ago. If for no reason other than because I was an archeologist, although I had another name now too, sometimes I said it to myself. It calmed me somehow.
——
When I awoke in the morning I was exhausted. The hike had caught up with me, and I was starting to pay for it. My body wasn’t used to this level of exertion, my hobby had never been such a physical before. Perhaps it was spending so much time outdoors as well, in the elements so to say, that was new. And then there was the mental shock of the events of the preceding day, so many new experiences, new questions. I lay in the sand with my eyes closed. I tried to remember, to catalogue.
Almost everything the man Zee had said was strange, his voice, language choice, demeanour, skill with a weapon, it was all otherworldly. And he had killed three of the others. And he had spared me. That second group were unlike the hunters I had heard about, they were in a pack to start. They seemed closer to the myths told about hunters in the cities, by those who never left them. They seemed more familiar somehow, more understandable. Closer to me than Zee was. I didn’t quite understand the thought, but it scared me nonetheless.
When I finally rose I realized I was hungry. I opened my pack, recently used as a pillow, and sadly remembered eating most of my rations the night before. Still, I had enough for one more day, maybe two, if I was careful. I sat for a long time and stared at the arches of the library. If the entrance was under water then maybe I could swim to it. I considered it again, but decided to put it off, I was planning to test the water anyway. To see if it was drinkable. I spent some time on the console just staring at the map. I couldn’t believe how far I had come. For the first time, I had a flicker of self doubt. Out here alone, chasing something I didn’t understand. There could be nothing at the bottom of this lake and I might die here alone searching. Trapped, or drowned. Lost maybe. I’d be quickly forgotten, no one would come looking for me. And what if I did find something, I wondered what I would do then. After a time I stopped wondering, and doubting. I just gazed over the pristine lake, smelled the open air, and felt the warmth of the sun high in the sky. I continued on, to test the water.
Good thing too, it turned out to be acidic. Heavily acidic, not drinkable. Probably not advisable to swim in, the console didn’t have many accounts on searches for ‘swimming in acid’. I was so close now, I was at the ominous seventh library, finally and yet. Another obstacle.
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