Book Fragment Novels & Stories

The light illuminated the space, full of old objects and stacked boxes. As she walked, a loose floorboard creaked beneath her feet. She bent down to see what it was and, with some effort, lifted the board. She found an old book, covered in dust, with a leather cover filled with drawings of supernatural creatures. Scarlett’s heart began to race; something about the book drew her in, as if it held secrets waiting to be discovered.

I squeezed my eyes shut and let a tear fall. "He's not going to die, I'm not going to let that happen." I repeated. "He's not going to die, I'm not going to let that happen." I breathed out. More bullets were being shot, and I immediately wiped my tears away in determination to get out. I took another deep breath and looked around analyzing the room. I squinted my eyes and noticed to door was slightly open. "How the fuck is it open Shawn slammed it shut?" I asked myself. I then remembered the door bouncing back open because of a piece of foam slightly sitting in between the doorframe preventing it from closing.

Nothing. ​ Frustration mounting, I remembered the cryptic lines on the first page: The blood calls. The cage is weak. ​ I flipped to the The Ritual and the Blood-Bond section, focusing on the marginalia. Suddenly, my eyes caught a sequence of tiny, almost invisible dots next to a passage about the Claiming Bite. I pressed my thumb firmly on the dots, applying pressure. ​ The dots glowed momentarily, and a small, delicate block of script materialized beneath them, written in my mother's neat hand:

The faint scent of citrus and cinnamon floats through the air, as if his scent is still attached to the cover. An hour later, I turn on my bedside lamp. I don’t know what time it is, but the light outside my window has faded. I know I should eat dinner but I’m not in the mood for oatmeal. I settle deeper into my pillow and keep reading. It’s a surprisingly good book. I flip the page to the next chapter, but a flattened bookmark slips down onto my lap, seemingly forgotten by the previous reader. Maybe this book wasn’t new after all. I pick it up and the thin paper crinkles. It’s not a bookmark. It’s a… a receipt.

Probably because the shelf was old and creaky; any part of it could be affected if I touch any other. As I raised my hand to put back the book in its shelf, I noticed the book seemed different from the others. It was blue, and had blue stones on it. “hmmm.” I opened the book, and what I read, caught my interest. *MYSTERY WORDS CAN’T BE SEEN, BUT CAN BE BROUGHT TO THE PAGES, BY FIRE.* It was weird, but I turned to the next page, and it was blank. I turned to another, and it was also blank, until I flipped the pages until the end, and realized everything was blank.

The whole place had his scent and I almost gagged in disgust. I sat on the old leather chair and leaned into it. Frank produced an old ledger with cracked covers and dropped it on the table in front of me. I opened the book and skimmed through the pages that I had read before. I had no time to start reading the damn book until I opened it further to see a small rectangular hole made inside. Inside the hole was a black flash drive. Curious, I fished it out of the old book and studied it closely. "I read the book but there was nothing about how to destroy an underground world, but I am willing to bet that the drive has something that may help," Frank said to me.

I held my breath and my fingers strained, but eventually the boards lifted slowly, revealing a hole in the foundation beneath the floor, only a few inches wide. I reached in gingerly and pulled out a package wrapped in burlap, tied in brown string. I turned it over in my hands and saw the flame symbol that had been recurring across our research messily painted in a deep red ink across the burlap wrapping. Tentatively I pulled at the string, letting it fall to my lap along with the wrapping. I turned over the familiar leather bound book in my hands. I breathed a sigh of unadulterated relief, and a radiant smile spread across Mains' face. The proof was there, perfectly indented and untouched o

The mercury violet light was soft now, bathing the room in a gentle glow. ​"I have one last thing to show you," Damian said, leading me to a small alcove hidden behind the primary pillar. ​Inside was a single, physical book. It wasn't made of Keryon vellum or obsidian. It was paper and ink real, tangible, and fragile. I opened it and saw the chapters we had lived. running my fingers over the pages. "You kept a record?"

But now it’s lying in the center of my bed, open. I step towards it slowly, half-afraid it might suddenly flap its covers like wings and start flying around the room like an emerald green butterfly. With all the other madness going on around here, it would hardly be surprising. But the book lies still as a tombstone, the faded black ink staring up at me as I reach down to touch the thin paper. There’s a page missing. The jagged remnants of a torn page stick out from the spine, a clear sign that someone ripped a page out.

The door creaked again, and within seconds, the room was empty once more. But not untouched. My eyes flicked to the nightstand. Something small, rectangular, sat there—a folded piece of paper that hadn’t been there before. I sat up, trembling, my hands fumbling in the dark until they brushed the cool edge of the note. My name was scrawled across the front in sharp, hurried handwriting. Melinda. I hesitated, fear and curiosity warring inside me, before carefully unfolding it. The message was short. Only four words, ink pressed deep into the page as though carved: