Ed took a careful step toward the table. The air shimmered faintly, heavy with static and the smell of old ink. The book lay open, its pages whispering softly, as though breathing.

“Stop there,” Hoffman warned, voice low. “Don’t engage. Just mark the location.”

But curiosity—it was a trait Ed had never learned to restrain. He leaned in, just enough for his eyes to catch a glimpse of the text.

A single line moved across the page.  

Not printed. Written anew.  

*Welcome, Ed Relven.*

His heart froze.

Then the world unraveled.

The library around him melted into a vast, shifting corridor of words—sentences flowed like rivers across the floor, walls built from paragraphs that breathed in rhythm. He saw his childhood home, his mother’s voice echoing through pages that turned to ash.  

Every face he knew, every memory, was rewritten in ink.

He reached out—and his hand passed through a sentence that whispered, *Stay with us.*  

Voices began to murmur in unison, familiar yet hollow: “You were always meant to read this. We’ve waited.”

In the real world, Hoffman cursed.  

“Damn it, kid!” He rushed forward, slamming a containment patch onto the table. The book flared, its cover shifting violently between languages, symbols, and faces that weren’t human.

Ed’s pupils had dilated completely. His lips moved, repeating fragments of invisible text. Hoffman grabbed him by the collar, dragging him back before the book’s aura could fully take hold.

“Focus, Relven! Look at me!” Hoffman shouted.  

No response.

He scanned the area—no witnesses. The agents outside were too far to notice. He yanked his comm device from his coat.  

“This is Field Agent Hoffman. Confirm anomaly contact—Object ARC-019, codenamed *The Shifting Tome.* We have a Class-C cognitive breach. I need a containment team, now!”

A distorted voice crackled back through static:  

“Copy that. R-Division en route. ETA, seven minutes.”

“Seven’s too long,” Hoffman muttered, glancing at the book that was now pulsing, faintly alive.

He hooked his arms under Ed’s shoulders and half-carried him toward the exit. The young man’s body was trembling, eyes unfocused, mouth still whispering phrases no human tongue should know.

Outside, the sunlight hit them like a slap. Hoffman shoved Ed into the passenger seat and slammed the door shut. Only then did he exhale, pulling the car out of the perimeter.

For a moment, silence.  

Then Ed blinked, groaning. “I—I saw… everything. It spoke to me.”

“Yeah?” Hoffman snarled, slamming the steering wheel. “And you almost let it *rewrite* you, rookie! What part of ‘don’t look’ sounded unclear?!”

Ed swallowed hard, the color slowly returning to his face. “I didn’t mean to—”

“Nobody *means to!* That’s how these things work. Curiosity kills more agents than bullets ever will.” Hoffman’s tone softened, just barely. “You got lucky this time. Don’t count on luck again.”

Ed turned his gaze to the window. In the rearview mirror, the library grew smaller, swallowed by the city’s skyline.  

Somewhere inside, the containment team would already be sealing the book within lead-lined casings, erasing memories, resetting the illusion.

“Welcome to the A.R.C., kid,” Hoffman said, lighting the cigarette at last. “You’ve officially met your first nightmare.”

The smoke curled upward in the car, gray and silent.  

And though the city looked calm, Ed couldn’t shake the feeling that the words he saw on those pages were still whispering—quietly, deep inside his mind.