The Book That Eats Time

The Book That Eats Time

by[Javid khan]

Julian Mercer had seen a lot of strange books in his life—misprinted grimoires, fake occult pamphlets, leather-bound obscenities from the 1600s. Being a rare book dealer meant constantly dancing the line between scholar and hoarder. But he’d never held a book that felt alive before.

It arrived in a plain package. No sender. No return address.

Inside was a single book, untitled, bound in worn dark leather that almost felt too warm. The edges were weathered, the pages unevenly cut. He had no record of it in his archives. No watermark. No ISBN. It looked ancient, yet untouched by time.

Curious, he flipped it open.

The first page was blank. The second, too.

Then, on the third: “Time is a thread, and you are already unraveling.”

Julian glanced at the clock. 12:03 p.m.

He turned the page. The text was strange—rambling and poetic, full of disjointed phrases that somehow pulled at his mind like a slow hypnosis. Each word seemed to echo, as though it were being whispered just behind his ears.

After a few paragraphs, he blinked, rubbed his eyes, and looked at the clock again.

4:47 p.m.

He jolted upright. The sun outside had dipped toward evening. His coffee had gone cold. His phone had three missed calls. He didn’t remember reading for four hours—but he had. Or had he?

That night, he dreamed of sand slipping through his fingers in an endless hourglass, the sound of clocks ticking in reverse, and a voice—low and distant—whispering, “More.”

He awoke breathless and went straight to the book.

Day Two.

This time, he set up a camera. Hit record. Began reading.

When he came to, the video showed him sitting still, eyes glazed, flipping pages for seven straight hours without blinking. In the footage, his hand trembled. He muttered occasionally. Once, he laughed softly, the kind of laugh people make when they see something they shouldn’t.

But he had no memory of any of it.

He started keeping a journal.

Day 3: 12 hours gone. Can’t recall anything after page 37. There was something about mirrors? Or maybe they were windows.

Day 5: Woke up in the hallway with ink on my hands. I don’t own a pen that color.

Day 8: Dreamt of myself, older. Decades older. I was still reading.

His assistant, Lena, noticed something was wrong. He looked hollow, sleep-deprived, and jittery. The shop was a mess. Books lay in piles around the cursed manuscript like offerings around an altar.

“You need a break,” she said gently, trying to take the book from him.

Julian lunged for it like a starving dog.

“Don’t touch it,” he hissed. “It’s not done with me.”

By week three, he was missing days at a time.

Lena came in one morning to find him collapsed beside the book, eyes bloodshot, whispering fragments of a language she didn’t recognize.

She snapped, grabbed the book, and stormed out.

By the time she reached the corner, the book was gone. She swore she hadn’t dropped it. But it was simply… not there anymore.

Julian didn’t ask where it went. He only muttered, “It finds its way back.”

A week later, the package arrived again.

No sender. No return address.

The book was waiting.

Julian became a ghost of a man. Pale. Emaciated. Muttering to himself. The shop closed. Rent notices piled up.

Inside, he kept reading.

Page 89. 27 hours lost.

Page 102. A full day vanished.

Page 120. Three days. No food. No sleep. No memory.

He was losing time faster now. Days flickered past like dying lightbulbs.

But he couldn’t stop. The book knew things—about him, about the universe, about what came after time. And in that knowledge, something worse waited.

Still, he read.

Then came the final page.

It was blank at first. Then one line appeared, ink crawling across the page in real time:

“Are you ready to leave?”

He hesitated. For the first time, real fear struck him. What did it mean—to finish the book? To leave what?

Another line appeared:

“This is the only chapter you can never reread.”

His hand trembled.

He turned the page.

Julian Mercer was never seen again.

The shop was eventually auctioned off. His journals, scattered among personal effects, painted a fragmented descent into madness—or perhaps truth.

No one knows what happened to the book.

But every so often, it appears again.

No title. No author. No past.

Just a blank first page.

And then:

“Time is a thread, and you are already unraveling.”