The Book Burned Novels & Stories

Then the poetry. Handwritten. Sometimes sonnets. Sometimes messy, jagged pieces that felt like they’d been ripped straight from his chest. One read: If I could be the rain that slips down your shoulder, If I could be the sky you look up at in rage I’d let you strike me down, again and again, If only to stay close to your fire. I threw that one in the trash. Three hours later, it was tucked inside the cash register. And then came the books. First editions. Stories I’d loved. Stories I’d once read aloud to Damien in the Blackwood library when we were young and tangled in something that felt like forever.

"I don't believe in miracles anymore, Ben. I believe in stubbornly refusing to die. There's a difference." "Is there?" he asked, his voice softer now. "Sometimes I think your stubborn refusal to give up is the closest thing to a miracle I've seen since The Burning." The mention of The Burning made my chest tighten, as it always did. The memories were still too fresh, too raw. I could still smell the smoke, hear the screms, see the sky turning that terrible shade of orange as the world caught fire. I pushed the thoughts away, focusing instead on putting one foot in front of the other.

But when he looked up, hundreds of other books were lifting and floating from the shelves, their pages bleeding and whispering her name. “Camela. Camela. Camela.” Her head spun, and her chest rose and fell heavily. “They want me…” Vincent held her tightly against him, his flame blazing so bright enough it illuminated the shelves like daylight. “Then they’ll have to burn for it,” he said. He swung his arm through the air, sending fire in a blazing arc that struck the shelves. The books shrieked, blood hissed, and their pages curled black, turning ash. But for every book that he burned, ten more emerged from the shadows. They surged forward, bleeding words that crawled across the floor and wra

I thought as my head turned to a small window in the room. I saw smoke. I ran towards it, and there I saw the book being burned in a small fire. I quickly ran outside, but it was too late when I got there. Fire consumed the entire book. Madison had burned the book. I cried. How will I ever learn about my pack and my mom anymore?

The paper curled the moment it kissed the flame. Scarlet didn’t hesitate. She pressed the notebook harder into the candlelight, watching as the edges blackened, the ink blistering and fading into nothing. The words she’d bled onto those pages...plans, filth, fear, secrets...warped and vanished in a hiss. Ronan was still struggling with his shirt, fabric caught over his head like a damn blindfold. She tossed the burning book into the fireplace. And screamed.

"I told you, it was on the shelf in your study." Alexander's eyes snapped back to mine, "You shouldn't have been able to see it, talk less of touch it." A shiver ran down my spine as Alexander's words echoed in my mind. I stared at the book in my hand. What was so special about this burnt book? Is it more important than the fact that someone or something almost killed me? "Give me the scroll I gave you days ago?”

I scream into the air. "Jessa!" Brixtius's voice is next to me. "Who are you talking to?" "You wouldn't believe me if I told you," I tell him. "Let's go!" Brixtius shouts while pulling me down the street. In the same direction as the crowd. We run for a few minutes, the ash making it hard to breathe. Such deadly snow! The next rumble, I realize it is the end. The pyroclastic cloud that kills all the citizens of Pompeii is coming.

Something on fire. I looked out of my bedroom door only to see a woman burning some familiar books in the gardens. I paused looking back inside my room at my study table only to see all the books I had snuck out of the library to keep in my room had disappeared. I pulled on the first clothes I saw, to run downstairs to stop the woman burning my books. Those were books about my father that I had gotten from the library with great effort, how could someone just come up to burn it?

After collecting them, I found one last room in the building. The books were completely destroyed, pages burnt to the point where the words are unreadable, and the leather-bound titles melted into unrecognisable words. One book, however, I found hidden away in a cubby within a desk. Untouched by the fire that turned the rest to ash, I run my fingertips across the words on the cover. "The Great Demise: The Fall of the Moon Goddess"

Athena sneers, turning as if to stalk out of the room, “Do what you want, daughter of Hades. The book is already destroyed, and the story will now be forgotten… as it should be.” A grim fairytale best left forgotten. When Proserpina was sure that the goddess was already gone, she allowed the shadows to bring what was left of the book back to her, fingers ghosting over the pages. The story of corruption will now be no more… The book is burned. Athena is right. The book is already beyond saving. And yet–