Whispers in the Library
The old city library closed at midnight, but Nia stayed late shelving books. That night, she heard
faint whispers from the forgotten wing—words she couldn’t quite catch. Drawn to the sound, she
found a hidden staircase spiraling down into darkness. At the bottom was a room lit by candles and
filled with books that weren’t supposed to exist: journals of people who hadn’t been born yet,
histories of events that hadn’t happened. The library, she realized, was alive—its whispers were the
voices of stories waiting to be written. When she picked up a book with her name on it, blank pages
fluttered into life, revealing choices she had yet to make. Nia was tempted to read ahead, to know
her future, but the whispers warned her: reading would change everything. She left the book
unopened and instead chose to listen, becoming the library’s first guardian in centuries—a keeper
of unwritten stories.