The Bookshop, By Marci: January 21, 2025; unfished

Bells jingle through the silent book shop as Yannick opens the door. A friendly store clerk greets it as it enters. It politely waves and shyly shuffles to the back of the storefront to browse the small expanse of bookshelves, clumsily avoiding the seemingly prying eyes of the store clerk. Meanwhile, the creature in question is reading a book of poetry, perfectly unbothered by the strange stranger shuffling about its shop. Yannick picks up a book and begins to question the selection. “The door slammed on the watermelon”. It flips through the pages, picking up on a violent and surreal tale that doesn’t make much sense. It picks up another, and another, and another. Each book is more surreal and nonsensical than the last. Eventually, the language in the books starts to fall apart into something unrecognizable as language. It knows now that something is horribly wrong. Panic rises in its throat like a rock stuck in its esophagus. It looks back up at the store clerk, only to realize that it’s gone from its seat. It sets the book in its hand on the shelf and struggles to the desk, frantically looking back and forth for the creature. A tentative voice leaves its throat, hoarse and deep from misuse. “Hello? Are you still there?” It waits for a moment, only for no response to come. Again it tries, “Is anyone here? I have a question…” a little louder this time, hopeful that it was just too quiet at first. Seconds pass by like minutes before a response is returned in the form of a scream. Yannick’s blood runs cold and it clambers away from the desk to the door. It slams into it with all its weight, a strained yelp escapes its lips as it’s flung back onto the ground. It tries the door again with no success. Another scream reaches out from the backroom of the store, more distorted and foreign than the previous. Blinding light reaches in through the windows of the shop like hot fingers scraping at its skin. Yannick howls in pain and fear and stumbles around trying to escape the harsh light. The door to the backroom opens with a slow creak. Mind muddled with pain and the urge to escape Yannick sprints to the door and slams it behind it. The cool darkness soothes the fresh burns covering its skin but does little to ease the aching dread and confusion clouding its mind. Yannick feels bile climb to the back of its throat as it inspects the burnt and bloody flesh tainting its smooth skin. Horrible wheezing fills the air around it and it falls to the ground. It yelps at the sharp pain of its wounds meeting cold rocks and sand and it vomits violently on the ground. Heavy breaths turn into mist in the air. It watches for a moment as its breaths fade into the black of the space around it and finds enough calm to assess its surroundings. Spitting mucus and bile onto the ground it looks around the dark room and turns around. The door and the wall it was attached to are gone, and if they’re still there, it cannot find them. It stumbles to its feet, still shaking from pain and terror. “What do I do?” It whispers, and, just as it expects, no voice calls from the darkness to answer. So it decides to try and walk forward. The room lights up as it pulls a device out of its pocket. “No signal.” It sighs as it desperately taps its fingers on the surface of the item. A sudden blast of light explodes from the back of the device lighting every crevice of the room, which now that it can see, is actually more of a cavern than a room. Large pointed rocks like sharp teeth hang overhead, and dark rocky tunnels spill out in front of it. It spins around to find a similar scene all around it. It is unsure of where to go from here. It tries to peer into one of the tunnels only to be met with a deafening screech, horrible and distorted as it echoes off of rock walls. Yannick bristles in fear and backs up quickly. The silence doesn’t last long as another scream echoes around it. This time it does not stop, and it’s getting closer by the moment. The creature quickly turns and runs the other way, picking a tunnel at random to enter. Light bounces off the rough sandstone, casting strange shadows as it runs. The screaming follows, becoming louder and more vicious as the seconds go on. Yannick is crying now, it’s not sure what to do other than run and cry. Dust falls from the ceiling, covering its hair and shoulders, mixing with blood and burnt skin.