You never should have opened this book.
It warned you— didn't it?— with its synopsis and its book cover.
The title itself— HELL'S LIBRARY— was scrawled in red ink and the author's name in dripping blood that looked... like it had been bled into the leather by someone that had tried clawing to escape.
But you ignored the signs, and now it's too late for you.
You reach out your hands and open the book, and the page in front of you is... BLANK, but also yellowed and stiff, like old skin that has been stretched thin over bone.
A single drop of ink falls from somewhere above, landing with a splat, then the drop spreads, spidering across the page in branching lines, each of which begin forming words.
"Welcome, Reader," Are the words you now read.
The letters are too black, they curl and pulse like veins, and you swear the page twitches under your hand that's still on it.
You blink then, and the words vanish... but then they're back again and bigger now;
"WRITE OR DIE."
Just then, a cold wind brushes the back of your neck, even though you're alone in your room with your doors and windows closed.
The lamp on your desk flickers— no, it doesn't flicker, it breathes and when you look at it, thinking it's about to go off, its shade trembles and expands, contracting like it's a pair of lung...
And then your eyes catch the lamps shadow on the wall behind it which is crawling out, reaching for you.
Scared you jolt upright and slam the book shut, but the words seep through the cover like black oil, dripping down your desk.
You can smell it then and it's a scent that so metallic like old dried blood.
A scream rents through the air at that moment and you look around to find who's screaming but then you realise that's it's your scream.
However it sounds distant.
You know it's you that's screaming but it sounds like it's coming from another room... Or from inside your own head.
You pause and shut up your mouth, then open the book again.
Now the page is full of eyes—hundreds of them— bleeding with blood in them and blinking.
Each one of them is rimmed with bruised purple flesh, staring up at you with a hunger that scares you.
In the corner of the page, you spot a tiny sentence, so little and written jagged, shaky handwriting that you almost miss it:
'Help me. She's watching.'
Confused, you press your finger to the letters and suddenly feel a very sharp pain as if a needle has been shoved right under your nail.
Your blood wells up and drips onto the page, and the book licks it up completely till you can't see even a spot of blood left.
Then the hundred of eyes disappear and a shape of a hand emerges from the paper, made of dripping black ink with each of it's finger ending in a jagged quill.
It claws its way out of the page and reaches for you, smearing your name on the paper in a language you almost understand.
Just the lamp beside you hums, and you turn to it just in time to see its lightbulb bulge out like an eye.
Through its glow you see a shape of something or someone hunched over in the corner of your room.
"Who's there?" You ask, darting your eyes to your room door that is still locked.
"Write, or I will write you." The voice that is inside your head now, hisses in such a low tone it scrapes against your skull.
Your mouth goes dry and you gulp down on nothing.
Instinct makes you bolt to your bedside table and then you yank the drawer open, reaching for your car keys.
However you stop short and that's because the pen in your drawer is shaking.
Puzzled, you try to reach for it, but it leaps into the air on its own and lands on thr book you left open on your bed.
It begins moving across the page in jagged lines and in human nature, you over to it.
"YOU CANNOT ESCAPE," it writes.
"EVERY WORD FEEDS THE LIBRARY."
You blink and now the book is covered in pages, each one filled with stories you never wrote; Heck you don't even know how to write!
The first paragraph is about a child crying in a dark closet, only to find out that the closet is alive.
The second is about a mother with no eyes, feeding her children with her own teeth.
The third about a scream that starts in YOUR throat but ends in the next room.
Startled, you turn the page, ready to close the book but then the lamp's shade peels back and you turn to see it having a shadow tooth-filled grin.
"Keep reading," it sings, leaning off the wall and closer to you as you back of towards the edge of your bed.
"Keep reading, or the shadows will find you."
The ink hand on the page claws deeper into the paper, sliding about the open pages and then leaps onto your right hand.
You jerk hand hand away from the book, screaming and gripping your right elbow with your left hand as you watch the ink hand move over to your wrist.
It pulses for a while, ignoring your loud screams then suddenly jumps back into the open book, leaving behind on your wrist the words:
"The Librarian is coming."
You think you hear footsteps, sounding wet and slappy, in your hallway, but you're alone.
Aren't you?
You live alone anyway.
You swing your legs off the bed and stand, but your legs feel weak, as if they're made of wax and suddenly the walls around you begin to bleed ink, dripping words that vanish just before you can read them.
Something licks your left hand then, making you shift your eyes away from the closed door of your room to the book again.
And you see a black tongue emerges from the page, licking the air--- yes, it's tasting your fear.
Screaming again, but this time in desperation, you try to close the book again, but your hands won't obey.
The book laughs— no, it screams in a vey high-pitched sound that it rattles the lightbulb above you until it shatters, raining down on everywhere in the room but surprisingly not on you or the book.
"Write," the voice in your head says but this time the voice is different, soft even, like a lover's soothing voice.
But the room feels hot and smells of burned paper and old blood.
You look at the page which has magically become a mirror and sees your reflection staring back at you with it's mouth sewn shut, eyes wide and dripping... ink, not blood.
It's you, but it's not.
Common sense let's you know that the book is threatening you now and you become sure when you hear the scream again.
"Write," it literally growls so lowly and harshly that it vibrated in your bones.
You feel the pen press into your hand, so cool to the touch, and it begins moving on its own, dragging your wrist across the paper.
"Write."
Your head throbs, and the room starts to tilt.
"Write."
You see flashes— blood, teeth and mirrors that scream when you look into them, and the ink's hands reaching out to you.
"Write."
And so you do.
You write, and you can't stop.
The last thing you see before the darkness takes you is a creature's smile, made of teeth that's dripping ink.
You can't see her well but something make you think that this is the librarian.
"Welcome to HELL'S LIBRARY," she whispers, leaning closer to you.
"Now you belong to me."