The Library of Forgotten Tomorrows

In the cold silence beneath the Himalayan ice, deeper than any drill had dared to dig, there was a door. Not made of stone, nor metal, nor any known material — it shimmered like frozen light, flickering between visibility and invisibility, as if it couldn’t decide whether it wanted to exist. And behind that door was a place no one had ever visited willingly: The Library of Forgotten Tomorrows.

It was discovered by a mountaineer named Elina when a glacier cracked open beneath her feet during a solo expedition. She survived the fall, but what she found was something no human eye was meant to see. This was no ordinary library. There were no books. Instead, there were rows of shelves filled with glowing orbs — each pulsing with a soft, rhythmic light. Curious, Elina reached for one and touched it.

Suddenly, she saw a future. Not hers, not anyone's she knew — but one that had almost happened. A future where the continents had shifted and humanity had built cities that floated in the clouds. A child had invented a device that could translate animal thoughts into human language. Wars had been prevented. Cures had been discovered. And yet, none of these things had ever occurred. These were forgotten tomorrows — futures that were once destined, but lost. Each orb held a timeline that had been erased from possibility.

Elina, overwhelmed, kept touching orb after orb. She saw a version of Earth where plants had developed consciousness. One where humans had wings. One where time ran backward. A reality where dreams became currency. A civilization built under the ocean, thriving for centuries until a single breath ended it all. Each reality was more wondrous, terrifying, or heartbreaking than the last. But the deeper she went, the more the Library seemed to notice her.

The orbs began to whisper. They called her by name. Some begged her to restore them, others warned her to run. The air grew colder, not from the ice above, but from the pressure of infinite choices collapsing upon her.

Then, she found her own forgotten tomorrow — a life where she had never climbed mountains but instead discovered a formula that cured aging. A life where she died at 29 in a subway crash. A life where she ruled a floating city. A life where she was blind, but could see sound. A life where she lived to 143 and told bedtime stories to great-great-grandchildren who hovered above the ground. All these lives she could have lived — now lost to choice, chance, or chaos.

And then she understood: The Library didn’t keep these futures for curiosity. It kept them so they could not return. Because some tomorrows were too dangerous, and some too painful, and others — too beautiful to allow. Elina turned, determined to leave, but the glowing orbs had already begun to dim. The door she came through was gone, dissolved back into the impossible geometry of the library’s infinite halls.The orbs no longer pulsed with wonder. They began to hum with warning. They flickered with the finality of closing books.

She ran, blindly, past endless shelves, whispering timelines wrapping around her like vines. They whispered not in words, but in memories she had never made.

Then, the lights faded.

Silence.

The last thing she saw before everything dissolved was a new orb flickering into life.

It pulsed differently.

This orb wasn’t a memory of what could have been — it was a record of what was about to be lost.

It held her.

Her breath, her thoughts, her final decision.

And then the Library sealed itself again beneath the ice, its contents unchanged.

Somewhere above, the world moved on, never knowing what it had almost regained — or what it had just lost.

A story the world would never know.

But in the deepest corner of the library, one orb continued to glow faintly — not as a memory or a warning, but as a seed.

Perhaps one day, far into a future not yet forgotten, someone else would find the door.

And maybe, just maybe, they'd choose differently.

Years passed. The glacier slowly shifted. Scientists studying climate patterns once noticed faint magnetic pulses from the region, but chalked it up to anomalies. A few curious explorers tried to retrace Elina’s last known steps, but all they found was rock, snow, and silence.

Meanwhile, deep below, the Library slumbered. Occasionally, an orb would flicker, as if sighing in its sleep. Elina’s orb remained lit — dim, yes, but steady. It held a singular truth: she had witnessed.

She had entered the one place where futures go to die — and in doing so, she became part of it.

It’s said that dreams often speak to us in echoes, that déjà vu is a memory not from the past, but from a future we’ve already forgotten. Perhaps every human carries with them a thread to one of those orbs, tugged softly by fate or choice.

Perhaps the Library isn’t just buried in ice. Perhaps it’s mirrored in us all.

And if you ever feel a moment of impossible clarity — a flash of something that never happened but feels real — maybe you, too, have brushed against your forgotten tomorrow.

So be careful what you ignore, and cautious with regret.

Because not every door remains closed.

And not every future stays forgotten.