As a stellar student, the library was where I would always be lurking in school, such that the librarian, despite being stricter than most teachers, had a hard time shooing me from the library so that she could close it on time.
One day after school, I was rushing to meet the deadline of a literature essay at the library. Pouring over mountains of reference materials, I lost track of time and accidentally fell asleep.
When I awoke with a piece of paper stuck to my cheek, darkness had settled over the library.
Bleary eyed, I groped at my books and the temperature seemed to drop as I started packing up. Suddenly, amidst the deafening silence, I heard a faint rustling of papers. The hairs on my hand stood erect as I turned to face the deserted aisle behind me. Instead of its usual allure, the magnificent chandelier that hung at the far end of the aisle now seemed like a sinister gallows with one of the light bulbs flickering like a dying flame.
A muffled ‘thump’ sent me jumping as I saw a book land on the carpeted floor, its edge peeking out from behind a bookshelf. Freezing fear coursed through my senses as I saw a slender figure pick up the fallen book and silently glide down the aisle away from me. As she passed beneath the chandelier, the light snuffed out and by the dim moonlight, I saw her turn at a corner.
Instinctively, I followed. Barely keeping the figure in sight, I flew past rows and rows of bookshelves, their shadows casting towers of darkness, and still, I plunged farther into the library.
Suddenly, I was lead into a sharp left turn and a gasp escaped me. I inched forward. A square-framed painting hung on the wall, the paint strokes depicting a more menacing version of the librarian, the scowl on her face deepened, the sockets of her eyes hollow, her hair unruly. Her mouth was a snarl that held the ghost of an eerie smile, making the painting shriek with turmoil, brutality and delirium. Never had I realised the existence of this artwork and the longer I stared, the more hauntingly real it seemed. The painting of the librarian stared back, her large frantic eyes sending a chill down my spine, and before I tore myself away from the bizarre art piece, I could swear I saw a twitch in her eyelid.
The next day, I entered the library once again and recounted my steps to the painting I had found. As I took the familiar left turn, I felt my legs quaver beneath me. Instead of a painting on the bare wall, there was instead, in its place, a square-framed window.
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