On a day like any other—one of those when you or I wake up and go through the motions—we often encounter monotony. Today, we’ll talk about that kind of monotony, the kind that sometimes weighed heavily on our protagonist, Maribel Francine.

There were days when Maribel felt like her life was just beginning. As if everything before—the endless hours at the library, the silent lunches, the exact repetition of her daily routine—had been nothing more than a prolonged threshold, shapeless and unnamed. Now she was twenty-two, living in a modest apartment her brother had given her. That was the entirety of her adulthood, as far as she was concerned.

She walked back from the city center every afternoon, with the steady pace of someone who never rushed. She climbed the stairs, passed a window without curtains, and unlocked the door with the same care as always—like someone might be sleeping on the other side.

The apartment was small, even cheap, but it had just enough not to feel empty: a worn-out couch, a floor lamp that flickered when it rained, and a dining table she never used. She kept the cutlery in a wooden box with no compartments. She liked it that way. Less order, fewer expectations.

That day, like every other, she hung up her coat, slipped off her shoes without thinking, and walked into the kitchen. She turned on the kettle and sank into the chair with a sigh. Then she spoke—not out loud, but in the way one speaks when confessing something without expecting an answer:

"I’ve worked at the library since I was seventeen. I grew up there. They taught me not to disturb those who are reading, to return what I take, and never to interrupt the dead hours. Sometimes I think I’m just another dead hour."

I don’t know who my parents were. My brother, Mark, was with me until I turned eight. After that, he simply... wasn’t. No one explained. No one asked. He just disappeared.

Mrs. Igarashi—the owner of the library—took me into her home as if it were the most natural thing in the world. She gave me a uniform, meals, history books. I had a quiet childhood, uneventful. Everything I learned, I learned sitting down.

Now I live alone in this apartment my brother gave me after vanishing for all those years without explanation. That’s it. I guess it was his way of apologizing for his absence.

The water boiled. Steam fogged up the kitchen window. Outside, the streetlights were starting to flicker.

Maribel wasn’t expecting visitors. She wasn’t expecting phone calls, surprises, or revelations. She had built her life so everything would fit neatly into the proper shelves. Each thing in its place, each name in its category.

What she didn’t know—what she couldn’t yet imagine—was that her story wouldn’t begin with a twist, but with a crack.
And that crack would come in the form of a noise.

A clumsy knock at the door.
The doorbell rang twice.
That was how her quiet, boring life—at least boring to most—was about to unravel.
That was how those who would bring fortune or misfortune to her life began to arrive…