Once Book Novels & Stories

The moment his foot touched the wooden floor. the endless corridor behind him disappeared. Only the room remained. Dust floated gently through the golden light. Everything was silent. Too silent. On the desk rested an ancient notebook bound in black leather. Unlike the White Book... it had no title. Only a single silver symbol burned softly upon its cover. Adrian reached toward it. The notebook opened by itself. Its first page contained only one sentence. Every author forgets who they were... until the final story calls them home. A sudden pain shot through Adrian's head.

“That was smart.” “It’s just the beginning,” I replied. That was only the first crack. Very soon, the entire structure would collapse. Caleb suddenly straightened. “Oh right,” he muttered before reaching inside his coat. My eyes followed his movement curiously until he pulled out an old book wrapped carefully in dark cloth. Immediately, my heartbeat quickened because I recognized the book without even trying. “The Book of Life,” I whispered. Caleb nodded slowly. Josephine’s eyes widened in shock. “You actually brought it here?”

Bea continued chattering. My mind quieted down when I spotted the name in the cover of the book, and Bea's chatter faded into the background. Alissa Boudoir. Alissa had been voted a queen candidate by the public. Yes, Vivanna was already the first princes' fiancé, but no-one liked Vivanna, so the public aggressively began to pair Alissa and the prince together. In the newspapers, in gossips news and even in fanfictions written by the people at the capital.

he said with a smirk. I grumbled and went to the bookshelf. There were like thousands of books there, and I spent a good thirty minutes arranging them. Those thirty minutes were stressful, to say the least. "I'm done," I sighed in relief. "You're done?" the young man asked. "Yes, so is my admission safe?" I responded. "Not yet," he replied. "What do you mean by that?!" I yelled in frustration. "Don't shout, just do one more thing," he said calmly.

My eyes almost pierced the paper from staring at it. "We are sure of it. We saw how a necromancer carved this message to a stone right before our eyes," the general answered me but I didn't look at him because I was thinking of a way. "How many necromancers were there on that day?" I asked again and I didn't care if the tone of my speech seemed to be on par with them. I don't care right now because it's more important to me to get it resolved. "There is only...one. That necromancer appeared without any hostility and left the message, and then it ran away," the general answered me as if something miraculous had happened.

“Werewolf.” “Interesting,” the man mouthed whilst nodding his head slowly as he wrote some more things on the form. Harold felt uncomfortable. He was having a bad feeling about all of these. “Grade,” the man asked next. It seemed more like he was making a statement than asking for Harold's grade. “Second year,” Harold managed to say. “I got in last year.” The man wrote some more things for about ten seconds after. Still without looking up, the man handed him a pass.

Nicole looked at the clock in the room and said, “I’m kind of in a hurry so I’ll make my story brief and comprehensive. After breaking your heart, I owe you an explanation my darling Muhammad.” Muhammad tried switching on the radio on his belt, in hope that anyone on the other end could listen to the conversation if the signal was restored. If Maryam and he were going to die tonight, their death might as well not be in vain. The most important thing was revealing the real identity of The First One.

It also made sense why they named themselves after the book, it was what brought them into the realisation of a potential threat. Mum went further to say that the book had powers beyond what the mind could understand, and she mentioned that with the book one could skip the necessary balance. “What do you mean by the necessary balance?” I inquired, barely holding my excitement as she told it all to me. “The necessary balance, um, how will I explain this?” She clicked her tongue severally. “It is a simple term that means magic had a price, it always had a price.” Squinting my eyebrows, I said, “Always had a price? What is the price, how much? How do we quantify the….”

Most of the books were tales from before the Great Divide, wolf lore, and old pack records. But, one leather-bound notebook stood out. Small. Faded. Hidden away almost as if it were forgotten. I pulled it free gently, the leather soft under my fingertips. The cover has no title. Just a thin embossing of a crescent moon. Curiosity tugged at me. I brought it to the firelight and opened it. My throat caught in a breath. The first page was a letter. "To my son, Kai," it began, the handwriting fragile but powerful.

No longer able to slip my finger over the backs of the books for fear I might touch something else I didn’t want to know about, I tried to read some of the titles, but I could see these books had been handled a lot. I wondered where they would have been stored in the library and who would have spent so much time reading them. I found one that had to do with the history of the first beast and made sure the cover was animal before I pulled it out. I could deal with animal leather. Finding a seat, I made myself comfortable and started reading the account of one of the royal council members. “September 15th, 1789