Shadow #3

Nikolas was a night guard at the old city library, a building that had stood for centuries as a silent witness to time. The library was enormous, with spiral staircases, semi-open galleries, and hallways that seemed endless. Nikolas loved the silence and peace that the night brought. For him, books were companions, and the library’s dark corners were a challenge to his imagination.

One night, as he walked past the section of ancient manuscripts, he heard a sound. It was faint, almost imperceptible, like the rustling of pages. He stopped and listened. There was no one—just the light of his lamp illuminating the thick, dusty books and shelves lining the walls.

"Probably just a draft," he murmured to himself, but the uneasy feeling lingered.

That night, Nikolas was engrossed in reading an old book while sitting at his desk. The flashlight cast a circle of light on the pages. At one point, out of the corner of his eye, he noticed something moving between the shelves. He lifted his head, but there was nothing there. The silence was heavy, almost tangible.

He resumed reading, but now with a growing sense of unease. It felt as if someone was watching him. When he looked up again, a shadow moved quickly and silently between the shelves.

"Who’s there?" he called out. His voice echoed, but there was no reply. Nikolas grabbed his flashlight and walked toward the section where he had seen the shadow. The beam of light revealed only books and dust. But when he looked down, he noticed footprints—wet ones—leading further into the dark corridors of the library.

He followed them, feeling the cold air growing heavier. The footprints led him to the old manuscript section, a place rarely visited. There, in the far corner, sat a large, ancient book open on a table. Nikolas approached and looked. The pages were blank except for one sentence written in Latin: "Umbras sequere et veritatem invenies"—“Follow the shadows and you will find the truth.”

At that moment, his flashlight flickered, and behind him appeared a shadow, tall and indistinct. Nikolas turned around, but there was nothing there. The shadow was gone, but now all the books on the shelves were wide open, as if the invisible hands of a reader had flipped through their pages. The sound of rustling filled the room.

Nikolas ran back to his desk, but his flashlight had stopped working. In the darkness, he could hear only faint whispers, words he couldn’t understand, calling him deeper into the library. When he tried to leave, the doors were locked, even though no one could have locked them from the inside.

Nikolas was not found that night. When the workers arrived the next morning, the library was in perfect order, except for one thing. On a table in the manuscript section lay an open book. This time, it read: “The shadows found him.”

Locals claim that, at night, a tall shadow can still be seen wandering between the shelves, quietly whispering Nikolas’s name.

For years after Nikolas's disappearance, the library became a source of legends and stories that spread among the townsfolk. Few dared to visit after sunset. Those who worked the night shift often quit, claiming they heard whispers or saw books moving on the shelves by themselves.

One evening, a young librarian named Elena, who didn’t believe in ghost stories, decided to stay late to finish cataloging. As the night wore on, she felt a strange pressure in the air, as if someone were in the room with her. When she looked up, the lights in the manuscript section began to flicker.

Out of curiosity, and with a hint of fear, Elena walked toward the section. On the table, she found the same book, open to the same page as the night Nikolas vanished. But the Latin text had changed: "Veritatem invenisti, ali cena est soluta." ("You have found the truth, but the price is paid.")

Before she could react, she felt a cold breath on the back of her neck. Turning around, she briefly saw Nikolas standing in the distance, holding his lamp, his expression carrying a silent warning. The shadows quickly enveloped him, and he vanished into the darkness.

Elena left the library that night and never returned. The stories about Nikolas continue to circulate, and those who dare to enter at night claim that among the shadows, they sometimes glimpse a man with a lamp, standing motionless, waiting for the next person to follow his fate.