Level 1 - The Velvet Fears

The whispering books - Part 1

The crate was waiting outside when I opened the shop.

There was no delivery slip. No note.

Just a box of books, sealed with thick tape, sitting quietly on the welcome mat like it had always been there.

It wasn’t unusual for customers to drop off donations without saying anything. A box of paperbacks left on the stoop, a tote bag shoved through the mail slot. People liked to imagine their old books finding new homes.

So I assumed it was one of those gestures. Anonymous. Harmless.

I bent down, fingers brushing the damp cardboard.

It was heavier than I expected. Not just weight—density.

The kind of heaviness that felt wrong in the hands, like something packed too tightly.

The cardboard was slightly warped at the edges, soft from moisture. Fog maybe. Not rain.

I brought it inside.

It left a faint, wet imprint on the hardwood floor.

Inside were twelve books.

No covers. No titles. No publishers.

Just blank bindings in varying shades of dark cloth.

Black, ash-grey, bruise-purple, deep forest green.

Some had thin red silk bookmarks tucked between the pages. Others were bound so tightly I wasn’t sure they’d ever been opened.

I turned one over in my hands. The cloth didn’t shine. It drank light.

Even the texture felt strange—rough in one direction, smooth in another.

Like it didn’t want to be held.

Still, I stacked them neatly behind the counter.

It was a quiet Tuesday. Nothing felt wrong. Not yet.

The hours passed with a slow, familiar rhythm.

A retired man flipped through old poetry collections in the back, occasionally mumbling verses aloud.

A university student took notes in the window seat, finger trailing titles like they were choosing between friends.

No one spoke to me.

At some point, I reached for one of the books. I don’t know why.

There were plenty of others I needed to catalogue.

But my hand found one of the nameless volumes before I even realized I was reaching.

The cover was stiff and blank, wrapped in that same dark fabric—soft to the eye, but cold to the touch.

I opened it.

The pages were filled with dense, slanting script I didn’t recognize.

Symbols that looked almost like letters—curved in places, sharp in others, forming loops that trailed into nothing.

They weren’t illegible so much as… foreign to the eye.

Like looking at something meant to be read by a mind not quite shaped like yours.

Some lines were darker than others, as if the ink had bled too deep.

Others were faint, fading to near-invisible scratches that twitched when I tried to focus on them.

I flipped a few pages at random.

The motion felt awkward, like the book resisted being handled.

And then I heard it.

A sound—faint, dry. Like paper shifting. Or maybe not quite that.

It was like breath, caught in the throat of a whisper.

At the same moment, a gust of wind swept through the shop, tugging at the flyers pinned to the corkboard. Several loose receipts fluttered to the floor.

I turned.

The whisper I’d heard was just the wind.

The door was wide open, swaying slightly. Someone had probably forgotten to close it.

Clouds had thickened outside. The sky was a dull, bruised grey, like it hadn’t made up its mind whether to rain or vanish altogether.

I waited, half-expecting someone to appear.

No one did.

The door, caught on its hinge, slowly eased shut. A soft click followed.

I looked down at the book still open in my hands.

The pages looked the same.

Still. Quiet.

No flickering script. No twitching symbols. Just lines in that strange, unreadable language.

I closed it gently and set it aside.

Old books creak. The wind howls. Shops like mine are full of noises that never mean anything.

Still… I didn’t open another one for the rest of the day.

It was near closing time when I heard it again.

Not clearly—not like a voice calling my name or anything that could be explained.

Just… breath.

A faint, broken whisper that coiled in the space between the shelves.

It didn’t sound malicious.

But it didn’t sound human, either.

I stood still.

The sound had come just as I’d passed the corner table where I’d left the crate.

One of the books sat slightly askew, leaning out like someone had shifted it.

I hadn’t touched that one yet.

I reached for it, more out of habit than intention. The cover felt colder than the others—coarse at first, then strangely smooth.

I opened it.

The script was different this time. Harsher. Angular.

As though written in a rush or carved by an impatient hand.

As I turned the pages, the whisper returned.

Low. Ragged.

It wasn’t a voice so much as a breath that wanted to be a voice.

But it came in time with the motion.

Each time I paused, it paused too.

I stopped turning.

Waited.

The whisper returned again, softer, but closer.

Right at the edge of hearing.

I tilted the book slightly. Lifted it.

Something in my chest tightened.

The growing suspicion—the absurd idea—that maybe the sound was coming from the book itself.

And then it stopped.

Silence.

A sudden thud behind me made me jump.

I turned sharply, heart skipping.

One of the encyclopedias had fallen from the top of the Reference shelf.

It lay open, face-down, spine twisted.

No breeze.

No one nearby.

I looked back at the book in my hands.

Nothing.

Just ink and silence.

I closed it. The covers met with a quiet snap that sounded too final.

I shelved it without thinking—slid it between two old collections of folklore I hadn’t touched in years.

Then I turned out the lights, locked the door, and went home.

That night, I left the lights on longer than usual.

Not because I was afraid.

Not exactly.

But the quiet in my apartment felt thicker.

Like something had followed me home.

I made tea and stood by the window while the kettle hissed behind me.

The street below was nearly empty—just one pedestrian hurrying past, shoulders hunched, eyes down.

A flickering lamplight buzzed overhead.

The kind of night where the darkness feels deeper when you're not looking directly at it.

I ate a leftover sandwich.

Turned on the TV and let it run in the background—some sitcom rerun I didn’t need to follow.

The noise helped.

It made the silence feel less deliberate.

Before bed, I checked my phone.

No messages.

No missed calls.

The shop’s security app was undisturbed.

No alerts. No movement. No anomalies.

I didn’t dream that night.

Or maybe I did.

If I did, it slid through me like water through cloth—soaking in, but leaving no image behind.

Just a faint sense that something had been near.

I woke once, around 3:00 a.m.

The hallway light was on.

I didn’t remember leaving it on.

I walked toward it slowly, blinking against the glare.

The walls looked narrower in that moment. Longer. Like the hallway wasn’t ending where it usually did.

I turned off the light.

Stood still for a moment.

Then I went back to bed.

Told myself it was nothing.

It wasn’t.

The shop felt colder the next morning.

Not the air itself—something beneath it.

Like the building was holding its breath.

One of the nameless books was lying open on the counter.

I hadn’t left it there.

Its pages were warped slightly, and the ink looked darker now—almost wet in places, like it hadn’t dried completely.

I leaned closer.

And I heard it.

My name.

Whispered.

Not loudly. Not threatening.

But clearly. Directly. From just behind me.

I turned sharply.

Nothing.

The air in the shop didn’t stir. The door was locked. The lights hummed.

I snapped the book shut and returned it to the crate.

Later, several customers wandered through. Most of them didn’t stay long.

But two stood out.

The first was a man in a dark green coat—early forties, maybe, with a distant look in his eyes.

He moved through the shelves without touching anything.

When he reached the crate, his hand hovered over the books.

Then he turned and left without a word. I never saw his face clearly.

The second was a woman I’d seen once before—early twenties, maybe younger.

Long yellow cardigan. Messy bun.

She moved slowly through the store, like she didn’t want to be seen.

She picked up one of the nameless books.

Opened it.

Stared.

At first, she looked calm. Blank.

But after a moment… something in her face shifted.

Like a thread had snapped inside her.

She dropped the book.

No—threw it.

It hit the floor with a heavy slap.

And she ran.

Didn’t say a word.

Didn’t look back.

I stood behind the counter, heart pounding too fast for the silence that followed.

I didn’t pick up the book.

Not yet.

Later, near closing, I found a new book sitting on the sorting table.

Not one of the crate books.

Its cover was torn.

Edges frayed.

The cloth worn thin in places.

Inside, on the first page—

A sketch.

My shop.

Drawn in detail.

The front counter. The shelves. The stairs leading to the office. Even the smudge on the front window.

I left the book where I found it.

That night, I left the hallway light on again.

The next day, the sky was flat and grey.

Everything felt slow. Like the world hadn’t fully woken up.

I opened the shop later than usual. My hands trembled slightly as I turned the key.

The bell above the door jingled.

A figure entered—tall, wrapped in a coat far too heavy for spring.

Scarf. Gloves. Cap. Eyes that looked pale in the morning light.

They didn’t browse.

They approached the counter.

Set one of the nameless books in front of me.

Tapped it.

Then looked at me. Not unkind. Not cruel. Just… steady.

“They’ve started speaking to you, haven’t they?”

It didn’t sound like a question.

I didn’t respond.

They pushed the book slightly forward.

“Don’t read yours.”

Then they turned and walked out.

The bell above the door jingled again.

When I looked down…

The book was still sitting there.

Closed.

Waiting.