We stepped into the magnificence past the glass double doors, and Notemi and I gaped in awe at the artisanship surrounding us. A circular cutout from where the dome attached revealed the sun’s rays that penetrated into the dark, yet bright marble interior that held a circular mezzanine.

The air was fresh and crisp like the outdoors of grass, with a different tang. Like dust from a construction site or freshly machine-sawed wood and stone that exposed its contents to the surrounding air. It felt so new and vibrant that I wanted to lay down and cuddle with the flat floor and merge with it. I could imagine my excitement building up – finding satisfaction in blowing off the dust from the freshly cut stone to reveal a smoothness so foreign to the eyes in a natural habitat. I wanted to lick it. Smell it. Taste it.

“You okay Laizen?” Notemi asked with a one-eyed stare.

I looked down at myself and saw that my arms were locked in place, palms facing each other like I was holding a box of power tools. Why power tools? Probably from the time my dad let me play around with it in his workshop. I quickly wiggled to let my body know to be alive and it was okay to return to my control.

Notemi waved me to come inside and I followed her lead into a section with a long table and shelves stacked high around the perimeter. My eyes drank the filled levels of shelves and a sense of vertigo came over me, but I didn’t care. I could see myself swimming in fallen books and laying on top of them while leisurely reading one in hand.

I felt a tug on my arm as I stared at the highest shelf, but was quickly turned around and planted into a seat with great force on my shoulders. Across the table was Professor Lorraine and Notemi circled around me to find a seat beside me.

“Pinch me,” I said.

And without hesitation, a loud yelp echoed and faded from this corner section of the library to the main area.

“You asked for it,” Notemi said.

“What is this place?” I asked with wonder.

“Are you paying attention?”

“This is the library,” Professor Lorraine answered with his elbows on the table.

“No library I have ever seen was this big!” I looked at his eyes covered by half-rimmed glasses that smiled along with his lips.

“Looks like the Integrator has done it again with his magic,” he responded.

“Can I just… start?” I asked, my body tingling with giddiness that didn’t want to be contained. My arms were pressuring me to get moving or it would start dancing. I wanted to be engorged with books.

“And start you may. Enjoy.”

I promptly took off from my seat and leisurely walked around the perimeter of the section we were in, all the energy went into drinking the colors, sizes, and titles of each book. On the way, I also glanced my eyes over at the labels partitioning each shelf. Fantasy, science fiction, fiction, supernatural, poetry, epics, philosophy, myths and legends, deities, sacred texts… occult?

I slid my finger into the gap between the top of the book and the board above it, pulling out a large, murky green book with a yellow card in front displaying some sort of symbol. The cover seemed to be made by some sort of fabric and was bound by a bright red thread sewn along its edges. On the yellow card, a thick circumference of a circle was drawn with an equilateral triangle's base as its diameter, and its vertex piercing the top of the circle. I wonder what this could mean?

Reminded that I had a history teacher next to me, I walked up to him for clues.

“What’s this book?” I asked. The discussion between Notemi and him stopped as they turned their heads towards me.

“Oh, that?” Professor Lorraine said. “That’s a geometry book. Since you’re an engineer, you might want to take a look.”

My eyes returned to the book as the chatter of Notemi and the professor became muddy. I wonder what’s inside?

Turning over the front cover, a nice waft of the paper’s scent blew into my face, which smelled grainy and earthy. I turned the first page and I saw dark, heavy inking that drew various shapes inscribed in one another, along with some script I don’t know about.

I returned to Professor Lorraine and asked about this strange text. He took my book and flipped through the pages to confirm what he was seeing. “Ah, yes, this is Sanskrit—it’s a script that dates back many millennia ago, but the spoken language is much older.”

“Yeah, I don’t think I can read it,” I said, recalling the lines and squiggly symbols that looked foreign to the English alphabet.

“Too bad, let me help you find something else.”

Professor Lorraine stood up to walk behind me, and Notemi eyed me while pouting with cheeks puffed out. I smiled and walked away to where the history teacher was going to take me.

“Occult, huh? Why don’t you try some simpler books to get started?” Professor Lorraine asked.

“Are they going to be in different languages? I thought this was a library that was created for us to train in,” I said.

“That’s what I would call a real library—why exclude other things you can’t read? I would refer you to some language learning texts, but since we may not have time to have you learn a language to fluency, you’ll have to stick to what you know. Sorry about that,” Professor Lorraine sighed.

He placed the book back where it belonged and walked around the perimeter to find something that would suit me. Then he stopped where I initially looked at and tip-toed with a stretched arm to reach the second shelf above the ground. His robed sleeve revealed his pale arm almost to his shoulder, and I could make out the shadows of ridges on his upper arm in the dim, natural lighting. They weren’t as defined as Olma’s, but I would assume he could do many physical feats without a problem.

When he gave up and came back with a ladder, his brown ponytail didn’t look like it was yanking him down with gravity anymore. Now with leveled eyes, he scanned the neatly lumped books in the fantasy section. He looked at me and looked back at the books several times to ascertain what would fit me, then a medium-sized book without much thickness was held in his hand. He stepped backwards down the ladder and walked towards me – lips curled and cheeks dimpled – and handed me a black and gold-trimmed book just like his robe.

“What’s this?” I asked. I looked at the cover and it displayed a title of Wondrous Dragons in gilded font that filled most of its rectangular space.

“You can start reading things about other creatures that humans have imagined and move on from there. Learn about how they look, how they act, and how they live. Immerse yourself in their world,” Professor Lorraine said with care and clarity.

How was that going to prepare me for ETs? Well, considering that I’m already here, ETs as dragons would be… actually, I don’t know what they would be like.

Professor Lorraine walked back to Notemi sitting at the end of the long table, while I sat at the other end with the first book of my training. I turned over the hard cover and let this book of fantasy engulf me with its words.