The Library

The Library: The library is located in the North-West of downtown. The library sometimes has a ray of impossible sunlight illuminating it. Sometimes it is as overcast above the library as anywhere else. The building itself is one of the only ones in the city that are actively falling apart, besides the zoo. The walls are mostly intact, with only a few gaps towards the roof. The wooden doors at the front have been torn from their hinges. The doorframe itself is leaning inward, as though ready to collapse. The windows are grimy, letting no light in or out. The electric light inside works fine, but there are too few to light up the whole library. Getting inside is difficult. The entrance is barred with several wooden beams, crossed over one another. A small side entrance exists, but is located down a very narrow alley with scratch marks all along the brick walls of the buildings on either side. The door is intact, but old and stiff, creaking and appears ready to break.
In all parts of the library, there is a consistent chilling wind that causes the pages of books to flutter gently when opened. Inside, there are three sections; the librarian’s desk, the shelves of books in the front and the bookcases in the back. At the librarian’s desk sits a dead woman, her face contorted into a crude smile. Her makeup expertly applied, such that even while the rest of her body is paled with the lack of blood, her face appears almost normal, apart from her expression. She is well-dressed, with a smart women’s blazer and skirt, but covered in dust. Her hair hangs long and loose. There is no obvious sign of what killed her. On the desk is a broken computer and an unmarked book with blank pages. When you go elsewhere in the library, you can hear humming and typing from the desk.
The shelves in the front of the library are poorly stocked, with only one book at most on every shelf, which is just tall enough to contain five books per shelf. Each book is splayed with mucus and grease. The titles are illegible under the filth. Some books have been removed, their covers torn off, their pages crumpled and some covered in shit and phlegm and then strewn across the floor.
The shelves in the back of the library are well-stocked, with books on nearly every topic and well-maintained, if dusty. The lights are sparser here. The shelves are taller, usually straight to the ceiling. The carpet is stained with a bloodtrail that snakes and winds between the bookcases. It never seems to end if you follow it forward and following it backward leads to somewhere else, such that once you’re inside, you almost invariably get lost. The longer you stay, the darker it will get. If you pull out a book from anywhere in the shelf, you’ll be left in peace to read it, the lights staying just bright enough to make out the words. The moment you put it down or back, what few lights there are will grow dimmer until you are in total darkness or pick up another book, whereupon the lights will come back.
Denizens, Darlings, Workmen and Lopers stay away from the library. Only the dead librarian and the many, many books can be found here.